by virphen wrote:hadespussercats wrote:virphen wrote:I've watched both Notorious and Spellbound inside the last week or two. I don't think Notorious won even out of those two the plot was just so ridiculously outlandish, and that's in comparison to a film superficially based on Freudian psychoanalysis. Superb in lots of ways, but they date, oh do they date.
Spellbound-- is that the Gregory Peck one with the skiing and the Dali dream sequences? You thought that was better than Notorious! ?
No accounting for taste, I guess.
I like Hitchcock's taste in leading men.
I was saying that the plot and actions in Notorious were just so absurd that they made the plot of Spellbound look sensible in comparison. And the plot of Spellbound is laughable. Notorious has a group of spies so inept that they need to break in to the bad guys place by having her steal the cellar key of her husband's key ring in the middle of a party where he is guaranteed to need new booze, and having one escape this murderous bastard by snogging his wife right in front of him? And they can't find a bloody uranium mine by any other method than sending in a totally untrained and inexperienced women in for a honey trap? Nor much room left for suspension of disbelief after all that, I'm afraid.
They also compete very well on the silliness of the sexism which makes both now sometimes laughably quaint. "A woman in love is operating at the lowest intellectual plane" vs a plot which is essentially "send in the harlot!".
Listen, you can't worry about sexism if you're going to enjoy a Hitchcock movie-- if you judged him only by his films, you'd have to deduce the man had a serious madonna-whore complex.
Who cares? They're great films. Well. Some of them. Spellbound, not so much. And while I really like Vertigo, I'm a little amazed I'm the only one in the thread who busts out laughing at the psychedelic flying Jimmy Stewart head (which is almost like the freaky music video in Big Lebowski-- only there I'm certain the Coen Bros. were going for funny.)
But Notorious? Don't talk to be about wild leaps of plot-- look at the style! Look at the chemistry. Look at the beautiful leads, doing some of the best acting in any Hitchcock film.
Was the crop-duster in North by Northwest a ridiculous plot element? Yes. But it was fabulous.
Just as fabulous, though far more subtle? Cary Grant tying a silk scarf around a hungover Ingrid Bergman's exposed midriff-- smooth, with a hint of violence, and a sardonic wink about her catching a chill.
I buy their chemistry together. Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart? Not so much.
The Muppet 
