Word: hitchcock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...explains. "When I get mixed up with Nunnally Johnson or Herman Mankiewicz or Ben Hecht, I am struck dumb. I feel more comfortable in front of a camera." Actually, the very sound brain in his head doesn't run either to wit or to highbrow intellectual discussion. Alfred Hitchcock has said of him that he is probably the most anecdoteless man in Hollywood; it does not come natural to him either to tell anecdotes or to inspire them. David Selznick has called Peck the best-informed actor in Hollywood, which is probably an exaggeration. Selznick may have meant...
This tale is put on film with the high polish, the intelligence, and the mastery of tension that are to be expected of Director Alfred Hitchcock. But Robert Hichens' basic story is so intricate in plot and pattern-there are four interlocking triangles, and hints of two more-that only an inspired talent for drama and for characterization could have saved it from obvious artificiality. No such talent is in evidence; nor has Producer David O. Selznick improved matters in his screen play. The only characters who come sharply to life are the barrister's wife (Ann Todd...
...expects, in a Hitchcock movie, a few moments as shockingly vivid as a fire alarm. There are no such moments here. There are many clever little shots-in-the-arm that are unrelated to the story. Innumerable tricks of lighting and mood are moderately effective but irrelevant...
...figure who is at fault, or why, in the case of the much heralded Italian newcomer, Valli. Her beauty, or better-than-beauty, has an almost reptilian fascination; she is, indeed, the most fatale-looking femme since Garbo. But it remains an open question whether she can act. Hitchcock, keeping her nearly motionless, plies her with one slow, cold, lambent close-up after another. Some of these close-ups function forcefully in the storytelling; but too many are as nonfunctional as her frequent changes of hairdo. It looks as if Hitchcock, one of the smartest directors of women...
...LIVING NOVEL (256 pp.)-V. S. Pritchett-Reynal & Hitchcock...