They are Farley Granger, Jimmy Stewart, and John Dall (left to right), the stars of the film. The film opens with a man being strangled to death in a living room. It's shot in close up, so it's hard to tell exactly what is happening at first. When the camera zooms out, we learn that the murderers are Brandon (Dall) and Philip (Granger), and that the victim is David, a former classmate of theirs whom they view as inferior and therefore unworthy of living any longer. The job done, they hide the body inside a chest until they can dispose of it. First, though, they are throwing a dinner party ostensibly to celebrate Philip being recognized for his piano playing. Really, it's part of their "perfect murder." Brandon and Philip are so confident that they will get away with the crime that they planned to throw this party immediately following the murder, with the body right under their guests' noses. Their guests include David's father, aunt, and fiancé, another friend from school, and their former professor, Rupert Cadell (Stewart). To top it off, they decide to serve dinner from the chest in which they have hidden the body.
Philip soon begins to feel guilty about the murder, causing him to act strangely during the party. Brandon's confidence never wavers. In fact, he gets bolder as the night wears on, even going so far as to discuss the philosophy that inspired the murder with his guests. It's a twisted version of a philosophy they learned from Cadell back in school which has gave Brandon a God complex that he took too far. Philip's odd behavior combined with Brandon's brazenness make Rupert begin to suspect something amiss. By the end of the party, he has figured them out.
I love everything about this movie. I've seen it twice, and I could probably watch it a hundred more times and be just as entertained as the first time. It seems to me like kind of movie that will always have some surprise for me, something new to discover, even if I can quote every line of it along with the actors. The cast is fantastic. I talked in my last post about how good Jimmy Stewart is, and this is another example of that. Dall and Granger are great too. Dall does an expert job of playing opposites in his character; the nonchalant, pleasant host with a subtle crazy peeking out from just below the surface. As a person with some acting training, I know how difficult that can be to pull off, and how important it is to find those opposites. Granger does a good job of being quietly terrified and conflicted between wanting to blurt out a confession and not wanting to be caught and sent to prison.
The editing is brilliant. Hitchcock shot the entire movie as one long take. No cuts, except where he had to replace his film. A film reel back then could shoot for about 12-15 minutes before it got full and had to be changed out. Even those necessary cuts are edited so seamlessly, they go unnoticed when watching the film. For me, it helped build the tension in the film because it places the viewer in the room with the characters, seeing what they see, when they see it. That tension takes hold from the very beginning and doesn't let up, making it fun and fascinating to watch.
Side note: I'd love to get a hold of the play it's based on. How much fun would that be?
Next up was The Birds (1963). Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a young socialite, is shopping in a pet store when Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) happens to come in looking for a lovebird to give his younger sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) for her birthday. She doesn't know him, but he recognizes her from the papers, and decides to play a little joke on her. This catches her attention, so she purchases a lovebird and takes it to Mitch. He isn't home when she comes by, and she learns from a neighbor that he has gone to spend the weekend at his mother's (Jessica Tandy) house in Bodega Bay, about an hour north of where she lives in San Francisco. She decides to take the bird up to Bodega Bay and leave it at Mitch's mother's house. When he catches her there, says she has come to visit her friend, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), whom she has actually just met. When Melanie decides to stay the night in Bodega Bay, she rents a room from Annie, and the two do actually become friends.
It has all the makings of a romantic comedy, until the birds of Bodega Bay suddenly begin to attack the people. It begins with a gull flying down and pecking at Melanie's head while she is driving a boat across the bay after leaving her lovebird at Mitch's mother's house. The residents of Bodega Bay regard the attack as an isolated incident. But then, it happens again. And again. Each attack is more violent than the last. Several birds attack at once. Eventually, people are hurt, even killed, by the bird attacks.
I like this movie a lot too. I always have a lot of fun watching it. The characters are likable, and played well by the actors. Jessica Tandy does a particularly good job in her role as Mitch's mother, just over bearing enough to be right at home in a Hitchcock movie, but more subtle about it than other Hitchcock mothers, and still a loving mother to her children.
Alfred Hitchcock explained the difference between surprise and suspense with "the bomb example." To paraphrase: if two people are having a perfectly normal conversation in a scene and a bomb suddenly goes off, that's surprise. But if two people are having a perfectly normal conversation in between cuts of the bomb under the table and a clock showing how much longer they have until the bomb goes off, that's suspense. Hitchcock puts this theory to use a great deal in his films (he wasn't called "The Master of Suspense for nothing), and there is an excellent example of it in the birds. During one of the more violent bird attacks, some gasoline is spilled. Melanie watches from across the street as the spilled gasoline flows toward a car and a man lights a cigarette, igniting the gasoline. We don't just suddenly see a fire. We see Melanie looking at something, fear-stricken. Then we see the gasoline making it's way across the street. Then we see a shot of the birds. Back to the gas. Back to Melanie. The gas again. Melanie again. The gas again. Melanie. The man pulling his cigarette and matches from his pocket. Melanie. The strike of the match. Fire. And that's suspense. It's just a matter of time before that fire starts. We can see it coming. It's how that time is filled that makes it interesting. And it's things like that that make Hitchcock's movies so entertaining. The bird sound effects are great too. They're really loud and screechy; it sounds like real birds, just exaggerated a bit. That cacophony of screeches adds to the chaotic feel of the bird attacks. Plus, it adds surprise when a bird's screeching interrupts a quiet scene.
Another thing I like about it is that Hitchcock doesn't leave the audience with a sense of relief at the end, even after Melanie, Mitch, his mother, and Cathy manage to escape from the island. After they drive away, the camera pans back to the island behind them, which is covered with birds. They sit on every available surface, still, as if they are watching the car driving away, waiting for their moment to attack. And then it's over. So, as much as you might want to believe they got away, you can't really be sure.
Watch out. They're coming for you.
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