Damn, I only have time to watch movies on weekends part 15: the living pixels

In trying to recover a kablooified hard drive I've found a lot of stuff I'd forgotten ever having. This includes one-page response papers for a film class I was in... and some papers longer than a single page.

I love Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. I didn't when I first saw it. In fact I actively disliked it. I now see that I was wrong. Again.

I'm not a big fan of the "repeated viewing, listening or reading will convince you of the greatness of this work of art" philosophy. In fact, I actively dislike it. If someone cannot see greatness then it should be explained to her. If she still can't see it there is no reason, outside of resentment and sadism, to ask her to bang her head against the wall until the epiphany comes. If the greatness of the work cannot be explained then perhaps it isn't that great after all.

In the spirit of trying to explain the greatness (that I see) in The 39 Steps I offer up something I wrote years ago. It's a little messy but hopefully it hangs together. It was written as a midterm paper for a film class I was in. The assignment was to write 5-7 pages. I wrote eighteen. Don't worry, it only seems like a dozen.

If you'd like, please do give it a go. It's all about sex... you can stop at any time.39 Steps to a Happy Marriage
Hitchcock's film as a bachelor's journey to marriage

In 1935 Alfred Hitchcock directed the film The 39 Steps, his follow-up to the very successful The Man Who Knew Too Much for Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Based upon the 1915 John Buchan novel of the same name and adapted with the help of Charles Bennett it is, on the surface, a story of espionage and murder with a man chased by both police and spies. In truth it functions as an allegory for the main character’s voyage from bachelorship to marriage. It is a displaced spy story of a film about Richard Hannay who starts the film as an unattached man with no responsibilities and ends it as one who has consummated a duty, found new surety and acquired a partner.

The success that he found with The 39 Steps placed Hitchcock “on the international map… bringing him to the attention of [Hollywood] producer David O. Selznick…. [and] gave Hitchcock an enormous amount of power in the small British film industry pond.” (Auiler 454-455) Hitchcock would remember the lessons of this early achievement well. With its concern for male-female relations, its view of marriage as a trap, an unjustly accused man and the introduction of a beautiful, emotionally distant blonde it lays out themes that would become familiar in Hitchcock’s work. The 39 Steps forms the palette and template that Alfred Hitchcock would use for the remainder of his brilliant career.

This retelling of a spy story can be said to be the first example of a “successful ‘Hitchcockian’ film, the one which brought together for the first time… dramatic elements for which Hitchcock became justly famous: the innocent man pursued by both police and criminals [and the] Hitchcockian blonde who educates the hero in the ethics of sexuality” (Silet 109). This would serve him well in later pictures that used the theme of the Accused Innocent Man such as Young and Innocent, Saboteur, Strangers On A Train, To Catch A Thief and North by Northwest and those that used the device of a Story About Espionage which include Sabotage, Notorious, Torn Curtain and both versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much” (Wood 241).

. . . .

The innocent man in this case is Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) who initially appears to be none too virtuous. The first scene closes with him agreeing to take a strange woman, Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim), back to his apartment for the night. “Today’s audiences may have difficulty in grasping that, say, Richard Hannay (in The 39 Steps) is to be regarded as ‘guilty’ because he anticipated a night of ‘illicit’ sex.” [emphasis added] This is an “apprehension [that] is crucial to a reading of the film’s narrative progress” (Wood 241-242). There are even suggestions in the next scene that Hannay believes that she may be a prostitute.

Even prior to this the theme of marriage exists in the first scene as an undercurrent to the stage presentation of Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson.) In his act, based upon the real life performances of the turn of the century mnemotist Datas, Mr. Memory (Jay 101) solicits questions from the audience that he will answer. The first question is from a woman who shouts, “Where’s my old man been since last Saturday?” The queries keep returning to marital subjects including “How old is my wife?” For the question of who was the last British Heavyweight Champion men in the audience respond with “Henry the VIII!” (he of the six wives) and “My old woman!”

Two questions stand out in this music hall scene and are asked twice. Hannay asks the length of a trip in Canada while a man in the company of his wife asks, “What causes pip in poultry.” This last question is repeated a third time for comic affect during the audience commotion. Hitchcock’s father was a poultry grocer so there is added weight to the wife’s admonition “don’t be so common.” This, in combination with the fact that Mr. Memory’s brain is destined for the British Museum, indicates a desire for the more respectable life of the Victorian middle class on the part of the director and his characters.

After Hannay has decided to take her home for the evening, the female stranger tells him that her name is “Smith?” an obvious fabrication. When prompted to guess her occupation Hannay uses a euphemism for prostitute (or lady of the evening.) “Actress?” Annabella Smith responds, “Not in the way that you mean.” He next ventures “Chorus?” which is immediately dismissed but echoes of that guess will reverberate in the movie’s final scene. She is, in truth, a prostitute and sells her services “to any country that pays me.” It is at this exact moment that Hitchcock displaces the sexual dynamic of the plot into what Hannay says, “sounds like a spy story.” One could “say that, with the death of Annabella Smith/Lucie Mannhien, the sexual theme introduced in the film’s opening section is deflected on to, disguised as, the espionage plot.” (Wood 275) For the remainder of the film The 39 Steps tells its sexual/romantic story through an analogous tale of espionage.

. . . .

Hannay has told Annabella Smith that she “is welcome to my bed” and he is awoken by her moments before her death. This is not the last time that Hannay will wake up in the company of a woman that he has recently met. Every such awakening spurs Hannay into further action as well as further development of his character. It is now that he is forced to face his own marital status as he tries to sneak out of his own apartment. He meets the milkman in the vestibule and tries to tell him the “truth” of his situation. The milkman doesn’t believe a word of the recently introduced spy story. When Hannay asks if he is married, the milkman responds with “Don’t rub it in.” (The role of the milkman was played by Frederick Piper who had previously played a policeman in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much who threatened a fellow policeman at the end of the film with “I’ll tell your Missus about you!”) (Barr 151) Hannay then confesses to being a bachelor, claims that he has been having an affair with a married woman and that he fears capture by a vengeful husband and brother. This explanation is accepted instantly and Hannay makes the first of several purchases of his freedom and flees in the guise of a prototypical serial philanderer, the milkman. The association of money with escape also brings it into a relationship with sex and marriage

Hitchcock puts Hannay into two more situations where he assumes a false identity and pays money to someone who is confused as to his relationship with marriage. The second occurrence is when the crofter (John Laurie), who believes that his wife and Hannay are having an affair, is paid to send the police away. The final time is when Hannay rents a room at an inn from a husband and wife who think that Hannay and Pamela are an eloping couple that are pretending that they are married. In order to continue his flight/pursuit of the truth Hannay must purchase his freedom even as he misrepresents his marital situation.

Having decided to find out what Annabella Smith meant when she told her story. Hannay travels to Scotland by train. He is seated, asleep, in a compartment with a man of the cloth and two talkative salesmen, one of whom sells women’s undergarments. The display of an old-fashioned corset elicits the reaction, “Brrr! My wife” from the other salesman and glowers from the clergyman. This cold example of marriage contrasts with the warmth that Hannay and Pamela would find later in the movie at the inn. Hannay awakens when the reverend, a symbol of societal morals and commitment, exits the compartment. Hannay then learns that Annabella’s body has been found and that he is presumed to be the murderer. The world is now under the misapprehension that Richard Hannay is a literal lady-killer.

. . . .

While still on the train Hannay tries to avoid the police by ducking into another compartment whose sole occupant is a young blonde woman, Pamela. To hide himself he grabs her in a close embrace and kisses her. The spinster’s glasses, which Pamela removed upon Hannay’s entrance into the compartment, are knocked from her grasp and never seen again. As their faces press together Pamela’s eye goes wide with fright; it is an image that Hitchcock would use in later movies. When they are initially mistaken for a genuine couple, a passing policeman comments, “Somebody’s getting a free meal in there.” It is just one of several meals that Hannay shares with the women he encounters throughout the film. He has prepared haddock for Annabella and he will have herring with Margaret (Peggy Ashcroft), the crofter’s wife and will later split a sandwich with Pamela. Being unable and unwilling to believe Hannay, Pamela gives him up to the police. It is only the interruption of the porter for tea service that allows Hannay to avoid certain capture when he clambers out the back door and makes his way along the outside of the train.

Hannay next makes his way to a crofter’s house and it is after going to sleep in a box bed that a woman wakes him for the second time. When Hannay tries to stay to protect Margaret from her husband she tells him to go, “it is your chance at liberty.” Hannay again flees with a brief kiss, the knowledge that Margaret believes him and the crofter’s heavy coat.

When at the Professor’s (Godfrey Tearle) house Hannay’s imminent death/capture is once again put off by a call to a meal as another woman rescues him. Hannay’s certain fate is put off this time by the Professor’s wife, Louisa Jordan (Helen Haye), who calls her husband to lunch just as Hannay is offered the revolver in order to commit suicide. The fact that the Professor and Louisa are the most “English” of all the couples in the movie (Hannay/Annabella, Crofter/Margaret, etc.) and are simultaneously complete frauds is incongruous and contrasts the goal/destination that Hannay and Pamela will be making their way towards. The Hannay/Pamela coupling should be judged within the context of the other couples inhabiting the movie.

After capturing Hannay at the convention hall the Professor’s men ostensibly drive Hannay and Pamela to a police station, until Pamela observes that the car is taking them down the wrong road. This makes Hannay realize that these men are not the police. It is Hannay and Pamela’s first mutual effort and, when he asks to see a warrant, Hannay is slapped in the face. It is then that Hannay’s whistling starts although he won’t recognize the tune until he solves the Mr. Memory conundrum in the final scene.

Hannay, who has been incompletely handcuffed by the police, is handcuffed to Pamela by the Professor’s henchmen. She has become Hannay’s literal ball and chain. In order to continue his flight towards the approval of society Hannay must take Pamela with him. As they make their way across the countryside he continues to try and convince her of his innocence. When Pamela asks, “What are you doing this all for? You can’t possibly escape. What chance do you have tied to me?” Hannay replies, “Keep that question for your husband.” (Silet 116)

When repeated attempts to convince her of his innocence fail Hannay claims that he is a violent murderer. This doesn’t appear to terrify Pamela who calls Hannay a “big bully.” “I like your pluck,” is his response. In spite of threatening her with a phallic pipe hidden in his pocket to pose as a gun, Pamela seems to be warming up to Hannay. Simple acts of kindness and courtesy, retrieving a hairpin, offering a handkerchief, seems to have an effect upon her. Nevertheless, Pamela looks terrified at the prospect of a nightgown proffered by the innkeeper’s wife (Hilda Trevelyan). Pamela is less frightened of being murdered by Hannay than by the prospect of him as a romantic interest. This is yet another sign of the displaced spy story masking the true love story.

. . . .

Once again seeking refuge from someone who misunderstands his status as a bachelor, Hannay shares a sandwich with Pamela as they literally and figuratively warm to each other in front of the fire. To cover for Pamela’s outburst of “Please, don’t go!” Hannay “confesses” to the innkeeper’s wife that they aren’t married and are, in fact, a runaway couple and a nightgown is offered to remedy Pamela’s wet clothes. Pamela refuses to remove her cold damp skirt but does remove her stockings in a sequence made even more erotic by Hannay’s chained hand tracing the length of her legs. He matter-of-factly hangs the stockings up to dry before the fire, an action that earns him his first “thank you.” Pamela’s icy demeanor is beginning to crack and Hitchcock has now managed to show us a corset, brassiere and a pair of silk stockings.

In a halfhearted attempt to make her blood run cold Hannay claims to have led a long life of crime and to have the Cornish Bluebeard (who murdered three wives, half the number done in by Henry the VIII) as a granduncle. Pamela tries to stifle a laugh at Hannay’s story and soon falls asleep in the same bed with him. She wakes before he does and is able to extract her hand from the handcuff. She then discovers that his “gun” is merely a pipe. The threat that he has posed has been hollow all along; sometimes a pipe is just a pipe but sometimes it is something else.

In fleeing the room Pamela takes the time to retrieve her stockings and starts to put them on when she is interrupted by a thump outside the door. Creeping to the balcony she hears the Professor’s Men who confirm Hannay’s story. Pamela is now convinced of Hannay’s innocence and his truthfulness concerning both the espionage veneer of the plot and his stated intentions towards her. She is now able and willing to help Hannay against both the spies and the police. She returns to their room, it is now “their room,” without contradicting the innkeeper’s wife’s characterization of the two of them as a “young couple in love.” In one of the only sequences accompanied by music Pamela gently pulls a blanket over the sleeping Hannay before lying down at the foot of the bed. However, her legs are still cold and so she stealthily reclaims the blanket. Her stockings, at least for the moment, remain off and she doesn’t seem to remember that the promised nightgown never did appear.

With this change in attitude Pamela has now accepted Hannay’s wooing. This furthers the concerns of the spy story but when one is, as Debra Fried says, “more attuned to the filmmaker’s options and to matters of genre, these concerns are the status of the love story. [emphasis added] In Hitchcock, romance and suspense tend to be linked…. The woman has to overcome her skepticism about the man - to recognize him as not a murderer - in order to fall in love with him and aid his cause.” (24) Therefore, for the first time in the film a woman allows Hannay to sleep as long as he likes and he arises to find that Pamela has camped out in the room. Upon learning all that she has overheard Hannay becomes angry and begins the rush back to London. He no longer feels any need to try and control Pamela’s actions now that she believes him and she is allowed to angrily exit the room, slamming the door behind her. Pamela is now able to act autonomously to assist Hannay in his attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of society. She is able to act alone in the very next scene as she and Hannay have become united in purpose.

. . . .

It is now Pamela’s turn to appear in front of the authorities as she tries to convince them of the “reality” of the espionage plot. She is only marginally more successful with Scotland Yard than Hannay was in his encounter with the Scottish police. The detectives of Scotland Yard also refuse to give any credence to her story. Pamela is allowed to leave but she is followed in an attempt to find Hannay. It is obvious that the police now consider them a couple even if they themselves have failed to acknowledge this fact. The figurative fiancées have pleaded their case to the civil authorities and are now able to proceed to what will be their church, the Palladium, where Mr. Memory is once again officiating.

In short order Pamela finds Hannay in the audience and the authorities find both of them. The spy story rushes headlong to its conclusion so that the narrative may return explicitly to its true subject, Hannay’s marital status. The events of the movie and its spy plot have all been concerned with Hannay’s journey to the altar in order to be joined with Pamela before the end of the movie. Everything is wrapped up quickly after Hannay’s flash of insight as to how to bring the curtain down on the espionage plot. From the “moment when Hannay exclaims ‘I’ve got it!’ [up until the last shot of the film] takes just three minutes. After nineteen shots from a variety of angles, average length six seconds” we reach the final shot. It is one where Hannay and Pamela stand before the minister in the prostrate form of Mr. Memory and “runs, with little movement, for a minute and a quarter before the final fade-out.” (Barr 160)

. . . .

Alfred Hitchcock gave The 39 Steps a symmetrical structure in which the first and last scenes are paired together and succeeding/preceding scenes are likewise connected with each other. Everything begins and ends at a theater where a performance by Mr. Memory is brought to a close by gunfire. The Palladium is a much more respectable venue than the music hall with which the movie opens and the difference is emblematic of the rise in Hannay’s status in proper society. He has left behind his days of taking home strange women found in low class entertainment venues frequented by spies and other sordid sorts of people. Hannay now meets his betrothed in front of a well-to-do crowd in the presence of witnesses and governmental authorities and under the ministrations of Mr. Memory.

The other linked scenes proceed as logically as a set of brackets. Hannay’s flight from London to Scotland to escape detention by both police and spies is made aboard a train and is mirrored by his rushed return to London to prove his innocence to the law and to ruin the Professor’s attempt at espionage. Both of Hannay’s overnight stays are with women who Hannay is able to convince of his innocence. It is notable that Margaret, the Crofter’s wife, and Pamela both get their own scene without Hannay’s presence. Again, Hannay’s development is seen when comparing this pair of scenes. In the scene at the Crofter’s cottage he is thought to be having an affair with a married woman. By the time he reaches the inn he (with Pamela’s reluctant help) is actively posing as half of an eloping couple.

Hannay makes two escapes across the Scottish landscape. The first one is from the Crofter’s cottage where the police pursue him alone. For the second escape he is handcuffed to Pamela while fleeing from the Professor’s henchmen. The dramatic device of the handcuffs enables Hannay and Pamela to not only establish a relationship but it forces them to accommodate each other and begin to work together. “Handcuffs are a device for disabling people. For Hitchcock they therefore symbolize detention in a double sense - both legal and amorous. Donat and Carroll in The 39 Steps are fused at the wrist by metal manacles and their quarrelsome courtship explains the awkward and unseemly logistics of this twinning.” (Conrad 222)

Approaching the center of Hitchcocks artifice there are two scenes in which Hannay is under the Professor’s control, both in the Professor’s sitting room and in a car with Pamela that is driven by the Professor’s henchmen. Then, in the two scenes closest to each other and to the middle of the movie, Hannay makes two speeches. The first of the speeches is made in earnest to the Chief of Police as Hannay attempts to shed himself of the espionage trappings that encumber him. Once again the truth of Hannay’s predicament is dismissed and the police try to detain him. The second speech is a complete fabrication before a political meeting. It lays out some of Hannay’s values and his hopes for the future and is received enthusiastically. Hannay has gone from striving for vindication to an attempt at spiritual/social redemption.

The structural center of this progression of scenes is exceedingly brief but telling. Hannay escapes detection by the police by posing as a marcher in a Salvation Army procession. As this scene turns so does the story. Whether Hannay is converted by this short encounter or merely set upon the road to salvation it occurs just prior to meeting Pamela again. From that time forward (with a brief exception for Pamela’s visit to Scotland Yard) the couple will become inseparable. This is done at first through the coercion of the Professor’s henchmen, then through being trapped in handcuffs to each other and finally by mutual decision and desire.

. . . .

The meticulously constructed elements of The 39 Steps all serve to tell the story of Hannay’s progress towards a state of marriage. The symmetrical arrangement of reflective scenes and the circular trip from London to Scotland and back again provide a clear view of Hannay’s evolution. The constant matrimonial subtext to the plot and the symbolism of everything from corsets to handcuffs serves to depict marriage as a trap or prison. All of this, combined with the transformation that Hannay has undergone in moving from one music hall to the other, suggests the sophisticated metamorphosis that Hannay’s character undergoes.

When one considers all of the moral strictures under which English films were made in the 1930s it becomes clear that Hitchcock has cloaked a highly sexualized story behind the façade of a spy story. Hitchcock used a variety of tricks and contrivances to realize the more erotic elements of this displaced narrative. From the very outset Hannay is able to spend the night with a succession of three different women. He does this outside the confines of wedlock. The reasons for these assignations are, in the order that they occur, to avoid murderous spies, to shelter an innocent man on the run and out of necessity in being handcuffed together. This progression of scenes and women proceeds from the most scandalous to the most domestic.

Hitchcock also manages to graphically display an entire ensemble of women’s undergarments. The metaphorical striptease proceeds from the girdle and bra belonging to the salesman on the train to Pamela’s own wet stockings, which Hannay actually holds in his hand prior to hanging them before the fire. The director is also able to show Hannay’s (handcuffed) hand travel along Pamela’s leg as she disrobes. These scenes, bordering on fetishism, push the boundaries of what would have been acceptable in mid-1930s’ British cinema.

Hitchcock’s true intent is definitively revealed in a scene that was shot for the film but was, at the last moment, cut out of the movie. It was to be the final scene and follow the figurative wedding vows exchanged during the death of Mr. Memory. The footage was of Hannay and Pamela departing the Palladium together in a taxicab. (Barr 161) This scene, coming as a coda to the rest of the precisely constructed movie, shows the the very picture of a newlywed couple being driven away from the church and their own marriage ceremony. If Hitchcock had kept the scene in it would have all but explicitly demonstrated the beginning of Hannay’s next great adventure, married life. At a minimum it is a metaphorical marriage and a consummated partnership. It is the start of a young couple’s life together; Hannay will now face the world as a happily married man.

. . . .

In the end Hitchcock decided to close the movie with a symbolic marriage and not the beginning of a honeymoon. In the chosen final scene the camera pulls back from its initial focus on the dying Mr. Memory and reveals more of the couple of Hannay and Pamela. The music, having made another notable appearance, quiets. Hannay’s former life as a carefree, untrustworthy bachelor begins to disappear before our very eyes. The chorus line fades into the background, as does Mr. Memory, as does all memory of previous chorus girls such as Annabella Smith. Hannay, handcuff still dangling from his wrist, and Pamela reach for one another’s hand in order to seal their union. Hitchcock has framed Mr. Memory, who presided over this ceremony, with a partial view of the couple’s backs and the camera focuses upon the joining of their two hands. “This image literalizes the idea that the world of the music hall (the chorus line) is now pushed to the back of the memory (though still present) and dramatizes with exemplary clarity and precision that favorite culmination of classical union, the construction of the heterosexual couple.” (Wood 282-283)

Hannay and Pamela, through their union, have foiled the Professor’s plot but in all actuality they have found true love in each other. Hannay himself has also found freedom and redemption within the bonds of this matrimony. In his travels to clear his name he has made a parallel emotional journey. Pamela, having both aided and joined in this conversion, is able to discern this and thereby assures Hannay’s success in joining proper society. It is a pattern that Hitchcock would go on to use often, “the tracking down of the real murderer, whose crime may ultimately be against an entire nation. And until the woman [Pamela, in this case] comes to this revelation, she threatens to obstruct the pursued man’s [Hannay, in this case] quest to clear himself and hence to save a larger cause than either of them, but one cannot be helped without this shift of individual emotions.” (Fried 24)

The 39 Steps has a denouement that would become typical of Hitchcock “in which the lovers join hands under the eyes of the police.” (Sterritt 49). This allows Hannay to move in a “moment from social rejection to social authorization.” (Brill 28) “Hitchcock’s [own] marriage appears to have solidified his position as a Victorian-style patriarch. This may help account for the way gender roles are represented in most of his early films.” (Cohen 69) Many of these subsequent movies would have female protagonists or love interests that would find happiness and redemption only through subsuming their career to that of the male lead. “Falsely accused man films and guilty women films exist in an intricately dialectic relationship of complementarity/opposition, a relationship that is surely the lynchpin of the entire Hitchcock oeuvre.” (Wood 243) Hitchcock, aided by his wife Alma, would return again and again to the Hannay/Pamela model for male/female dramatic (and sexual) tension.

That Hitchcock first discovers the theme of a man redeemed and made whole by a woman’s (trust and the subsuming of her own goals) in The 39 Steps is not surprising. Alfred Hitchcock was married to film editor Alma Reville in 1926, one year before he directed his first film. In 1935, the year that The 39 Steps was released, Reville helped to write the Berthold Viertel film, The Third Floor Back. With the sole exception of Richard Wallace’s It's in the Bag! (1945), it would be the last film that she worked on that was not credited to her husband. Thus Hitchcock has laid out the story of his own marriage within the displaced plot about spies and secrets. He and Hannay have left the figurative world of the lower class music hall and arrived at the respected, genteel world of the Palladium. The financial and artistic success of The 39 Steps insured that Alfred Hitchcock’s journey was literal as well as metaphoric.

. . . .

Upon its release The 39 Steps was paid this tribute: “Every film of real quality bears the unforgettable stamp of its creator. Individuality is [a] rare and precious thing. In moving pictures it is exceptionally hard to discover. When it is there, however, it usually assumes a force and a distinction unmistakably attributable to its director - and its director alone. In The 39 Steps the identity and mind of Alfred Hitchcock are continuously discernible, in fact supreme. There is no doubt that Hitchcock is a genius. He is the real star of the film.” (Carroll) It is a judgment far more astute than could have been known at the time. It was Alfred Hitchcock’s autobiography told in celluloid. It is a source that he would return to repeatedly, but never as completely as in The 39 Steps.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Auiler, Dan. The Hitchcock notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Spike, 1999.

Barr, Charles. English Hitchcock. Moffat, Scotland: Cameron Books, 1999.

Brill, Lesley. The Hitchcock Romance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1991.

Carroll, Sydney. Rev. The 39 Steps. The Sunday Times. 9 June, 1935.

Cohen, Paula Marantz. Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism. Lexington, KY: U P of Kentucky, 1995.

Conrad, Peter. The Hitchcock Murders. New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2000.

Fried, Debra. “Love American Style: Hitchcock’s Hollywood.” Hitchcock's America. Eds. Jonathan Freedman and Richard H. Millington. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1999.

Jay, Ricky. Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women. New York: Noonday P, 1998.

Silet, Charles L. P. “Through a Woman’s Eyes: Sexuality and Memory in The 39 Steps.” A Hitchcock Reader. Eds. Marshall Deutelbaum & Leland Poague. Ames, IA: IA State P, 1986. 109-121.

Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo P, 1999.

Sterritt, David. The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Cambridge U P, 1993.

Wood, Robin. Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. New York: Columbia U P, 1989.

I should have known better than to leave during the credits of a Pixar movie.

I'm glad that Wall-E was as daring as it was. At the same time, I wish it was more daring. It offended some people, but I was disappointed by the predictability of the love story, and the story in general.

Nice to see you enjoyed Flight of the Conchords - you know I agree the show's a little cruel sometimes but it's altogether very funny, even the New Zealand stereotypes. I think the show plays off the fact that almost none of its viewers know what the stereotypes are. "They all talk like robots!" "No, that's just our accents". I think the cluelessness of all three major characters is pretty funny and makes for a lot of the humor. I love how Bret and Jermaine are very mild-mannered and awkward in social situations but during the songs they're outgoing and clever. For the songs themselves I think it's best for those who HAVEN'T heard them beforehand. The songs are like half of the joke, and honestly they just seem loosely tied in to the plot but whatever. I really like the Pet Shop Boys parody "Inner City Pressure", and they fucking NAIL David Bowie on the Bowie song. Apparently Season 2 is in production so I'm excited for that!

Re: 36. Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume One (1940-1959)
"Feed the Kitty" is wonderful; Chuck Jones at his economical best. Now you have no choice but to get up off your rusty dusty and watch Monsters, Inc.. Pixar's visually quote of "Feed the Kitty" is delightful.

I could make the case that Monsters, Inc. is an hour and a half long version of "Feed the Kitty". That truly is a compliment to Pixar and the highest of compliments to Chuck Jones.

American critics over-rating Tell No One?

I guess I'm guilty! :)

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

I've now had several people recommend Fido. I guess I should bite.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

I like your Rio Bravo review. I also like that you rewatch movies so much more often than I do.

How much schooling do you have left, AJ?