Top 10 Film Lists
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  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
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      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
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      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
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        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
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  • Resources
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      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
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      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
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      • Production Code
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  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
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  • Paul Verhoeven

Alfred Hitchcock & Cary Grant

Alfred Hitchcock & Cary Grant Together:  Twisted image

I've been working my way through the films of Alfred Hitchcock in preparation for an up-coming Top 10 List.  Usually, I watch the films in chronological order to better gage the growth of the artist throughout their career, as well as the normal ups & downs in the quality of their films.  With Hitch, however, I've been bouncing around, watching several of the David O. Selznick period ('40-'47, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Saboteur), while also dropping in a couple of the later masterpieces (Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Psycho & North By Northwest).  This randomness allowed me to watch all 4 of the collaborations between Alfred Hitchcock & Cary Grant in a short amount of time.  Seeing Suspicion ('41), Notorious ('46), To Catch a Thief ('55) & North By Northwest ('59) together, illustrated how Hitchcock manipulated Grant's image to his own devises, while giving the actor rare opportunities to stretch as an actor & deliver several of the best performances of his career.
Grant's career before Suspicion was filled with light screwball comedy roles in classics like Bringing Up Baby (’38), The Philadelphia Story (’40) & His Girl Friday (’40).  He usually played a fast talking slickster who could always manipulate everyone around him, making sure he ended up with the girl of his choice.  In Suspicion, however, he talks fast, but he’s clearly an exploiter & uses the people around him for purely selfish reasons.  He is dark & mysterious & while he is still able to sweep a woman (Joan Fontaine) off her feet, he cannot maintain the charm after they’re married.  When Fontaine starts to suspect him of murder things really get dark as Hitchcock uses a purely subjective point of view to reinforce Grant’s Johnnie Aysgarth as cold & calculating.
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​In Notorious Hitchcock signals in his first shot of Grant that this will be a different type of leading man.  He shoots him with his back to the camera, in complete shadow, as a dark shadow dropped into a party scene.  Once again he manipulates a woman to get what he wants; this time getting Ingrid Bergman to infiltrate a ring of Nazi’s in post WWII Rio.  When he seduces her first, he is a charming as a Grant character would be expected to be, but there is always a subtle darkness & cool detachment.  Once he has her on the hook, so to speak, he turns cruel as he denies her feelings for him & essentially prostitutes her in the name of country.  Once again, Hitchcock flips the light & charming Grant personae to put viewers on their heels, not allowing them to expect the traditional conclusion & heightening the suspense & intrigue of the story.
To Catch a Thief is the transition film.  While not reclaiming the Grant mystique, it does at least portray him as a recovered scoundrel, albeit one perfectly capable of bad actions.  Playing a reformed master cat burglar (and resistance hero), Grant has the look of someone capable of mischief, but his actions constantly belie his former life.  Is it a trick that Hitchcock is once again playing on the viewer, expecting a certain type of Grant character or is it a reinforcement?  That’s the genius of Hitchcock using the same actors in multiple films; he is always looking for ways to alter expectations within a movie by relying on things outside of it. In To Catch a Thief Hitch waits until the climax to reveal his true character, leaving the viewer to constantly guess…a sure fire way to heighten suspense & undermine expectations.
Finally, there is North By Northwest.  Grant’s Roger Thornhill is defined as a shallow stuffed shirt in the very first scene, dictating false good wishes to a discarded girlfriend, while he rushes to catch a cab. He looks good; he sounds good, but he is clearly not interested in anyone but himself.  When he is dragged into an espionage plot he is nonchalant & flip, worried more about his theater tickets than his personal well-being.  What transpires over the remainder of the film, however, is the transformation of the Grant personae (and Thornhill) into a deeply caring person, willing to sacrifice himself for someone else. In fact, the devilish Hitchcock even includes a tweak of the normal Grant personae when he has a female hospital patient first scream “Stop!” as Grant enters her room through a window, then getting a better look at him purrs “stop,” in an effort to get him into bed. In North By Northwest, however, he is neither flip, nor shallow.  He is a hero. But in the world of Hitchcock, set up by the three previous films, it is a revelation that repeatedly plays against expectations & has the restorative power to put a wonderful capstone on their working relationship.
It has been often told that if the icy blondes Hitchcock preferred as his heroines were his fetishized sexual fantasy come to life, then Cary Grant was the man Hitch wished he could be.  Physically, the differences were obvious, but in manipulating Grant’s personae in these 4 films, Hitch helped give the actor more depth & nuance.  There was clearly a dark side to Hitchcock, so why not have it manifest itself in his films in the person of a tall & handsome leading man?  Of course, for Hitchcock, the film was always the thing, so his manipulation had as much to do with plot & suspense as with tweaking the personae of his leading man, but it’s a wonderful thing that he decided to put his darkness out there is such a beautiful package.

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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
      • Top 10 Jean Harlow Movies
      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
      • Top 10 Myrna Loy Films
      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven