The filmography of Alfred Hitchcock - Part 5: the 1960's

After the 50's Hitchcock was about as big as a director can be. He could have easily just sit back and slap his name on what ever garbage possible and made tons of money by doing so. But he wasn't about to do that, he wanted to challenge the audience and himself. In the eyes of business that may have not been a good idea, but in the eyes of the art that was brilliant. Even though his career started to fade during the 60's, it wasn't before he would take on the horror genre and give it not just one but two unforgettable masterpieces. And the rest of his 60's movies are not bad at all either. The old age and the troubles he had with some projects that were scrapped after long pre-production (for example Kaleidoscope Frenzy) slowed his pace down. As he averaged a movie a year before, with sometimes even two, he slowed down to just 5 movies in the 60's.



Psycho (1960)

So while Hitchcock left the 50's with a bang, a plethora of brilliant movies and after two straight out masterpieces, surely there has to be one setback, right? Hell no, the 60's started right from where he left the 50's. He took the horror genre turned it upside down and gave it a jump start it'll never forget. Can't really say anything about this that hasn't been said already a million times. It has one of the most famous scenes in the movie history, one of the most famous theme songs in the movie history and one of the most famous character in the movie history. And still today it wipes the floor with most of the modern horror movies. Simply a brilliant masterpiece.
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The Birds (1963)

Ok, after three masterpieces in a row he took a second shot at the horror genre, surely he didn't have anything more to give to it after the brilliant Psycho? Oh yes he had. He took one of the most common pieces of nature and turned it into one of the scariest "monsters" in the movie history. I think not many people are scared of birds, but after watching this one who can honestly say they didn't watch the trees, rooftops and light poles to see where the birds are lurking? I did for sure. The effects of the movie have stood time surprisingly well and some of the scenes are still stunning even with today's standards. You could, and I think someone already did, write a whole book about how to build tension like in The Birds. A stunning masterpiece.
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Marnie (1964)

This movie was considered as the turning point of Hitchcock's career and it's kind of true. It was the end of the collaboration with composer Bernard Herrmann, it also ended the collaboration with Tippi Hedren and screenwriter Evan Hunter. So some of the strong forces from his previous movies ended up leaving before or after this movie. And surely he never could return to the brilliance that he had during the 50's or even 40's, but this is in no means a bad movie. The movie flopped horribly when it was released, though later on it has received the recognition it really deserves. It's a slow paced and surprisingly complex psychological thriller. Something that didn't really appeal to the audiences back then. To put the story in short it's about a woman, Tippi Hedren, who is a compulsionary thief with fobias that haunt her. A man, Sean Connery, falls in love with her and tries to ”cure” her in his own manner. There's a whole lot more to it than just that, but that's it in short. Hitchcock had never liked to shoot on location, he always preferred the studio. He said it gives so much more control and comfort to shoot in a studio, so every chance he had he tried to set up as many scenes in a studio as possible so he could leave the out doors shots to the second unit. It shows in his movies, but mostly for the good by creating this somewhat surreal feel to them. But on this one I noticed it to be kind of weird, especially in the set that is the outside street of Marnie's mother's house. It's clearly built on the set and there's a huge matte painting with a harbour in the background. And I really wondered why. There's not much happening in there, it's used I think four times in the movie only for people going from a car to the house or from the house to a car. Well guess there was no shortage of money and he had his reasons. Also I was quite surprised that the horse chace scenes were shot against a projection with the horse running on a giant treadmill inside a studio. Crazy, but I didn't notice that so it works brilliantly. Anyway this movie is still a very good psychological thriller with tons of great Hitchcockian moments. Sure time hasn't been kind to it at parts and it is a bit too slow paced, but still it worked surprisingly well and managed to be even shocking at parts.
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Torn Curtain (1966)

After Hitchcock's last movie was a box office failure and his next project was scrapped in pre-production, the studio held him on a short leash. The idea behind this movie was actually quite great. With the cold war looming a romantic spy thriller set in East-Germany by the Master of Suspense sounded like the perfect thing. Unfortunately that's when the studio saw dollar signs and speeded on with the production in their terms, not Hitchcock's. He didn't want Julie Andrews or Paul Newman in the movie but was forced to cast them by the studio. That resulted into another problem, as Julie Andrews was the biggest thing at the time right off from The Sound of Music (1965), her schedule forced the movie into production before the script was even finished. So Hitchcock started making a movie without a finished script and with a cast he didn't want. Needless to say this was one of Hitchcock's most unhappy directing jobs. But the studio interference didn't stop there, they wanted a different composer despite Hitchcock already had working with another composer. They also cut out a key scene that had a brilliant Hitchcock moment written all over it, but as that scene doesn't excist anymore we'll never know. So the movie ended up the way it is now. It's a very uneven spy thriller with some nice Hitchcockian moments, but the mood is missing. There's no chemistry between Newman and Andrews and to be honest Julie Andrews is basically just posing through the film without any attempt of acting. Only Hitchcock fans will get something more out of this as for the rest it's just a meaningles spy thriller that at parts gets a bit boring.
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Topaz (1969)

Hitchcock himself considered this movie as a test project and it really is quite different from his previous works. Even though it's a spy thriller, it doesn't have many of the elements common in Hitchcock's movies, like romance and comedy. It's one of those cold reality films and to be honest that's not Hitchcock's strongest point. This is a spy drama set in the cold war era, there's the Cuban missile crisis, French-Russian spy ring, KGB defector and a French intelligence agent caught in between it all. It has no big name stars, another test by Hitchcock to see how a big movie would work without any big stars in it. He thought the audience would be more driven into the story of the film as the big stars tend to distract the viewer from it. I kind of agree with that, but don't think that's a big problem. One thing this movie showed, you can't get big box office success without big stars in a movie like this. This movie ended up being one of the biggest box office failures in Hitchcock's career. Another test he made was to support the moods with colors, red is dangerous and so on. He himself admitted that it turned out to be a failure. So even though this is an experimental project and even Hitchcock himself thought it failed, it's not a bad movie. You just can't watch it as a Hitchcock movie, with the expectations that the name sets you. If you see it as a cold war spy drama without any names, it works very well as it is. But once you start to compare it to Hitchcock's other works, it falls way behind.
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Links to the other decades:
1920's - 1930's - 1940's - 1950's - 1960's - 1970's