Rebecca (1940)
Hitchcock's first Hollywood film is also the first and eventually the only movie by him which won the best picture Oscar. It's a story about a woman who marries a widowed man only to end up living in the shadow of the dead wife. There's romance as always but this time with a psychological thriller and an intriguing mystery mixed to it. This diversity makes it quite a brilliant story with enough depth to really tickle your brain. The cast is quite superb with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, but the best part is by Judith Anderson as the creepy house maid. The movie looks stunning and people seem to miss one huge visual aspect of this movie witch should be given more credit. The movie uses deep focus photography quite brilliantly, something not common in movies before it and something that Citizen Kane (1941) is praised as the ”pioneer” of the style, even though Hitchcock used the same style a year earlier. This is a cinematic masterpiece and a must see for pretty much everyone. I just can't stop wondering how brilliant the movie turned out to be even though there were a lot of disagreements between Hitchcock and Selznick. For example the absolutely stunning ending of the movie would have been a lot different if Selznick would have had his way. But Hitchcock didn't want him re-cutting the movie so he edited the picture in camera, a method that didn't allow re-editing afterwards. I'm surely glad he did this as the movie is perfect the way it is.
96%
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
After their first project not ending the way Selznick wanted, even though the movie was a hit and ended up grabbing the Oscar, he rented Hitchcock out. Hitchcock went and did this movie about a reporter who tries to expose enemy agents in Europe. With the help of a young woman they go up against the spies. Hitchcock is doing what he does best. This movie has it all, there's action, thriller, mystery, adventure and of course romance with a war looming around the corner. Simply brilliant, not a boring moment in the film and as usual some of the scenes are just phenomenal. For example the plane scene near the end was just pure brilliance. The overly patriotic ending was a bit too cheesy, but then again that's what it was in most of the war time movies.
89%
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Hitchcock stayed rented out and being convinced by Carole Lombard took on this romantic comedy. Although he had done some in the past, it's definitely not his ”ballpark” so to say. Despite the name, this has nothing to do with the newer movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. This is a story about a husband and wife who find out that they are not legally married, this turns into a love triangle when the husband's colleague steps in to court the ”ex-”wife. Despite it not being very Hitchcockian story, he is quite at home with it. Pretty much all of his movies have comedy and romance in them and love triangles he did quite a few back in the 20's, so it's definitely not bad at all. Guess people dismiss this one as it isn't a thriller what they expect from Hitchcock, but it didn't bother me. The chemistry between Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery is quite great and the movie has a good vibe to it. Time hasn't been kind to the movie as many of the jokes don't really work today when marriage isn't such a huge thing anymore. Still it had enough to keep me entertained.
66%
Suspicion (1941)
After the brief visit to the romantic comedies, Hitchcock went back to thrillers. This movie uses one of Hitchcock's common themes, the suspicious wife. A woman marries a man but after the honeymoon finds out he isn't exactly what she expected. Soon she starts to suspect the man from a murder and fears for her own life as well. The start of the movie is quite common romance with a bit of drama in it too, but the towards the end the thriller bit kicks into gear. And during the end half this movie is at it's best. There are some quite brilliant Hitchcock moments like the milk glass scene and the car ride among others. I liked that Cary Grant gets to show a bit meaner side of himself in this one, even though his fans were quite outraged by the fact that their hero might be a murderer. Joan Fontaine does a solid job as well and even grabbed an Oscar for her performance. Knowing that Hitchcock wanted a different kind of ending, I have to disagree with him a bit, I think the ending is quite great as it is now. Not near the top of Hitchcock's movies, mostly because of the dull start, but still worth the watch. The DVD I have had a colored version of the movie as well, but I really have to say the black and white version is way better than the colored one. On the colored version the colors were all smeared up and the picture looked out of focus most of the time. On the black and white version there were no such problems.
72%
Saboteur (1942)
Hitchcock was supposed to do this one with Selznick, but Selznick sold the script and rented out Hitchcock to Universal once again. Again there's the theme of a wrongly accused man with a woman in the run with him who fall in love. An aircraft factory worker gets accused for sabotage on the factory, but as he knows who did it, he decides to flee and solve the mystery himself. He gets help from a blind man whose niece joins him on his quest as they end up getting involved with a big organization behind the sabotage. The cast is quite great, especially Otto Kruger as the farmer with connections to the organization and Vaughan Glaser as the blind man. The main characters Pricilla Lane and Robert Cummings are not bad at all either. You can even spot Robert Mitchum in there as well, though only briefly as an extra. This movie has one of my favourite Hitchcock moments when the factory gets burned, that smoke against the white wall is simply brilliant. The ending at the Statue of Liberty is quite magnificent also. Though it's of course overly patriotic, but as it's a war time movie what else would you expect. Even though there were many great things about this one, it's not exactly great. It's way too similar to The 39 Steps (1935) with it's themes, it even has similar scenes in it. So it has a bit of a recycled feel to it. But other than that this is still quite a solid witty thriller.
73%
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
As it was such a lucrative business for Selznick to rent out Hitchcock, he continued to do so. And who can blame him, easy money without any risks. Selznick got paid well no matter how the movie actually did in the box office. Though as most of the times the movies turned out to be hits, one can question was it smart thing to do or not. Anyway, Hitchcock has himself said that this is his favourite movie out of his filmography and it surely is a great one. It's a story about a family who gets a visit from the uncle of the children who no one has seen in a long time. The reunion is full of joy and basically dreams come true until the young woman of the family discovers quite a disturbing secret life of his uncle. The happy family movie turns into a very striking thriller. The cast is quite great with Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright as the main characters, but also the father, played by Henry Travers, and his friend, played by Hume Cronyn, are brilliant. Even though the movie is a bit dated at parts it still nails you to your seat and manages to even surprise you at times. That's a sure sign of a classic. Brilliant movie with quite a few Hitchcockian moments and the careless fun atmosphere is working like a charm before the thriller kicks in. The ring scene made my skin crawl.
91%
Lifeboat (1944)
A Hitchcockian thriller on a lifeboat, that's truly something special. Even though this has received some recognition lately, this is still by far Hitchock's most under rated movie and actually one of the most under rated movies of any director out there. This movie basically invented a genre of it's own and a style of film making that's copied in so many movies even today. Every disaster movie out there ows to this one. The movie starts out with a freighter being torpedoed during World War II. The German U-boat that torpedoed the freighter got hit also and sunk. A very diverse group of survivors from the freighter gather up in a lifeboat to try and sail for help or to the nearest shore. They pick up one more survivor who happens to be from the U-boat and happens to be the very man who sunk their ship. Needless to say that things get complicated, not only do they have to fight the German who's the only one who knows where to go, but they also have their own quarrels to make things even more complex. The cast is pretty much perfect and all do a stellar job. The story is intriguing and builds up nice suspense to keep you entertained. Surprisingly enough it's not overly patriotic, being a war time movie and having a theme that could exploit it quite easily. Sure it has many patriotic themes to it, but it handles most of them quite open mindedly. Really have to lift my hat to Hitchcock that he could build such a brilliant movie with nothing more than a group of people and a lifeboat. This movie is right at the top with the best of Hitchcock, a brilliant almost forgotten masterpiece.
100%
Spellbound (1945)
Hitchcock returned to work for Selznick on this thiller set in the world of psychoanalysis. It's a story about a young psychiatrist, played by Ingrid Bergman, in a mental institution who gets a new boss to run the institution. She starts to suspect that her boss, Dr. Edwardes, played by Gregory Peck, is not really who he claims to be, but manages to fall in love with him before that. Turns out Dr. Edwardes has actually gone missing and the man pretending to be him is accused for his murder. The woman runs out with the man and tries to figure out what has happened with psychoanalysis. The story is very intriguing, but it's a bit too much dated for modern audiences. There are still some very nice themes in it, but overall it stays a bit too superficial to be anything more interesting. The cast is great and there are tons of great Hitchcockian moments. Especially the gun scene at the end is pure brilliance. Salvador Dali was hired to make the dream sequence and it surely is quite disturbing like you'd expect. All in all this movie has many things right but the story is just a bit too dated to make it a great movie watched today.
70%
Notorious (1946)
Selznick needed money again and Hitchcock was rented out again. I bet this is one of the movies where he surely regret it later, even though he made a very sweet profit from it none the less. This is probably Hitchcock's most famous movie fromt he 40's and it surely is a great thriller with tons of classic movie moments. A woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friendly people in South America. She ends up falling in love with the man who asked her for the job and when she needs to marry a member of the Nazi party, things get complicated. The trio Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains is absolutely brilliant, but Leopoldine Konstantin steals the show as the mother of the Nazi friendly man Bergman's character has to marry. This movie probably has the most ”McGuffin's” in any Hitchcock movie. ”McGuffin” is an object that drives the plot and raises viewer tension and this movie has no shortage of those. A coffee mug, a wine bottle and probably the most famous key in the history of cinema. How such small objects can drive a plot and raise such emotions is just beyond me, simply a brilliant effort. A masterpiece in suspension building with that Hitchcock feel almost overflowing from it.
99%
The Paradine Case (1947)
Hitchcock's last movie for David O. Selznick turned out to be quite a mess. The movie went well over budget and schedule as Selznick insisted on expensive reshoots and rewrites. That resulted in a very uneven court house drama. Gregory Peck plays a lawyer who takes on a case of a woman who is accused of murdering her blind husband. There's drama, love triangle and a bit of mystery too, but it lacks the witty touch to it and there really is not much suspension in it, despite it being a thriller. The ending was quite striking, but getting there was surprisingly boring. The cast is quite brilliant and especially the actresses, Ann Todd, Ethel Barrymore and Alida Valli, all do a stellar job. Gregory Peck was a bit of a miss as the troubled lawyer though, but none the less manages to squeeze out a decent performance. The cast carries the movie when the story fails, but as the story is so weak there's not much they can do about it. In the end the movie is a bit too much on the boring side to keep the entertainment up. The movie flopped at the box office and ended Hitchcock's and Selznick's collaboration into one of Hitchcock's worst Hollywood films. They surely weren't friends, far from it, but still it's a shame as that duo did make some brilliant movies and this wasn't really the ending that era deserved. Then again one could easily say that the movies were brilliant just because of Hitchcock, but I believe Selznick had his say on them as well and that fight between them shaped the movies to what they are today.
42%
Rope (1948)
Hitchcock was finally free from his contract with Selznick and founded his own production company called Transatlantic Pictures with his long time friend Sidney Bernstein. This was their first production and Hitchcock without any limitations went a bit wild with it. It's Hitchcock's first color feature which produced quite a bit of problems by itself, for example it looks like the makeup artist had trouble doing the makeup for the men in color as they are quite powdery. But the color not the main technical advance this movie presents, most notably the movie is shot with seemingly one continuous take. Well actually in 10 minute segments as that was the length of the film reel, but he disguises most of the cuts quite cleverly. And when ever he really makes a notable cut, it is to underline the importance of the shot. That works quite brilliantly and knowing how gigantic the cameras were back then, that was surely a huge effort. So the Hitchcock trickery is well in hand on this one, but unfortunately the story is a bit off. It's just a bit too theatrical for a movie and not really subtle in the story telling. Kind of like everyone has to think out loud so that the audience knows what's going on. That unfortunately waters down the otherwise quite intriguing story. The story is about two men who murder their friend and host a party right after to their and the victim's friends, kind of to give them an alibi and to in a macabre way celebrate the perfect crime. Things of course don't go as planned and Hitchcock gets tons of suspense to play with. The cast is fairly good, though they all do a fair bit of over acting, probably because of the theatrical nature of the story. This was the first Hitchcock movie with James Stewart, who I think is the best of the male actors in Hitchcock's movies and they ended up doing 4 movies together, but more about that later. Unfortunately the movie was a bit too experimental and the audience didn't take it too well. Also it didn't help that the movie was banned in several US cities due to the themes of homosexuality and thus failed to do well on the box office. But watching this now you just have to give some credit for the strong themes it has and the absolutely brilliant way it's made.
85%
Under Capricorn (1949)
Hitchcock himself said that he made this film only for Ingrid Bergman. It's certainly an oddity in Hitchcock's filmography, being a costume drama with some suspense elements. It's again a love triangle, this time set in the 1830's Australia. The story and the setting are quite good and promises a lot more than the movie in the end delivers. Again Hitchcock uses long takes, but this time they really don't work as well. They kind of slow down the already very slow paced movie even more and somewhat water down the suspense of it. The movie looks great, the settings and the lighting are quite brilliant, but that really doesn't save it from getting boring. Really don't know why the French appreciate this movie so much and it's often considered there as one of Hitchcock's best. I've seen this twice now and still can't see the brilliance of it. As a curiosity it's worth watching as it's not really a Hitchcockian Hitchcock film, but I doubt anyone else but die hard fans of Hitchcock can get anything interesting enough out of it. The movie failed at the box office and things didn't look good for Transatlantic Pictures when the 40's came to an end after two financial failures.
55%
That's it for the 40's. My favourite Hitchcock decade, the 50's is next, so brace yourself for some top scores. As always don't hold your breath over it, it will come eventually.
Links to the other decades:
1920's - 1930's - 1940's - 1950's - 1960's - 1970's
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