Friday, April 6, 2018

Gooood eeeevening ....


After the Seattle Art Museum's presentation of nine Ingmar Bergman films last quarter -- all cerebral, all leaving lingering questions that tormented my mind and agitated my blog -- it's something of a change to move into SAM's spring series.  Nine films from the early, British-oriented period of director Alfred Hitchcock's career.

Those of us of a certain age recall the TV program, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," a weekly Sunday night tale of the often humorously macabre.  The unforgettable introduction featured a sketched profile of the director, into which Hitchcock himself walked.  He then offered a short introduction to the night's story, often humorous even when the story itself was somewhat ghastly. 

The introductory theme was Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette," which anyone who was a kid at the time could always hum at appropriate times the following day.

Unfortunately, I missed the first two films -- The Man Who Knew Too Much and Sabotage.  Last night, however, I jumped into the series for the first time, with the 1935 production of The 39 Steps

The film is considered something of a masterpiece of British escapist fare, but hardly requires the focused concentration  -- in the theater or in this blog -- of a Bergman film.  Man bumps into a woman in London who tells him of a secret spy conspiracy that plans to turn over British military secrets to an unnamed foe, woman murdered in his hotel room (with giant knife protruding from her back), enemies attempt to do him in as well, while Scotland Yard seeks to arrest him for the murder.

Man heads for a small Scots village circled on a map found on the murdered woman's person, zooming off to Edinburgh on a beautiful 1930s Flying Scotsman train.  Man wanders through black and white Scottish scenery in search of the village, only to discover that he's walked into the headquarters of the enemy.  He escapes, is captured by police and handcuffed to a lovely but hostile woman, escapes again still handcuffed, and improbably evades both enemies and police for most of the film. 

Spoiler alert -- police finally nab the spy, man is vindicated, and handcuffed girl looks up at him adoringly.

The plot isn't much on paper, but Hitchcock's direction is great, the photography of Scotland is stunning, and humor is injected into virtually every scene.  You leave the theater grinning, which is more than I could say for Bergman's Persona!

Six more films in the series, concluding with Dial M for Murder.

No comments: