Bornieo: Fully Loaded
08-08-2007, 05:18 PM
Wholly COW!!
HITCHCOCK: PART II
August 16 – 25 at the Aero Theatre
Thursday, August 16 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
FRENZY, 1972, Universal, 116 min.
THE WRONG MAN, 1956, Warner Bros., 105 min. .
Friday, August 17 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
New 35 mm print! ROPE, 1948, Universal, 80 min. This startling Alfred Hitchcock film was doubly daring for 1948: first, it risked depicting the Leopold & Loeb-like tale of homosexual lovers committing murder solely for the thrill. If that wasn't enough, it told the tale in a series of long, ten minute takes, unlike anything any director had previously attempted. Having passed over the heads of most audiences when originally released, the film is a revelation by today's standards. With James Stewart, Farley Granger, John Dall.
LIFEBOAT, 1944, 20th Century Fox, 96 min. The third of Alfred Hitchcock's great wartime thrillers (following FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and SABOTEUR) finds the director working on a limited physical canvas (the action is confined to the title vessel) but a vastly complex ethical one. Eight survivors of a German bombing are stranded in a lifeboat, where they pick up a ninth passenger—a stranded Nazi. What follows is a riveting drama in which audience identification subtly shifts from one character to another, thanks to the flawless script by John Steinbeck and Jo Swerling as well as Glen MacWilliams' Oscar-nominated cinematography. MacWilliams' naturalistic but expressive lighting emphasizes the dual natures of the characters, and a stellar ensemble cast led by Tallulah Bankhead and John Hodiak forces the viewer to question the validity of the moral choices at every turn.
Saturday, August 18 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1956, Universal, 120 min. Alfred Hitchcock remakes his own entertaining but lightweight 1934 thriller as a melancholy examination of the pleasures and nightmares of family life: when husband and wife James Stewart and Doris Day's son is kidnapped while on vacation, the couple's long-simmering resentments threaten to get in the way of their attempts to rescue him. Although the film is rightly celebrated for setpieces like the famous Albert Hall assassination sequence, the depth of Hitchcock's vision is more effectively felt in the film's quieter moments: the scene in which Stewart tells Day their son has been kidnapped is one of the most powerful in all of Hitchcock's cinema.
DIAL M FOR MURDER, 1954, Warner Bros., 105 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Suave, cold-blooded Ray Milland plots to murder his beautiful wife, Grace Kelly, and leaves the key to their apartment outside for his hired killer (Anthony Dawson) But killer, Dawson, has a bit of trouble with a pair of scissors -- to put it mildly -- and a new Pandora's box of complications opens up. Unfortunately, scheming Milland may still be able to pull off his plan - that is, unless Kelly's old-flame, Robert Cummings and unflappable Scotland Yard inspector, John Williams can determine what really happened that fateful night. Maestro Hitchock masterfully adapts Frederick Knott's famous, hit stage-play to the big screen (it was originally presented in 3-D).
Sunday, August 19 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
SUSPICION, 1941, Warner Bros., 99 min. Hitchcock's technique takes a huge leap forward with this extremely unsettling piece of "escapist" entertainment. Young wife Joan Fontaine suspects that her husband Cary Grant is trying to kill her, and the question of whether she's prescient or paranoid dominates the film. Throughout the movie Hitchcock toys with our assumptions, a conceit that works thanks to Grant's astonishing performance (one of the best of his career). Without resorting to gimmicks or dishonesty, Grant convincingly plays the husband in a manner that makes both his guilt and his innocence equally valid possibilities, and Hitchcock adds to the overall sense of menace with subtle visual devices (he rarely shows Grant actually walking into a shot, for example -- the character always seems to magically appear like a ghost). The studio-imposed finale has divided Hitchcock fans on SUSPICION's merits, but Grant's consummate professionalism allows Hitch to pull off the last-minute reversal.
SABOTEUR, 1942, Universal, 108 min. Alfred Hitchcock transfers the successful formula of his British films to Hollywood by telling yet another story of a falsely accused man on the run: this time it's Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, an aircraft worker who is blamed for an explosion at his factory. As Kane hunts down the real saboteurs, Hitchcock uses his familiar chase structure to justify slyly satirical musings on patriotism and its flipside, paranoia—ideas which culminate in the wonderful climax set on top of the Statue of Liberty. Norman Lloyd co-stars as one of the most wickedly engaging villains in the Hitchcock oeuvre.
Wednesday, August 22 – 7:30 PM
Kevin Thomas' Favorites:
70 mm. print!! VERTIGO, 1958, Universal, 128 min. With its stunning visuals and gripping characters, Alfred Hitchcock's psychological suspense masterpiece continues to entrance audiences. Showcasing Kim Novak in the startling dual role of Madeleine and Judy, VERTIGO finds suspended San Francisco detective "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) becoming obsessed with Madeleine Elster (Novak), a troubled woman he is privately hired to follow. Tragedy ensues, and when Ferguson later stumbles upon Judy Barton (also played by Novak), a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Madeleine, his obsession spirals out of control. Discussion following with film critic Kevin Thomas.
Thursday, August 23 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
THE 39 STEPS, 1935, MGM Repertory, 86 min.
THE LADY VANISHES, 1938, MGM Repertory, 97 min.
Friday, August 24 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
PSYCHO, 1960, Universal, 109 min. Coming off the comparatively big budget NORTH BY NORTHWEST, director Alfred Hitchcock decided he wanted to make a nice little, low budget B&W film for a change of pace. This was the result, and the shock waves are still reverberating. Lovely embezzler Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) takes refuge from a rainstorm off the beaten track on a lonely California highway. Unfortunately, she checks in at the Bates Motel, presided over by young Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a strange fellow living with his mother in a nearby mansion. Hitchcock used the small crew from his popular TV show for this hair-raising example of California Gothic, and it remains one of the most influential chillers ever made. With Vera Miles and John Gavin.
SPELLBOUND, 1945, Walt Disney Co., 111 min. When bespectacled psychiatrist Ingrid Bergman discovers Gregory Peck is not the famous visiting shrink, Dr. Edwardes, but a traumatized amnesiac, she suddenly realizes she's in love with him. But is Peck a victim of circumstance or the missing doctor's killer? Director Alfred Hitchcock tackles Freudian territory as well as repressed memories (ably abetted by surrealist, Salvador Dali, who designed the startling dream sequence) and seamlessly blends the elements into a romantic and suspenseful spellbinder.
Saturday, August 25 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
REAR WINDOW, 1954, Universal, 112 min. "See It! - If your nerves can stand it after PSYCHO!" That was the tagline for the 1962 re-release of one of director Alfred Hitchcock's most rigorously structured thrillers. Adapted from a short story by noir master Cornell Woolrich, REAR WINDOW stars James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries, an ace photographer bound to a wheelchair after breaking his leg on assignment. Despite receiving visits from his high-fashion sweetheart, Lisa (Grace Kelly), Jeffries is bored and soon resorts to spying on his tenement neighbors through a telephoto lens. Suddenly, he has cause to regret his indiscretion -- it seems the ailing wife of a traveling salesman neighbor (superb heavy Raymond Burr) has taken an abrupt trip. Or has she? "The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times.
THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, 1955, Universal, 99 min. One of Hitchcock's most underrated films is also one of his most profoundly romantic. This story of an idyllic community's attempt to dispose of an inconvenient corpse offers plenty of opportunities for macabre humor, which Hitch supplies in mass quantities. Yet he also uses the love story between Shirley MacLaine and idealistic painter John Forsythe to optimistically celebrate the transformative powers of both art and romance. It's a whimsical, hilarious film filled with good cheer—the perfect complement to the trio of darker masterpieces (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE WRONG MAN, and VERTIGO) that followed it.
HITCHCOCK: PART II
August 16 – 25 at the Aero Theatre
Thursday, August 16 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
FRENZY, 1972, Universal, 116 min.
THE WRONG MAN, 1956, Warner Bros., 105 min. .
Friday, August 17 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
New 35 mm print! ROPE, 1948, Universal, 80 min. This startling Alfred Hitchcock film was doubly daring for 1948: first, it risked depicting the Leopold & Loeb-like tale of homosexual lovers committing murder solely for the thrill. If that wasn't enough, it told the tale in a series of long, ten minute takes, unlike anything any director had previously attempted. Having passed over the heads of most audiences when originally released, the film is a revelation by today's standards. With James Stewart, Farley Granger, John Dall.
LIFEBOAT, 1944, 20th Century Fox, 96 min. The third of Alfred Hitchcock's great wartime thrillers (following FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and SABOTEUR) finds the director working on a limited physical canvas (the action is confined to the title vessel) but a vastly complex ethical one. Eight survivors of a German bombing are stranded in a lifeboat, where they pick up a ninth passenger—a stranded Nazi. What follows is a riveting drama in which audience identification subtly shifts from one character to another, thanks to the flawless script by John Steinbeck and Jo Swerling as well as Glen MacWilliams' Oscar-nominated cinematography. MacWilliams' naturalistic but expressive lighting emphasizes the dual natures of the characters, and a stellar ensemble cast led by Tallulah Bankhead and John Hodiak forces the viewer to question the validity of the moral choices at every turn.
Saturday, August 18 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1956, Universal, 120 min. Alfred Hitchcock remakes his own entertaining but lightweight 1934 thriller as a melancholy examination of the pleasures and nightmares of family life: when husband and wife James Stewart and Doris Day's son is kidnapped while on vacation, the couple's long-simmering resentments threaten to get in the way of their attempts to rescue him. Although the film is rightly celebrated for setpieces like the famous Albert Hall assassination sequence, the depth of Hitchcock's vision is more effectively felt in the film's quieter moments: the scene in which Stewart tells Day their son has been kidnapped is one of the most powerful in all of Hitchcock's cinema.
DIAL M FOR MURDER, 1954, Warner Bros., 105 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Suave, cold-blooded Ray Milland plots to murder his beautiful wife, Grace Kelly, and leaves the key to their apartment outside for his hired killer (Anthony Dawson) But killer, Dawson, has a bit of trouble with a pair of scissors -- to put it mildly -- and a new Pandora's box of complications opens up. Unfortunately, scheming Milland may still be able to pull off his plan - that is, unless Kelly's old-flame, Robert Cummings and unflappable Scotland Yard inspector, John Williams can determine what really happened that fateful night. Maestro Hitchock masterfully adapts Frederick Knott's famous, hit stage-play to the big screen (it was originally presented in 3-D).
Sunday, August 19 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
SUSPICION, 1941, Warner Bros., 99 min. Hitchcock's technique takes a huge leap forward with this extremely unsettling piece of "escapist" entertainment. Young wife Joan Fontaine suspects that her husband Cary Grant is trying to kill her, and the question of whether she's prescient or paranoid dominates the film. Throughout the movie Hitchcock toys with our assumptions, a conceit that works thanks to Grant's astonishing performance (one of the best of his career). Without resorting to gimmicks or dishonesty, Grant convincingly plays the husband in a manner that makes both his guilt and his innocence equally valid possibilities, and Hitchcock adds to the overall sense of menace with subtle visual devices (he rarely shows Grant actually walking into a shot, for example -- the character always seems to magically appear like a ghost). The studio-imposed finale has divided Hitchcock fans on SUSPICION's merits, but Grant's consummate professionalism allows Hitch to pull off the last-minute reversal.
SABOTEUR, 1942, Universal, 108 min. Alfred Hitchcock transfers the successful formula of his British films to Hollywood by telling yet another story of a falsely accused man on the run: this time it's Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, an aircraft worker who is blamed for an explosion at his factory. As Kane hunts down the real saboteurs, Hitchcock uses his familiar chase structure to justify slyly satirical musings on patriotism and its flipside, paranoia—ideas which culminate in the wonderful climax set on top of the Statue of Liberty. Norman Lloyd co-stars as one of the most wickedly engaging villains in the Hitchcock oeuvre.
Wednesday, August 22 – 7:30 PM
Kevin Thomas' Favorites:
70 mm. print!! VERTIGO, 1958, Universal, 128 min. With its stunning visuals and gripping characters, Alfred Hitchcock's psychological suspense masterpiece continues to entrance audiences. Showcasing Kim Novak in the startling dual role of Madeleine and Judy, VERTIGO finds suspended San Francisco detective "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) becoming obsessed with Madeleine Elster (Novak), a troubled woman he is privately hired to follow. Tragedy ensues, and when Ferguson later stumbles upon Judy Barton (also played by Novak), a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Madeleine, his obsession spirals out of control. Discussion following with film critic Kevin Thomas.
Thursday, August 23 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
THE 39 STEPS, 1935, MGM Repertory, 86 min.
THE LADY VANISHES, 1938, MGM Repertory, 97 min.
Friday, August 24 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
PSYCHO, 1960, Universal, 109 min. Coming off the comparatively big budget NORTH BY NORTHWEST, director Alfred Hitchcock decided he wanted to make a nice little, low budget B&W film for a change of pace. This was the result, and the shock waves are still reverberating. Lovely embezzler Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) takes refuge from a rainstorm off the beaten track on a lonely California highway. Unfortunately, she checks in at the Bates Motel, presided over by young Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a strange fellow living with his mother in a nearby mansion. Hitchcock used the small crew from his popular TV show for this hair-raising example of California Gothic, and it remains one of the most influential chillers ever made. With Vera Miles and John Gavin.
SPELLBOUND, 1945, Walt Disney Co., 111 min. When bespectacled psychiatrist Ingrid Bergman discovers Gregory Peck is not the famous visiting shrink, Dr. Edwardes, but a traumatized amnesiac, she suddenly realizes she's in love with him. But is Peck a victim of circumstance or the missing doctor's killer? Director Alfred Hitchcock tackles Freudian territory as well as repressed memories (ably abetted by surrealist, Salvador Dali, who designed the startling dream sequence) and seamlessly blends the elements into a romantic and suspenseful spellbinder.
Saturday, August 25 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
REAR WINDOW, 1954, Universal, 112 min. "See It! - If your nerves can stand it after PSYCHO!" That was the tagline for the 1962 re-release of one of director Alfred Hitchcock's most rigorously structured thrillers. Adapted from a short story by noir master Cornell Woolrich, REAR WINDOW stars James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries, an ace photographer bound to a wheelchair after breaking his leg on assignment. Despite receiving visits from his high-fashion sweetheart, Lisa (Grace Kelly), Jeffries is bored and soon resorts to spying on his tenement neighbors through a telephoto lens. Suddenly, he has cause to regret his indiscretion -- it seems the ailing wife of a traveling salesman neighbor (superb heavy Raymond Burr) has taken an abrupt trip. Or has she? "The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times.
THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, 1955, Universal, 99 min. One of Hitchcock's most underrated films is also one of his most profoundly romantic. This story of an idyllic community's attempt to dispose of an inconvenient corpse offers plenty of opportunities for macabre humor, which Hitch supplies in mass quantities. Yet he also uses the love story between Shirley MacLaine and idealistic painter John Forsythe to optimistically celebrate the transformative powers of both art and romance. It's a whimsical, hilarious film filled with good cheer—the perfect complement to the trio of darker masterpieces (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE WRONG MAN, and VERTIGO) that followed it.