4K UHD Blu-ray Review: The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection - Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), & The Birds (1963)

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Introduction:

In this dazzling new collection from Universal Studios, four of director Alfred Hitchcock's most famous films – including Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds – have been newly restored and transferred to 4K ultra high definition Blu-ray. Gathered together in one collection, although I just intended to spot check the transfers of a few of the films that I know particularly well, these 4K releases are so pristine that each title seduced me entirely, regardless of how many times I've seen the movies over the years.

Loaded with extra footage, including making-of-featurettes, analytical documentaries, interviews, an alternate ending to The Birds, and the original Hitchcock approved theatrical cut of Psycho (which had been unavailable on home entertainment in the past), this highly recommended box set serves up each film on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and offers a 4K digital code for the titles as well.

When I first received the set, I initially planned to give you a nice short overview of the transfer and bonus features of each movie but I was soon surprised to find myself so invigorated by these films I know so well that I decided to take a closer look at all four works in chronological order. In doing so, I hope to dissect not only what this new 4K box set release is like but also what it is that I find so very compelling about what we see, hear, and are meant to understand in each one of Hitchcock's movies.

Warning: This article contains gentle spoilers. Really, though, can you blame me? Reading about Hitchcock's movies is easily the most fun (and the most valuable) after you know just what the hell is going on. 

Rear Window (1954)

“If you don't pull me out of this swamp of boredom, I'm gonna do something drastic!” At the same time that James Stewart's L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries delivers this ultimatum to his boss by phone in Rear Window, we see through our wounded photojournalist's eyes for the first time the neighbor living in the Greenwich Village apartment building across the courtyard from Jeff who will manage to do both. Played with subtle menace by Raymond Burr, Lars Thorwald quickly becomes the new focus of Jeff's voyeuristic obsession in Rear Window. 

A creature of habit whose eyes earn him not only a living but also fuel him creatively, intellectually, and body and soul, after six weeks of being sidelined with a broken leg, the wheelchair-bound man has started to go a little stir crazy. Watching his neighbors like they're his new favorite soap opera, Jeff becomes fascinated by the comings-and-goings of those whom he and his dutiful nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) nickname Miss Torso and Miss Lonelyhearts. But none of the residents capture his imagination quite as much as Lars Thorwald, who Jeff fears might have killed his wife.

While, much like Melanie Daniels in The Birds or Gavin Elster in Vertigo, no one believes Jeff at first – which is a recurring theme throughout Hitchcock's filmography – soon even his regal, high society girlfriend Lisa (played by the luminous Grace Kelly) must admit that Thorwald's behavior is so suspiciously puzzling that Jeff might be onto something after all.

Once again working with his frequent 1950s collaborator in the form of screenwriter John Michael Hayes (who also wrote To Catch a Thief, The Trouble With Harry, and Hitch's remake of his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much), Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the filmmaker's most timelessly crowd-pleasing and accessible thrillers. Adapted from the 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder,” by Cornell Woolrich, the cleverly quippy, acerbic, and suspenseful script, which earned Hayes an Edgar Award and an Oscar nomination, might just be the best one that Hitchcock ever committed to the screen.

Riveting on multiple levels, because of the very overt way that Hitchcock weaves in voyeurism and scopophilia (which makes it the perfect film to pair with the director's masterpiece Vertigo, also starring Jimmy Stewart), it's arguably one of his most personal pictures due to its both celebration and criticism of a man who – much like Hitchcock and the audience – likes to watch.

Describing the film as a parable, in his 1954 review of Rear Window, critic turned director François Truffaut (who would later conduct in-depth interviews with Hitchcock, which were published in a masterful film reference book) argued that Rear Window was about cinema itself. For example, "the courtyard is the world, the reporter/photographer is the filmmaker, [and] the binoculars stand for the camera and its lenses,” he elegantly surmised in his piece and it's an intriguing assessment of Window's components overall.

Additionally of interest to me given the disability narrative at play throughout, since Jeff is forced to use a wheelchair and feels cut off from the world because of this, his desire to join the others and throw himself in the middle of dangerous, or exciting situations manifests itself in a myriad of ways. From gazing out the window with just his eyes to graduating to binoculars and then moving onto a telephoto lens, the temporarily disabled Jeff tries to get closer and closer to the action with each act of the movie. This openly phallic symbolism (which suggests that he feels impotent) becomes even more curious on repeat viewings. Moreover, we begin to see how bold the film is in its decision to let the women be the ones who actively help solve the Lars Thorwald mystery by throwing themselves into the middle of dicey situations in ways that Jeff – who is left only with his eyes – cannot.

Easily my favorite Grace Kelly performance in a Hitchcock film, followed by the underrated Dial “M” for Murder, and the lovely, lightly entertaining if, especially by comparison to Window, slight To Catch a Thief, even though she's nearly upstaged by her jaw-droppingly gorgeous costumes by Edith Head, Kelly exudes a delightful sense of mischief in Rear Window that's a joy to behold. 

And, fittingly for Hitch, it's only when her character Lisa puts her life on the line – to such an extent that all Stewart can do is helplessly watch – that Jeff becomes the most attracted to her sexually. Less interested in the regal beauty when she's six feet away from him than he is when she's sixty-five feet away and suddenly (slightly) less attainable, this spark of mortal danger lights a fire in their relationship like nothing else. 

Astonishingly, Kelly is even more ethereal in this 4K restoration than I've ever seen her before. The new edition improves each character's skin color and texture and boosts the soundscape to such an extent that we truly feel like we can hear those voices drifting across the courtyard to us in the richly textured DTS sound as though we're sitting in that wheelchair along with our audience surrogate, Jeff. 

Arriving with a plethora of bonus material you can pore over after you finish the film, Rear Window also works as a great gateway movie to new and young film fans looking to discover the work and range of the Master of Suspense. 

Vertigo (1958)

In my eyes, Alfred Hitchcock's most challenging and ambitious film (and also his best), Vertigo takes the voyeuristic behavior of James Stewart's male protagonist several steps further than the wheelchair sleuth he played in Rear Window to paint one of the most disturbing portraits of compulsive scopophilia ever committed to the screen.

Forced into retirement from the San Francisco Police Department when a rooftop chase leaves one officer dead and Stewart's veteran detective John “Scottie” Ferguson frozen with fear, although he's able to get rid of his cane and corset shortly into the movie, vertigo is one disability that might just be permanent.

Asked to do a favor for an old college acquaintance (Tom Helmore) who fears that his young wife (Kim Novak) has become suddenly possessed by a long-dead spirit as she disappears for hours at a time and can't remember where she's gone, Scottie begins to follow the beguiling beauty around the streets, shops, cemeteries, and landmark sites of San Francisco.

Growing increasingly infatuated with Novak's Madeleine Elster with each successive stop, although he's given permission to look this time in Vertigo as opposed to just spying on his neighbors on his own accord in Rear Window, there's something much more disturbing and primal about his desires in this one, which we begin to suspect even before the film enters its sinister second half. 

Drinking her in while committing to memory where every pin in her hair goes or how she sits on a pillow on the floor after he fishes her out of the San Francisco Bay (and undresses her offscreen at his home while he waits for her clothes to dry), while it's clear that Scottie is falling in love with his friend's wife, Hitchcock tries to play off any alarm we might feel in a variety of ways.

Still nursing quite the unrequited crush on her old college fiancé, Scottie's long-suffering best friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) becomes something of a red herring in Vertigo. She mercilessly teases Scottie about his obvious attraction to Madeleine and acts out in her frustration by painting a truly creepy portrait of herself in one scene and in another, follows her following friend around herself. Additionally shirking some of the responsibility for Scottie's behavior off on this idea of supernatural possession, it's only after Vertigo switches gears yet again and shows us the aftermath of the first half's twist that we realize that what Scottie has been feeling all along goes far beyond simple love.

Intriguingly, the film is said to be the favorite work in Hitchcock's filmography of the largest number of directors, including Vertigo obsessives Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese. When you analyze what the film does, in leading us – like Scottie in his first day of following Madeleine through the streets of San Francisco – around the corner of so many half mysteries before it goes down an altogether different avenue moments later, their affection for the film on a structural level makes complete sense. But when you start to break it down from a psychosexual standpoint, there's much more there to dissect. From the way that Vertigo, like Stewart's Scottie, not only derives pleasure out of watching (which in itself is just like our relationship to film) but also wants to control or “direct” Madeleine's double Judy (also played by Novak) to look and act a certain way in the film's last act, Vertigo is about the role of a filmmaker above all.

One of the eeriest portraits of single-minded male obsession that I've ever seen, Vertigo is fascinating in the way that Judy is forced to submit to the whims of an aggressively dominant man who essentially breaks her down to get the performance he wants, much like Hitchcock did with Novak on the set. Whether you're watching the movie through a psychological, sex and gender, or purely filmic lens, there's so much in Vertigo to discuss that it's no wonder that, despite opening to mixed reviews in 1958, it's only grown in critical esteem over the years.

I will, of course, freely admit that Vertigo (which was adapted from Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's novel D'Entre Les Morts by screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor), undeniably plays the best the first time you watch it from a plot perspective alone. Similarly, much like other Hitchcock endeavors, it's a film that inspires a fast rewatch to take a closer look at the things you missed the first time around, now that you know how it all turns out.

Yet, everything else about Vertigo, from the subtleties in the performances (just look at what Bel Geddes can do with an eyebrow raise), to the long takes and dizzyingly vertiginous cinematography, to Bernard Herrmann's sweepingly romantic score, to everything going on just below the surface make it one movie that you can't help but want to revisit again and again.

While Vertigo has been restored and remastered multiple times over the years – and it's the Hitch film I've seen the most times in my life – once again, I became easily entranced by Hitch's masterpiece when I put the disc in to, as I'd intended, simply spot check the new 4K transfer.

Watching it through from start to finish one more time, I couldn't help but notice that this format boosts the clarity of each image like never before, which ensures a better match between shots that were filmed in the studio and those captured on the streets of San Francisco. Rendering the contrast between the formerly high polish interiors and airy, slightly blown out exteriors so that there's less of a jolt between the different textures, this effect is especially apparent in the sequence where Novak and Stewart wander around the woods of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which used to look ever so slightly dated in previous versions but absolutely shines in the new 4K release.

Filling the disc with some of my favorite previously available bonus features, including lengthy behind-the-scenes featurettes and mini-documentaries where everyone from those who worked on the film to others (including some of our greatest directors) share their passion for Vertigo, there's much to obsess over in this one.

Psycho (1960)

The crowning achievement of master composer Bernard Herrmann's career, although most people immediately conjure up the way that he uses the sounds of the instruments in his orchestra as weapons slicing through Janet Leigh's flesh in Psycho's notorious shower scene, the DTS soundtrack of the new 4K transfer has you looking over your shoulder as soon as the movie starts.

Assaulting your senses with fast-paced credits and music that pours out of every speaker in the most startling of ways, as brilliant as Hitchcock's horrific Psycho is as arguably the first mainstream slasher movie ever made, it would be nowhere near as effective without Bernard Herrmann's score. After all, sound is – as Francis Ford Coppola once famously said – at least half the picture. 

Shooting the film quickly, in black-and-white, and on the cheap with his own production company and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” TV unit at Universal after Paramount rejected his pitch to bring Robert Bloch's 1959 novel – inspired by the shocking case of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein – to the screen, Psycho is Hitchcock's greatest experimental effort.

Bloch's eponymous novel was adapted by relative newcomer Joseph Stefano, who word is was actually in therapy due to issues surrounding his own relationship with his mother when he penned the screenplay, which would go on to win him an Edgar Award.

A film so dependent upon surprises that not only did Hitchcock order that no fans be admitted into the theater after the movie started, he's also said to have asked his assistant to purchase any and all copies of the novel that she could find to keep prospective viewers in the dark.

Beginning like a seedy noir, then flirting with an old-fashioned detective story angle before it moves straight into horror, Psycho is revolutionary in the way that it shifts our sympathies to the man who will be revealed as the murderer (Anthony Perkins) fairly early into the movie, once it kills off its protagonist played by Janet Leigh. Never letting our minds wander or our attention waver, while this is easily the most harrowing comeuppance for one of Hitchcock's famous cool blondes – as Phoenix real estate secretary Leigh makes the reckless decision to embezzle forty thousand dollars from a lascivious, self-satisfied rich man and goes on the run – it also gives us one of the most disturbing misogynists in Hitch's entire filmography. 

Although Joseph Cotten's deceptively charming Uncle Charlie hated women with a gleeful passion in the brilliant, often overlooked masterpiece Shadow of a Doubt and you see various levels of Hitch's own sexual frustration with women throughout his filmography (see especially Vertigo and Marnie), it's presented to the most alarming degree in Psycho. Punishing women who dare turn him on, whether they're aware of this or – as is in the case of Leigh who is observed through a peephole – are not, the meek Perkins is so stunted in his sexual development that he's scapegoated and cast everything off on his “mother” once he dispatches the women who invade his thoughts.

“I don't hate her,” Norman Bates (Perkins) tells the sympathetic Marion Crane (Leigh) about his mother in their longest scene together, before he clarifies, “I hate what she's become.” As it turns out, what she becomes is him. And it's only after we know this that we realize how cleverly Bloch, Stefano, Perkins, and Hitchcock made us hate “her” before we understand that we too are guilty of a little internal misogyny in being so quick to blame this woman – who, by all accounts, might have been a piece of work as well – for all of Norman's problems.

Easily Hitchcock's most famous film, Psycho spawned a controversial shot-by-shot color remake from Gus Van Sant, along with numerous sequels, and TV spinoffs, including the critically acclaimed prequel Bates Motel). Sixty years after its release, Psycho still plays like gangbusters no matter how many times you've seen it but this latest 4K release is especially noteworthy.

Going back to restore the vintage frames and elements in Hitchcock's preferred original theatrical cut of the film, which was unveiled to audiences in 1960, as opposed to only giving us the version of the film that was most widely available on TV, VHS, and DVD over the past thirty years, this edition gives fans their choice of which cut they prefer to watch.

The main difference between the two versions is that the newer cut removed some of the film's more erotically charged moments to slightly sanitize it for everyday audiences watching today, which is kind of amazing when you consider the fact that it was even more sexually disturbing back in 1960. Yet either way that you watch Psycho, it will undoubtedly inspire goosebumps, sustained as much by the performances and what Hitchcock chooses to reveal when with clever camera angles as it is driven by Herrmann's nerve-shatteringly evocative score.


The Birds (1963)

Most likely owing to a childhood fear of wrongful persecution that developed after his father reportedly had him locked in a jail cell overnight when he was a young boy, almost as ubiquitous as the wrong man motif used throughout his filmography is the recurring Hitchcockian theme of nobody believing his protagonist when trouble arises.

From assuming that Iris Henderson is lying about the vanished Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes to L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries trying to get his friend at the NYPD to investigate his suspected murderer neighbor Lars Thorwald in Rear Window, Hitchcock movies are full of characters who could've prevented harm, if only someone had taken their dubious yet credible warnings more seriously. Sure enough, these instances are most memorable when coupled with a protagonist's innocence of a crime in Hitch's popular wrong man movies like North By Northwest. But beyond the two films that I cited earlier, one of my favorite examples of this intriguing dilemma is in The Birds, which uses internal misogyny and a woman's reputation against her to such an extent that otherwise intelligent characters refuse to believe their own eyes because it matches this "undesirable" woman's warnings that something very wrong is happening in the sky.

Of particular interest to viewers watching today in a post Me Too society where predominantly women (but also some men) still struggle to be believed when they recount the shocking actions that they've endured to bring their truth to light, The Birds stars then-newcomer Tippi Hendren as the mischievous daughter of a wealthy newspaper owner. Known for playing practical jokes, some of which have resulted in legal action, Tippi Hendren's heroine Melanie Daniels is a classic “woman with a past.”

Attracting the attention of a lawyer (Rod Taylor) who'd seen her in a recent court appearance, shortly into the movie, Melanie drives out to Bodega Bay, California to deliver two lovebirds to the eleven-year-old sister (Veronica Cartwright) of Taylor's Mitch Brenner, with whom she meets cute in a pet shop early on in the film.

Seeing the two size each other up in the store amid the backdrop of swarms of birds kept enclosed in cages, we can't help but wonder if the birds who will soon treat Melanie – and indeed everyone else – like prey are getting revenge on us for daring to try to corral and control them. And although we see and/or hear birds whenever Hedren is onscreen, Hitchcock waits an extended amount of time to deliver the first attack when – after she's delivered her small birdcage to Mitch's home – she rows back across Bodega Bay and a seagull swoops down to swipe her forehead, almost accidentally.

“That's the damndest thing I ever saw,” Mitch observes as he helps her out of the boat and brings her to a local cafe to clean the cut. But even though the birds draw first blood in Hitch's film, that action won't be their last by a long-shot as birds of all feathers begin to flock together and hunt down Bodega Bay residents in packs.

Trying to warn everyone – including her newspaperman father – to take her seriously after the next big assault, every woman watching can recognize the frustration in Melanie as we listen to her explain that no, she is not hysterical and is in fact telling the God's honest truth. Suddenly the object of ignorant suspicion by townspeople who start wondering if they're in the midst of a plague and if she – perhaps the embodiment of evil – has somehow brought this to them all, watching average citizens shamefully begin to embrace a ridiculous conspiracy theory makes The Birds especially timely in this era of 2020, COVID, and Trump.

Hitchcock's first film after Psycho, The Birds works exceptionally well as a double feature with its predecessor, given the way it seems to weirdly foreshadow the terror to come in the eerie sequence with Norman Bates where he discusses his love of not only taxidermy but especially of stuffing birds, whom he describes as passive creatures, while also likening them to his “harmless” mother.

Loosely based on Rebecca author Daphne du Maurier's titular 1952 short story, which was adapted for the screen by “Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine” contributor and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” television writer Evan Hunter (who would go on to publish mystery novels under the name Ed McBain), The Birds was Hitchcock's first and only “creature feature.”

A monster movie Hitchcock style, and one that was made largely with real live birds as well as over two hundred thousand dollars worth of mechanical ones which were created specifically for the movie, the film was so intricate from a technical perspective that it required various departments to complete their work at other studios, including Fox, Disney, and MGM. Made without a conventional score, although he used source music occasionally throughout, the film's soundtrack mainly consists of the sounds of birds chirping, hooting, and flapping their wings as they soar through the air looking for their next victim.

And when you factor in the hell and injuries that Hitchcock allegedly put Hedren through on the set after she spurned his lustful advances (in an account that was released after the filmmaker's death and also backed up by her co-star Rod Taylor) as well as its horrific attack sequences, The Birds remains just as disturbing as ever. Cleaning up some of the dated effects evident in the old home video editions of The Birds, this flawless restoration and transfer to 4K makes the film look light-years better than I'd ever seen it before, particularly during the agonizing sequence where Melanie runs with the schoolkids away from both a murder of crows and murderous blackbirds, who've begun to flock together.

Taking horror in a different direction after he broke a new mold in Psycho, The Birds afforded the man – who famously said he hated actors – the ultimate opportunity to work with as few of them as possible to create one of his most uniquely suspenseful works, where one town refuses to listen to a woman they're prejudiced against . . . until its too late.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: Rachel and the Stranger (1948)

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Long before he looked at a woman's changing role in society after the advent of the sexual revolution and the Vietnam war found Jane Fonda's housewife in Coming Home questioning just which of two very different men she should be with, screenwriter Waldo Salt crafted another love triangle film that broke new ground in its no-nonsense depiction of a woman's role in society in the old west.

Adapted from the short story "Rachel" by Howard Fast, 1948's hit Rachel and the Stranger was one of the few westerns to take an honest look at the treatment of women who were bought and sold into indentured servitude.

A rough around the edges western with a sweet, slow burn love story at its center, the film from veteran RKO house director Norman Foster stars William Holden as Big Davey Harvey, a farmer in the market for a new wife and mother for his wild son (Gary Gray) after he loses his beloved bride to fever at age twenty-eight. Purchasing a new bride from the parson (played by Tom Tully), Big Davey is content to treat the "kinda thin but not bad lookin'" twenty-five year old Rachel (Loretta Young) like just a "bondwoman" but the parson tells him it wouldn't be proper for her to live with him unwed so Davey marries her out of Christian duty.

Uninterested in any kind of relationship because as far as he's concerned, he already had and lost the great love of his life, it's only when his friend Jim (Robert Mitchum) arrives, eyes the beautiful new woman, and offers to take her away that Davey gives her a second look and must figure out where he stands before it's too late.

Efficiently directed by Foster, whose background helming everything from Charlie Chan to Mr. Moto movies for RKO serves him well here as the love story moves into exciting western action territory in its final act, this fine character piece is elevated by the charisma of its leads, especially Young who imbues Rachel with an intelligence and mischief sorely needed by the otherwise straightforward plotline.

Given a few tongue-in-cheek lines which, for a majority of the film had been reserved for either Gray or Mitchum, Young has a terrific, still relatable moment when, after Mitchum asks her if she can play the spinet piano and Holden answers for her in the negative, she ignores it and admits she can. Startled by the discovery, Holden asks her why she never told him that before and she says simply, "you never asked," in a line read sure to hit home with women everywhere.

Lighting up in her eyes at Mitchum as he chides her with the inquiry, "is Big Dave the all-devastative and devoted husband he makes himself out to be?" Young's spark of interest lights a fire in the film, which, after struggling to absorb Holden's rudeness to his new wife, gets noticeably lighter whenever Mitchum enters the frame. And although he is a very supporting player in Rachel and the Stranger, his presence helps the work pick up the pace again after it threatened to go a little stagnant, thus ensuring Rachel never loses its way.

Working considerably well with the director, Loretta Young — who some believe started her famous swear jar for blasphemous curses on the set of this one for Holden and Mitchum — reteamed with Norman Foster a few years later on her TV series The Loretta Young Show, where he helmed twenty-nine episodes.

Rushed to theaters by RKO in order to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Robert Mitchum's marijuana drug bust and short jail sentence, much like 1948's other Mitchum starrer Blood on the Moon, Rachel and the Stranger turned a tidy profit for the studio.

A very welcome new take on the old west which dares not to sanitize the fact that women were bought and sold into slavery, although it's turned into a love story in Rachel, you have to give Salt, Fast, RKO, Foster, and Young credit for daring to explore this terrain in the first place. Given a marvelous transfer to Warner Archive Blu-ray, along with the unusually noirish western Blood on the Moon, which suggests that Mitchum was drawn to intriguing projects at the height of his fame, if you're looking for something that expands the western myth beyond riding and roping cowboys to include more of the female gender, this is one Stranger you'll be glad you brought home.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: It Started With a Kiss (1959)

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When Maggie Putnam (Debbie Reynolds) volunteered to sell raffle tickets at a charity ball, she had every intention of winning a date with a handsome, eligible millionaire attendee. Instead, she won an Air Force staff sergeant and a car.

Meeting and marrying the persistent Joe Fitzpatrick (Glenn Ford) in a 48 hour whirlwind after he rips the back of her dress and the two reenact the famous scene from Bringing Up Baby where Cary Grant marches behind Katharine Hepburn in unison to cover the missing fabric, Joe and Maggie's courtship might not be the most romantic but there's a fiery heat between the pair. It was so sizzling in fact, that Joe and Maggie's romance in director George Marshall's 1959 sex comedy It Started with a Kiss extended beyond the screen for Ford and Reynolds.

Getting a taste of life as a military wife when she joins Joe in Spain, even though the money minded social climber is crazy about her husband, she begins to fear that the only thing they have in common is lust. You can't say she didn't warn him, however, as on their very first date, Maggie told Joe, "you can trust things, not people," before adding, "love is no reason to get married."

Trying to reassure her that she didn't make a mistake, Joe reluctantly gives in to his bride's proposal that the two embark on a sex free one month honeymoon in order to see if there's more between the two than what's between the sheets.

"You mustn't make love to me. If you do," Maggie warns her husband, "I'll leave."

"Oh, this is murder!" the sexually frustrated Joe exclaims from the couch. "I won't bother you. I may cry a little during the night but I won't bother you."

Responsible for the Air Force's increased water bill, Joe takes one cold shower after another to keep his libido at bay. Unintentionally breaking the major general's orders not to show any vulgar displays of wealth that could fit the European stereotype of a boorish rich American, once the car he won trying to secure a date with Maggie arrives, Joe finds himself in hot water as well.

Also drawing the ire of a congressional committee investigating wasteful spending in the military, Maggie and Joe hit the road for awhile. Taking in the beautiful sights of Spain, they make the acquaintance of a macho, celebrated bullfighter Antonio Soriano (Gustavo Rojo) and a sultry marquesa (Eva Gabor) who in turn, set their sights on them.

Treated like one of Soriano's bulls that needs to be tamed — if not by the Air Force or a bullfighter, then by her husband — the sexist characterization and arc of Reynolds' Maggie has aged the otherwise escapist comedy quite poorly when viewed with modern eyes.

Acting like a bullfighter in pursuit of his future bride, when he first meets Maggie, Joe corners her in her ticket booth before he grabs her by the arm — causing her to rip her dress — then follows her back to her workplace with the torn fabric but refuses to give it to her until she agrees to go out with him.

While, of course, this is played simply for laughs, regardless of the year, this aggressive "meet cute" is anything but. Radiating chemistry, however, despite the fact that they simply smolder on celluloid, you find yourself agreeing with Maggie that there might not be much else holding this pair together besides sex.

Painted with a one-dimensional brush as the latest in a long line of 1950s How to Marry a Millionaire style husband hunters, it's a good thing that Maggie is vibrantly brought to life by Debbie Reynolds because our superficial lead needs her warmth, humor, heart, and empathy to make us care.

Made shortly after the divorce of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher — who left his wife for his subsequent bride Elizabeth Taylor — and at the same time that Glenn Ford's marriage to Eleanor Powell fell apart, the film's two stars bonded quickly on and off the screen, which eventually inspired Ford to propose to his leading lady for real. Understandably marriage shy, although the shoot for It Started With a Kiss and their next 1959 film together for George Marshall (The Gazebo) occurred at a rough time in their lives, Reynolds turned down his proposal because it was just too soon but the two remained friends for life.

The genuine tenderness the pair shares elevates the film at its weakest moments and helps keep viewers involved. Kiss became a huge box office hit for MGM, undoubtedly spurred on by all of the romantic "scandals" of the day, which soon enveloped Eva Gabor in the headlines when she found herself embroiled in a scandal by association as well.

While there isn't all that much to recommend this vapid time waster —save for perhaps interest in it as a fascinating time capsule of evolving sexual mores due to its frankness — the stars make the picture sing even when it shouldn't. Given a gorgeous transfer to Blu-ray by the fine folks at the Warner Archive Collection, seeing the film in 1080p makes the beautiful setting of Spain even more dazzling by default. A must for Batman purists and academics, the bright red, forty-thousand dollar, one-of-a-kind concept car in Kiss — a 1955 Lincoln Futura — was later repainted and customized by George Barris to serve as Adam West's Batmobile for the 1966 series and film.

Though not nearly as winning as other Debbie Reynolds pictures of the era, including her '59 reunion with Ford and Marshall in the superlative Hitchcockian Gazebo, fans eager to see the lovable star's take on a '50s sex comedy will feel like they hold the winning raffle ticket when they watch her shimmer (and shiver) with Ford in HD.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: Penelope (1966)

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A daffy cutie with any number of disguises at her disposal, at the start of director Arthur Hiller's underrated 1966 film, Penelope Elcott (Natalie Wood) poses as an elderly woman to rob her husband's bank before she switches wigs and clothes once again and makes her getaway.

Visiting her longtime shrink Dr. Gregory Mannix (Dick Shawn), shortly thereafter, she recounts every mundane detail of her day before startling him completely with, "I stuck up my husband's bank." He doesn't believe her, of course — few men do throughout the film — but Penelope sets him straight when she retrieves $60,000 from her purse.

Turning him into an accomplice of sorts, Gregory asks her to chart her history as thief, which begins with a disturbing flashback where her professor (Jonathan Winters) chases her around the classroom in an attempted rape that's played for laughs. Stripped down to her underwear, when she makes her escape, Penelope discovers that she's accidentally come away with his watch fob. Listening intently, the shrink tells our feisty protagonist that she's the opposite of a klepto.

Robbing others thereafter as sport, she steals not because it's a compulsion but because she enjoys it. Using theft as her means of exacting feminine justice, Penelope dishes it out whenever she feels like she's been taken either advantage of or for granted. From the horny matron of honor who tried to seduce her husband on their wedding day to another woman who comes onto him in a swimming pool, Penelope steals something from each of the offenders, feels better after the surge of endorphins, and moves on.

Based upon the novel by Howard Fast, which was published under the pseudonym of E.V. Cunningham, Penelope was adapted for the screen by George Wells. After years of writing musicals for MGM producer Joe Pasternak (who also produced Penelope), Wells had been given more opportunities to branch out, showing what he could really do with smart, sophisticated, and subversive material like Party Girl, The Gazebo, and Where the Boys Are. And while Hiller's Penelope never fully comes together overall, the script by Wells is an absolute high point. It's so inspired that I began imagining how it could be tweaked here and there to be remade today, as this fine, flawed, forgotten feature deserves a second look.

Filled with irresistibly quotable one liners like "you should've known me in the days before you knew me," that Wood lets roll off her tongue with easy wit, the veteran performer is so brightly effervescent in Penelope that one imagines she could've saved the film's producers a fortune in lighting costs.

Unfortunately, this was not so. Described by the actress as one of the most difficult professional experiences of her life — as she was going through a lot of personal turmoil and became so stressed she broke out in hives — it's both sad and a credit to just how gifted Natalie Wood is that we don't see a trace of this pain in her performance throughout.

Harshly judged by critics upon its initial release, while some lashed out at Wood's perceived lack of comedic timing and skill, others, like Variety, focused instead on her contribution to the film as "a nice clothes-horse for Miss [Edith] Head's glamorous fashions." And while it's true that the star looks amazing in the designer's $250,000 wardrobe, even without all of the excess, she's an absolute delight.

Elevated by Dick Shawn, who has far better chemistry with the actress than the actor playing her husband in the form of Ian Bannen, Wood is especially charming whenever she shares a scene with instantly likable, (then) up-and-comer Peter Falk. With a crooked smile and an ever-present twinkle in his eye, Falk's turn in Penelope as an amused New York detective trying to solve the bank job serves as a great warm-up to his iconic role as Columbo, whom he played just one year later in a TV movie before the series premiered in 1971. No stranger to playing cops and heavies in smaller parts, by 1966, Falk was moving up.

First crossing paths with the actor when Wood shows up to watch a reel of robbery footage and her image overlaps with her disguised as the thief onscreen, the two have an unexpected rapport that's quite fun to watch. They liven up the proceedings once again later on when Falk spends the day with the beauty he unabashedly flirts with as he teaches her how to blow bubbles with her chewing gum.

Tonally all over the place, composer John Williams does the best he can to weave everything together with his breezy, infectious score. And while the film's plot arc concerning Penelope's past as well as the robbery's aftermath is in desperate need of sharpening — since the running gag that nobody believes her goes on too long in the final act — Hiller's film is still much more entertaining than its awful reputation would lead you to believe.

Given a shiny new Blu-ray transfer from Warner Archive that sparkles with as much brilliance as an emerald necklace swiped by Penelope as payback, the film, which has been given new life thanks to TCM, looks better than I've ever seen it before.

Though it uses the original vintage art from the film's release, which enlisted Wood's sexuality to sell tickets, the disc's cover calls attention to the fact that her early near nude scene opposite the lascivious Winters in Penelope is fraught with danger, not fun.

Still, it's easily forgotten when we watch Wood, disguised as a redhead, hop into a cab after the film's opening robbery sequence. Donning the second wig that we're seen thus far, she drops her head below frame, abandons the red, and flips back up to reveal the brunette chameleon underneath, letting us know that, no matter what happens onscreen or off, Natalie Wood has been there all along.

A box office disaster, Penelope was the last film Wood made before she took three years off from acting, before she returned to the screen in 1969's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. And while Penelope isn't nearly as funny as Sex and the Single Girl or as important as her most famous dramatic works, which paved the way to a more naturalistic style of female acting in the late '60s, it's still worthwhile in its own right. Natalie Wood might have thought she was terrible in the film, but long after she captivates Falk and Shaw, once she takes the money and doesn't run, she manages to steal our hearts as well.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: For Me and My Gal (1942) & 5 More Gene Kelly Musicals to See

In honor of Gene Kelly's birthday today, I wrote a piece for Netflix's DVD blog "In the Envelope," highlighting five musicals starring the Pittsburgh born and raised actor-dancer-singer-choreographer and filmmaker that classic movie fans will definitely want to see. 

Originally intended to chronicle "Six You Shouldn't Miss," the first film I included in the piece was unfortunately unavailable to rent via Netflix but it is currently airing on The Criterion Channel, so I'm posting it here along with a link back to the main article at Netflix's DVD.com so you can discover the rest. 

FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942)

Buoyed by the confidence of MGM producer Arthur Freed and the support of his co-star turned mentor Judy Garland, as soon as Gene Kelly appears onscreen — all swagger and smiles — to flirt with the girls passing by, you barely need the train he just stepped off of to tell you that a new star has arrived.

Centered on the relationship between a cocksure vaudeville headliner (Kelly) and his partner (Garland), which is threatened by the arrival of World War I, director Busby Berkeley's bittersweet black-and-white musical boasts not only a breakthrough performance by newcomer Kelly but also one for veteran Garland, who was trying to transition out of kiddie musicals and into more grown-up fare.

A moving drama with very little humor as opposed to most of Kelly's other MGM work from the era, while surprisingly dark for a musical, the two actors rise exceptionally well to the challenges of the picture. And through the film's World War I backdrop, FOR ME AND MY GAL drives home the realities of the second world war in a very real way.

A meeting of minds and skill sets that inspired a close friendship between the two leads, while it's Garland whom Kelly credits with launching his career (as well as teaching him how to act for the camera instead of the stage), the actress used the opportunity of working with the talented choreographer to learn how to dance at a professional level.

The first feature starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, fortunately FOR ME AND MY GAL would not be the last. The two musical favorites reteamed in a handful of films from MGM cameo cavalcades ZIEGFELD'S FOLLIES and THOUSANDS CHEER to Vincente Minnelli's sensual swashbuckler THE PIRATE, right up through their final pairing in SUMMER STOCK.

Continue Reading at Netflix

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Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern. #DVDNetflix - #DVDNation #ad

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: Summer Stock (1950)

Now Available 

Coming right after Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's groundbreaking experiments with jump cuts and location shooting in On the Town, the last thing that actor, dancer, choreographer, and director Kelly wanted to do in 1950 was make the same old-fashioned Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland style "let's put on a show" musicals that MGM had produced with assembly line efficiency a decade earlier.

But with Mickey Rooney no longer the box office titan he was back in his Andy Hardy days and Kelly's friend and former co-star Judy Garland going through one of the most difficult personal and professional periods of her life, Kelly happily signed onto Summer Stock alongside director Charles Walters to support the actress.

Although producer Joe Pasternak tried to convince Louis B. Mayer to cut his losses and shut down production as Summer ballooned toward an eventual six months shoot, much like Kelly and Walters, Mayer held fast out of loyalty to the woman who had made their studio synonymous with its most successful genre.

And it's a wise decision indeed as, from the film's breathtaking first shot which travels from the exterior of a farmhouse on up into Garland's second floor bedroom where she belts a song to her most famous Stock number "Get Happy," (which has been paid homage to countless times over the years), Summer is much better than its reputation would have you believe.

A delightful yet admittedly thinly plotted trifle, the film finds Garland's headstrong Jane Falbury struggling to keep her late father's failing farm afloat.

When Jane's spoiled kid sister Abigail (Gloria DeHaven) arrives with an entire theater troupe in tow headed up by boyfriend Joe Ross (Kelly), Jane forms an uneasy alliance with the group by agreeing to let them stage their musical in her barn if they'll help out around the farm.

Filling her songs with startling emotion, Garland's vocals are heightened all the more by veteran cinematographer Robert Planck's floating camera that — in one mesmerizing shot — swirls around a romantically conflicted Garland only to reveal Kelly sitting nearby in a scene sure to appeal to fans of Russell Metty's work on Douglas Sirk's 1954 masterpiece Magnificent Obsession.

And it's the surprisingly lush visuals that command a great deal of our attention in this vibrant new Blu-ray transfer from the Warner Archive Collection, which serves up animated shorts and shortcuts to all of the film's songs right from the menu.

Yet while the film is known as a labor of love for Garland, in the end, it's the innovative Kelly that makes Summer Stock one of my favorite underrated musicals.

Unable to shoot with his costar as often as expected as she struggled both onscreen and off, Kelly worked on a handful of numbers sure to make jaws drop, starting with the physically demanding group tap number "Dig-Dig-Dig Dig for Your Dinner," which showcases his athleticism and ups the film's energy level when it needs it the most.

In one of the star's best solo efforts, "You, Wonderful You," the dancer doubles as his own choreographer to create the beat of the song — which will eventually ease into the background —  with only the sounds of his tap shoes, a creaky board, and a discarded newspaper onstage to guide him.

A great wistful Gene Kelly number, "You" is a reprise of an earlier scene with Garland. Beginning casually, much like his performance of "Singin' in the Rain," "You" eases into an awe inspiring middle section where it's clear to see how much joy he's getting out of blowing everyone's minds before he adds in a sentimental Chaplinesque close.

Yet although Kelly's "You, Wonderful You," number might look laid back, it required a painstaking search from the prop department to find a certain set of newspapers published several years earlier to achieve the precise sound and tear needed for perfectionist Kelly's musical execution.

Featuring fun supporting turns by Phil Silvers, Eddie Bracken, and Marjorie Main, while the last act of Summer Stock forgoes the plot by devolving into another great collection of mini numbers for its predictable big show finale, it's easy to overlook the contrivances when you have Kelly and Garland ready to keep things "Wonderful" and "Happy" in two of the strongest musical numbers of their careers.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

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Leaping out of the woods of 1850s Oregon Territory and onto Blu-ray with this jam-packed two-disc Warner Archive Collection Special Edition release, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is an explosion of color, dance, and song.

Though billed as a romantic extravaganza, given the fact that Brides is not only rooted in the Ancient Roman legend “The Rape of the Sabine Women” but also features a Disney World Pirates of the Caribbean ride style sequence where its male leads kidnap a group of sobbing (vs. Sabine) women to be their brides, its legacy as a love story times seven doesn't quite add up.

Still it's an exuberant work of tremendous artistry, especially in the film's thrilling group dance sequences, in which over a dozen professional dancers perform Michael Kidd's daring, athletic, logical setting based choreography involving axes and board beams which were – seven years before West Side Story – stylistically ahead of its time. Even going so far as to inspire some of Johnny Mercer's lyrics, it's Kidd who remains Seven's MVP.

Cranking out dazzling musicals with assembly line speed, in stark contrast to director Vincente Minnelli's Lerner and Loewe vehicle Brigadoon starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charise which was filming at the same time, MGM Studios considered Stanley Donen's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers to be merely a B level production.

Frequently pulling money out of the film's budget to give to Minnelli's lovely but now largely overlooked romantic musical fantasy, when Seven Brides large cast of characters don't fill cinematographer George J. Folsey's frame, its relatively sparse sets and fake backdrops can be easily recognized, particularly if, like this reviewer, you're making the jump from seeing it on VHS twenty years ago to Blu-ray HD.

Using Ansco Color, the film shot by Folsey in CinemaScope is filled with the equivalent shade range of the 120 count box of Crayola crayons we used to dream about as children. And while all of that color gives Donen's upbeat film enough energy to cause the avalanche we see in the controversial sobbing women sequence onscreen, at home, you may need to flip through your TV menus and adjust the settings to a darker Cinema setting in order to tamp things down from neon poster board hued trees to a more believable Oregon color scheme.

Boasting feature commentary by Stanley Donen, classic trailers, anniversary newsreels, and a documentary hosted by star Howard Keel that includes new interviews with cast members Jane Powell and Jacques d'Amboise, and more, Warner Archive's two-disc set also includes a rarely seen alternate flat (1.77) widescreen version of the movie in 16x9 aspect ratio.

Based on Stephen Vincent Benet's Roman legend inspired short story “The Sobbin' Women,” as sexist and narratively flawed as the film about seven bachelor brothers in need of wives by any means is, Donen's film commands our attention based on the fact that it has so much going on at any one time.

With its catchy songs, jubilant performances, and influential choreography – all of which led to its transition to Broadway musical more than twenty years later – while we might have reservations about the wedding overall, for 102 minutes, Brides offers its guests a wildly entertaining time.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.