UCSB’s Arts and Lectures Summer Film Series brought us Alfred Hitchcock Nights: Eight Classic Films of Obsession, Mystery and Suspense. The films are shown on Wednesday nights on campus and on Friday nights at the Country Courthouse sunken garden.
I was familiar with a couple of the movies that were to be shown but not all, so I was excited to have the opportunity to see them as a weekly event.
I had seen both Vertigo and Rear Window before, Rear Window being a favorite and even being one of my first blog posts early last year. After seeing them, back to back, I noticed that both stories begin with the lead male (Jimmy Stewart in both movies) having a physical or emotional injury which in the end prevents them from being able to save the leading lady (a gorgeous Kim Novak and spectacular Grace Kelly.)
I had to miss North by Northwest since I was out of town. I have to admit, I’ve never seen this.
Psycho has been overplayed on TV but the good thing about seeing it in the theater was that I could see it from beginning to end rather than stumbling upon it half way through the story. The movie is known for the famous shower scene but there were an additional 100+ minutes to the movie that were quite good.
Shadow of a Doubt was the first new movie for me in the line up. Suspenseful and creepy. Do we really know our relatives?
Notorious, well it was just a vehicle for us to openly gape at Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. I think George Clooney has similar carriage and screen presence as Cary Grant. My BFF found the premise of Notorious as misogynistic. I love a good WWII romance movie, even if it is filled with spying, poisoning and suspense.
The Birds was singly the most frightening of them all. I wonder if this was the first slasher flick ever. I had tried twice in my life to watch this movie, changing the channel when I couldn’t handle the scenes. I was nervous about being in a public venue and watching the movie with no way to change the channel. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t be that bad. OMG. I had to close my eyes during the bird attacks but I still heard the awful sounds. It was traumatizing. Hitchcock succeeded in making me feel what the actors portrayed. Daughter went to the movie with me so on the way home, I asked her what she thought and she replied “well, that was terrifying.” We discussed it a bit and then I was quiet. I made a flutter noise and we burst out laughing. The flutter noise was what lured Tippi Hedren upstairs during one of those classic slasher movie scenes where the character says “what’s that strange noise? You stay here while I investigate” and then the character gets killed. We decided if there was a strange noise, staying put was the best course of action.
Strangers on a Train was a cautionary tale about talking with strangers. This was a stalker story filled with creepiness. The merry-go-round collapse was a spectacle.
Here is something I noticed in most of these movies and have no idea what to make of it: the driver of a car gets in or out of the car by sliding across the seat thereby entering or exiting via the passenger door. Most of these movies show this behavior. I understand that cars in the 40’s-60’s had a bench seat rather than bucket seats but was it really something that a driver did: sliding across the seat rather than using the driver-side door? I asked DH about this since he might have had some experience with this but he said he didn’t remember this happening in real life. That was a curious detail I found in Hitchcock movies.
I watched the Arts and Lectures Summer Series Monster Movies in 2010, had to miss the Musical series because of a knee injury in 2011, and enjoyed the Sci-fi series in 2012. I thoroughly embraced this year’s film series and wonder what they will serve up next year.