Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Sunday 13 February 2011

Television treats


It is time to turn off the movie projector for the rainy weekend and wallow once again in all those favourite movies on television - one has seen them so many times so one feels one can dip in and out of them at leisure - though of course if it is a Hitchock one usually gets drawn in and has to see it unspool all over again. It is quite a good weekend actually, there are at least 4 Hitchocks on, and several Audrey Hepburns (I watched HOW TO STEAL A MILLION again during the week, its an oddly over-laboured trifle but Audrey and Peter look a million dollars, even cramped in that broom cupboard - and those '60s fashions and cars...!)

NORTH BY NORTHWEST seems to be on every day here in the UK at the moment, on one channel or another, as I said before, like PSYCHO, it is the most modern 50 year old film of all. Does one ever get tired of Cary and Eva Marie on the train or running across Mount Rushmore? Ditto THE BIRDS - I love that scene where Mitch and Melanie are chatting and discovering each other at the children's party just before that first bird attack, and remember liking it the very first time I saw the movie, a year after its release at the little Classic cinema above Waterloo Station in London in 1964.... and of course that set from REAR WINDOW and good to see THE WRONG MAN again. Hitch's movies will just never date or go out of fashion, which is why stars like Cary Grant and James Stewart are so enduring - unlike contemporaries like Cooper or Gable who didn't star for Hitch and whose later films are not that visible now, whereas those Hitchocks are always out there.



CHARADE must be the best film Hitchcock never made - Audrey and Cary are perfect throughout and (like Grace Kelly in TO CATCH A THIEF) she has the most perfect wardrobe here, from of course Givenchy - I particuarly like the mustard yellow coat.
Channel 4 here is running an Audrey a day in their lunchtime movie slot, one will have to watch them once again: ROMAN HOLIDAY, SABRINA, FUNNY FACE [it looks amazingly fresh and vivid in HD], and TIFFANY'S, which is currently back in cinemas too. (One could - and might - do a whole post on Audrey in Paris, as so many of her films are set there...)

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW are on too (a must now,after GLEE's Rocky Horror show episode last week), as well as LAURA and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Not bad, not bad at all. I simply love how the off-screen horses whinny at every mention of Frau Blucher's name in surely Mel Brooks' best film, and Cloris Leachman and dear Madeline Kahn with that silver streak in her hair as she and the monster do it again - and of course Terri Garr saying he (the monster) would have to have to be enormous!

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