Opening Credits I Love: Flight of the Phoenix

On this day, December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright powered a heavier-than-air airplane and made it fly. On December 15, 1965, Flight of the Phoenix (d. Robert Aldrich) premiered, starring a plane that hits the ground before the credits are even finished. And that opening credits sequence is among my favorites in the annals of movie history. The freeze-framing on each actor as his name appears on the screen, the anguished screams from the men as things fall on them, the heightened looks of concern on their faces harking back to the silent era and the musical score punching in a cue for each new action all work in concert to produce a kind of festival of cheese that came to be standard for most of the action movies of the era where the actors in character are shown (either at the start of the movie or its finish) rather than simply scrolling the names up the screen. At some point they stopped doing credits this way, right around the time Burt Reynolds turned credit rolls into blooper reels with the Cannonball Run movies, but I sure wish they'd bring them back.



During the filming, Jimmy Stewart had a birthday and also marked his 70th film appearance with the lead role. The cast and crew made sure Stewart got a party and presents for his trouble.

Back to School

And we're off! My wife, daughter and I are hitting the road for a college campus tour this weekend as the oldest daughter explores her collegiate options. See you next week!

Got Hitchcock?

Since I just recently scolded Judy from Vertigo on these pages and have a banner up based on Strangers on a Train, I thought it might be a good time to do a little online promotion for a recent favorite stop of mine, Alfred Hitchcock Wiki, where I got the images for this post.

It's a fairly stunning resource for Hitchcock and his films if only for the graphics. There is a collection of on and off set photos that could fill Charles Foster Kane's warehouse and a collection of screengrabs from his films (over 50,000!!!) clearly compiled by an extremely patient person.

But it's not just the graphics. They have almost as many articles written on Hitch and his films as they do pics, from Film Quarterly to The New York Times, broken down by film, subject matter and dates. Really, if you haven't stopped by yet give it a look. And if you want a banner from a Hitchcock movie you've got over 50,000 to choose from.

A Birthday Tribute to Alfred Hitchcock

Today is Alfred Hitchcock's birthday. He would have 108 (born 1899) if he were still alive. Of course he is, in his movies which are timeless. A quick tribute from Cinema Styles covering the favorites, least favorites, ups, downs and everything in between.

Favorite Hitchcock Film: Notorious (1946)

Favorite Pre-Hollywood Hitchcock Film: The 39 Steps (1935)

Favorite Performance in a Hitchcock Film: Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt (1944)

Favorite Tandem Performance (that is, two actors playing off each other beautifully): Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946)

Least Favorite Hitchcock Film: Topaz (1969)

Least Favorite Performance: John Gavin in Psycho (1960) Damn near stops the movie. Hitch referred to him on the set as "the corpse."

Most Exciting Hitchcock Film: (Tie) Foreign Correspondent (1940) and North by Northwest (1959)

Most Self-Referential (or autobiographical) Hitchcock Film: Vertigo (1958), of course.

Goofiest Hitchcock Film: (tie) Spellbound (1945) and Family Plot (1976)

Scariest Hitchcock Film: Psycho (1960)

Best use of Monuments in a Hitchcock Film: (Tie) Saboteur (1942) Statue of Liberty and North by Northwest (1959) Mount Rushmore

Best Use of Location in a Hitchcock Film: Vertigo (1958) San Francisco

Best Chase in a Hitchcock Film: Cary Grant pursued by crop duster in North by Northwest (1959)

First True "Hitchcockian" Film: Blackmail (1929)

Most "un-Hitchcockian" Film: (tie) The Farmer's Wife (1928) and Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

Best Hitchcock Comedy: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

Favorite Hitchcock Cameo: Walking with his dogs in The Birds (1963)

Most Clever Hitchcock Cameo: Seated at the table in the photograph in Dial M for Murder (1954)

Best "Children in Peril" scene in a Hitchcock Film: (tie) Strangers on a Train (1951) Merry-go-round sequence and The Birds (1963) Attack on the school scene.

Most Underrated Hitchcock Film: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

First Hitchcock Hollywood Film: Rebecca (1940)

First Hollywood-Altered Hitchcock Ending: Suspicion (1941) They just didn't want Cary to be a killer.

Best Un-Resolved "Ending" to a Hitchcock Film: The Birds (1963)

Most Clever Experiment in a Hitchcock Film: The "one-take, unbroken shot" of Rope (1948)

Best MacGuffin in a Hitchcock Film: The lighter in Strangers on a Train (1951)

Only 3-D Hitchcock Film: Dial M for Murder (1954)

Best Jimmy Stewart Hitchcock Film: Rear Window (1954)

Most Used Actor by Hitchcock: Leo Carroll in six films. I'm not counting Hitch and his multiple cameos.

and finally,

Best Use of Salvador Dali in a Dream Sequence in a Hitchcock Film about a Psychiatrist falling in love with her patient who is an innocent man wrongly accused: Spellbound (1945) I had to get that scene on the list somehow.

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