A Look at Alfred Hitchcock's Films in the 40's by Cole

Hitchcock's Films in the 40’s

Saboteur

★★★

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Year: 1942

Cast: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger

Genre: Action/Thriller

MPAA Rating: PG

        In 1942, Alfred Hitchcock (“The Master of Suspense”) arguably filmed his first masterpiece, Saboteur, taking place for a large part of the film, and for an iconic scene on the top of the Statue of Liberty, in New York City. It’s not Hitchcock’s best work, clearly, but it is very serviceable, and highly enjoyable, thanks in part to a great ensemble of supporting characters that provided the movie’s brightest spots of humor and dialogue.

        A man is framed for sabotage on an American military base, and before long, he is being chased by the police, all the while trying to figure out who actually did it. When he gets mixed up with a group of refugees, things start to get more intense and frightening. Hitchcock has shown us that he can devise a good plot line, cast well, and create the right situations, but like other of his works, this feels incredibly protracted in the second hour of its running time. It turns from a cunning, impossibly inevitable situation to a game of cat-and-mouse, and then ends unsettlingly abruptly. Nonetheless, it’s definitely watchable, especially when you consider its great scenery and sense of humor.

Shadow of A Doubt

★★

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Year: 1943

Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey

Genre: Thriller

MPAA Rating: Approved

        What did I miss here? That was my question after viewing Hitchcock’s “personal favorite” of all his films. I didn’t miss the acting, which was the movies greatest asset. But really, I was taken aback by the impressively large amount of time it took to unravel the extremely minimalistic plot line. Shadow of A Doubt is about a young girl (15, I think) who believes that her family is very bland and methodical. So when her super-cool Uncle Charlie shows up, she’s overjoyed, until she begins to expect that he might be a murderer thanks to newspaper clippings, the local police’s suspicions, and her own logic. Sounds pretty good, right? Maybe you’ll like it, if you can stay awake. Between unbelievable characters and countless wasted time, I missed why this should be considered a “masterpiece”. 

Rope

★★★

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Year: 1948

Cast: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller

MPAA Rating: Approved

        When Alfred Hitchcock filmed Rope, he only did nine takes, and the film had a total of two cuts. The whole thing takes place in one room (aside from the opening credits) as it was based on a play. Alfred Hitchcock, along with a vast majority of viewers, considered Rope a failed experiment. In my mind, it’s as far from that as it could be; it’s a major discovery. Rope is the story of two homosexual (on that note, I found out that it was banned in several American cities because of that immaterial detail) prep-school young men who commit murder on their fellow pal because of inspiration from their former teacher who had a theory/concept that murder could be artistic if done right. For being filmed in 1948, this movie is so far ahead of its time that you may think that Hitchcock had his own little time travel device to travel forth in time to interrogate modern-day psychopaths. And when you watch this movie, you realize that a lot of the character’s basic mindsets aren’t so extraneous, which seems to be a problem with some movies filmed 50-70 years ago. I earlier mentioned that this film is a discovery; and no, I didn’t mean because it’s so old. I meant it’s a discovery that movies don’t require staggering visual effects or inessential crude humor to be enjoyable. It can be entirely dialogue driven, shot in one room, and be 65 years old to be great. That’s exactly what Rope is.

-All Reviews Written by Cole Pollyea