Word: hitchcocked
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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11:15 p.m.). Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock's chiller starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly...
...surprising that a first film should be influenced, and Hunter (who knows his Hitchcock and Welles very well) has had the wit to pick good models. I wonder, though, whether his larger view of human relationships and actions hasn't been over-determined by the number of movies he's seen. Is it intentional that the triangle of Cliffie, hero, and ellusive temptress so closely parallels the triangle in Vertigo? I suppose it is, but I can't help preferring the Hunter who very logically (and rather sweetly) sets the recently de-zombied roommate to opening a pile of mail...
...years ago, after the House crew had won an initial victory at Henley, the oarsmen received a telegram from the Master: "Hurra for brilliant prothetic start." Like a gracious Alfred Hitchcock, Finley plays a cameo role in every House Christmas' production. He always concludes the evening's festivities with a ritualistic invocation: Floreat domus de Eliot...
...theme of photography as an escape from reality is not a new one. In Hitchcock's Rear Window, the crippled photographer (James Stewart) uses his telephoto lenses to spy on his neigbors. He becomes involved with their problems in order to avoid coping with his own fear of life and an impending marital commitment. Through an ultimately therapeutic encounter with violent evil, Stewart can finally understand and solve his problems...
...Like Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, Antonioni feels that violence is an integral part of contemporary society and cannot be ignored. His photographer, like Hitchcock's, is brought back to reality by means of melodrama: waiting for the owner of a junk shop he wants to buy, the photographer wanders through a nearby park. Ignoring a bizarre fat lady that 99 out of 100 photographers would have snapped without thinking twice, he photographs pigeons instead, then two lovers kissing. The girl sees him and pleads with him to give her the roll of film. Unsuccessful, she follows him to his studio...