Silent suspense film that's the first Hitchcock movie anyone talks about much.

20 films into Hitch's career we see some of the mature hallmarks, including the reliance on close-ups of objects; a technique derived from German silents, and the apex of the long-shot, medium-shot, close-up triangle that's at the heart of first-rate montage. How did the extreme close-up atrophy? It's always been a distinguishing trait of great direction, but isn't used much today. Peter Lorre is terrific. Far superior to Hitch's 1950s re-make.

Clever entertainment that looks quaint today, but was revolutionary in 1935. Some folks still consider the better British films to be Hitch's best... a wrong-headed view, but worth noting, lest we overlook the British films entirely.

The first unmistakable Hitchcock signature film.

Charming zenith of Hitch's UK career.

Wonderful throw-back to his best British films.

Odd attempt at a screwball comedy that lacks sizzle. Hitch was very funny, and had rich comic elements on most of his films, but his humor was primarily ironic, and ill-suited to overt comedy.

Hitch was a technical director, and widely reported as saying actors are like cattle, yet often got surprisingly good performances. Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine are marvelous in this domestic murder (?) thriller.

Exciting film, but hard to take too seriously. It seems like a spy thriller version of SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS. Hitch despised authority, so his WWII propaganda films did little to advance the war effort. This story is about a wrongly accused man on the run from the US Government who is sheltered by supposedly patriotic citizens who continually favor their own sense of native democracy to adherence to the government line in wartime. The government is blaring on the radio that this man is a Nazi saboteur, but everyone he meets decides to make up their own mind as to whether he seems like a Nazi to them. Sometimes they even take a vote! The oxymoron of "democracy at war" is also explored throughout LIFEBOAT.

MASTERPIECE! Thorton Wilder (OUR TOWN) provided the acidic script about a young girl who comes to realize her favorite uncle may be a serial killer. Joseph Cotton's speeches on the true nature of women and society are brilliantly chilling.

Gimmick film (takes place entirely in a small lifeboat) that really works, unlike later gimmick film ROPE. Hitch always appeared in his films, but how could he make it into this one? He's the "before" picture in a newspaper weight loss ad.

Silly dated failure. Even Ingrid Bergman couldn't save this artifact of the mid-century psychoanalysis fad. Bringing in Salvador Dali for the dreams sequences was equally faddish.

If the pace was a little more brisk this would be Hitch's best film. Technically breath-taking, and as luminously beautiful as any B&W movie.

All minor; all enjoyable and interesting to study.

Hitchcock's best film, and the capstone on his early career. Every shot's a masterpiece, and there are no structural flaws. Just perfect! You could always depend on Hitch for the pictures and pace, and he always had good actors, so the distinction between good vs. great often came down to the screenwriter. Just as Thornton Wilder made SHADOW OF A DOUBT a cut above, Raymond Chandler's sharp script makes STRANGERS sing.

A new mid-life crisis Hitchcock emerges. A short dumpy aging man in love from afar with his star, Grace Kelly, the picture of female perfection. He struggled for a decade trying to replace this woman he never had... this Galatea to his Pygmallion (Or Esmeralda to his Quasimodo). His 1950s psychological set-back is ironic, since he became fantastically successful at the same time–an American icon and household name.

Somewhat over-rated, like all of his later 1950s films, but still wonderful. The voyeurism gimmick is perverse, but obvious. It's comical how many critics have "discovered" that Jimmy Stewart is a peeping tom, since the movie is practically titled "story of a peeping tom." Geez... Thelma Ritter marches in at one point and announces that Stewart is a peeping tom! The fact that movie audiences are de facto voyeurs is equally obvious, and hardly worth noting. Did anyone ever think otherwise?

Magnificent entertainment. Sexy, beautiful, clever and funny. Hitch should have never taken Grace Kelly to Monaco, though... soon his radiant star was merely a princess.

Over-looked black comedy gem. One of Hitch's very best films. God DAMN Shirley MacLaine was sexy in her debut.

Two entertaining and handsomely made movies.

Intensely personal film, in that it's obviously about Hitchcock's obsession with the departed Grace Kelly, but personal doesn't equal great. Considered by critics the second or third best film ever made, and it's not even one of the twenty best films HITCHCOCK ever made! Just a dumb, unlikable movie. Every time I see it, I am convinced I am watching a Brian De Palma knock-off, not an actual Hitchcock film.

Pure over-the-top entertainment. This is the first modern action/spy  spectacle, and was the blueprint for the James Bond films. Made an indelible impression on everyone. The flaws are so obvious there's no point dwelling on them... this movie is about scale and momentum, not about story or nuance. Essentially a parody of a Hitchcock film, with everything he had ever done done BIGGER. This film got being "celebrity Hitch" out of his system long enough to re-invent film as we understand it today in the most amazing late-career explosion of any artist, his following film...

Anyone who claims VERTIGO is a greater film than PSYCHO forfeits all credibility. If you want perfection, look to STRANGERS ON A TRAIN or NOTORIOUS. If you want crackling explosive run-away genius, PSYCHO's the pick. How directly was this inspired by TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)? In spots it seems like a remake... victimized Janet Leigh is the only guest in an isolated motel staffed by a skinny nervous weirdo in both films. PSYCHO is infantile, but sincerely, deeply and artistically infantile. Profoundly infantile. There's a saying that young people are obsessed with sex, middle-aged people with food, and old people with their bowel movements. If so, Hitch entered old age here...  With the decrease of his sex drive, Hitchcock's chivalry and awe of feminine mystery also declined. He wanted Janet Leigh to be topless in the opening shot, and had no compunction about stripping her and butchering her like a hog in the shower. Every Hitchcock thread is picked up with "go to hell" petulance. Hitchcock hated old ladies that judge people and tell people what to do, and the real villain in most of his films isn't the bad guy, who is usually charming, but some nosey old lady (like the biddies who falsely implicate Fonda in WRONG MAN). With Grace Kelly around he was temporarily so sold on women that he even created two highly likeable old ladies in REAR WINDOW and TO CATCH A THIEF. In PSYCHO, however, he reveals his ultimate villain to be the mother that lives on in our heads, teaching us shame and self-hatred. Hitchcock hated authority. He hated nasty messy things. He hated fried eggs, and smokers, and bad smells of every kind. He always felt guilty... always about to be found out for a terrible crime he didn't commit, or couldn't help committing. He was a sucker for mid-century psychoanalysis. Do we see a toilet-training problem here?  The new great unknown in PSYCHO is the toilet. Sex, money, violence... all exist in relation to the fundamental mystery of where the bad stuff we all produce goes when flushed away. Flushing is reprieve without salvation, because we will just do "it" again... it arises anew, just like lust or a psycho's murderous impulses. If anyone doubts this interpretation, JUST WATCH THE FILM. The camera sees the toilet like a lecher sees cleavage. The key evidence is literally flushed down the toilet, but it doesn't all disappear, and leads to the crime being found out. Also, Marion's corpse-laden car is flushed into the symbolic toilet of the swamp, complete with hideous gaseous sound effects... it starts to sink, then stalls. Watch Perkins' fever of anxiety, and the triumph when the bad thing finally submerges. Then there's the blood swirling down the drain. And what's up with wrapping the body in the shower curtain? Has anything ever been shown in such detail? (It's interesting that Perkins is cleaning up his mother's mess, rather than visa versa) Then to the last shot of the film–the car being dragged from the bog, with more flatulent sounds. Hell, Anthony Perkins cannot bring himself to even say the word "bathroom."  The ANL license plate may be a coincidence, because it's hard to imagine anyone asking the prop department for an ANL licensee plate, but who knows?

Hitch invented the James Bond-style movie in 1959, the slasher/serial killer movie in 1960, and the modern FX movie in 1963. The special effects are creaky, but, in fairness, this contains  hundreds of "optical" shots, where most films had one or two. No one had attempted such a complex FX movie before, and only after STAR WARS did it become common. Very popular film, and now starting to be taken more seriously, on merit. Hitchcock made up a load of publicity bull-shit about having an environmental message–that nature would rebel against our poisoning the planet. Don't believe it. This is a straightforward Freudian/poltergeist film about a woman whose sexual desires manifest themselves externally and supernaturally in ways she cannot control. Like most "deep" stuff in Hitch's films, this is flatly announced by a character at some point, noting that Tippi Hedren's a witch, and that the birds didn't start attacking until she pursued Rod Taylor to the Island (an act of unusual sexual boldness for a 1963-era woman) The birds even slaughter her romantic rival, lest anyone miss the point. It's cool to note the old lesbian in the diner (the bird expert) and reflect that almost no 1960s film-goers would have immediately identified her as a lesbian. Such people didn't exit in "code" films.

Pure lunatic art film that has gone from critical bust to seminal 20th century art in the last twenty years. See DVD listing for more discussion.

After interesting misfires with Topaz (1969) and Torn Curtain (1966), Hitch went out in style, returning to England and going small and sleazy, as he did with PSYCHO. The result is cruel and full of nasty black humor, but superb film-making. Contains one of those rare shots memorable for themselves: the camera follows murderer and victim halfway up a few stories of apartment house stairs, then hesitates and retreats, drawing slowing back down the stairs and across the street. Finally, when we can see the entire block of flats from a distance, a scream rings out.