Episode 30: Alfred Hitchcock

Happy 4th week of Spooktober! This week we see through the eyes of a true, original innovator of horror, Alfred Hitchcock. Dani and Ify discuss their favorite films and techniques that Hitchcock developed to bring fear to early audiences and sometimes his cast. Thanks to a cameo appearance by Hex Wives author and host of the Thrilling Adventure Podcast, Ben Blacker, the gang gets a fully fleshed out picture of the man behind Rear Window, Vertigo, and many others. Sit back, relax, watch out for birds, and enjoy this week's Nerdificent!

FOOTNOTES:

Hitchcock/Truffaut - The Interview

AFI's 100 Greatest Films of All Time

Roger Ebert - "The Master of Suspense is Dead"

Fallaci Interview - "Mr Chastity"

"What's Wrong with Hitchcock's Women?"

The Revenge of Alfred Hitchcock's Muse

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome to the fourth week of Spooktober.
I can see if he's face right now as I
come in. I just thought I saw you roll your eyes.
Oh yeah, no, I was just I was just like
looking over because I'm bad, uh with remembering names of things,

(00:30):
and so I keep looking at this in front of me.
What you'll hear in just a second. I don't want
to spoil this, okay, So welcome Tontificent. I am Danny Fernandez,
and I sitting across from Danny. I know you're like, man,
last week's intro was way spook here like it had
the production value off the charts, the music, the bars.

(00:50):
This one still has the how. I've been enjoying the
How a lot, okay, but we wanted a Danny ramp. No,
oh my gosh, Spook, I'm not going to do that
to myself. Someone's gonna I'm gonna gets some of them
pull it up later and you might have be the
next CARDI b They're like, oh, she had bars. Actually
sometimes I do get a drink in me. I definitely, yeah,
you'll you'll take one of the other two amigos. I mean,

(01:13):
I'm single, so yeah, you have take off in Quevo.
Now I do Likeevo. Okay, you like mouse like men
if you do know me though, right, yeah, look I
love you Quevo, but you also you know you have
mouse like features. Okay, So yes, welcome to the fourth
week of October. Yes, and today we're getting we were

(01:38):
talking about a pretty spooky creator, which is great because
we have a spooky creator as a guest. You know,
you may know him as a co creator of thrilling
Adventure Hour, and soon you'll know him as the writer
of the smash hit the future Eisner Award winning comic

(02:01):
book hex Wives. Coming to the stage, I mean coming
to the stands a long day. It's always a long
day when we come in. It's always like eight or
nine at night, coming to the stands from d C
and Vertical Comics. This cover is looking real nice, got
some real spooky vibes. You know, I'm gonna let you
go see it because I I can describe it to you,

(02:23):
but then you might be like, yeah, well, also I
don't want people to be like, if you described it,
I'm not gonna get it. Go get the comic book.
Oh it has some spicies. Oh yeah, So now people
are rushing to the stands. They're like, this girl looks
like me. If you ever want to send me some
spicy situations, well art right here. It's like being on

(02:46):
tumbler scenes. You know, some people have done art of me.
I send it to you. Sometimes it's a little offensive.
You know, my knows doesn't look like that. They all
can't be monaise. I'm gonna have to get some picassos
in the mix too. I'm sorry, can you please introduce
our guest? Oh yeah, I've never said his name because
of course I didn't been black or everyone. Hey, how's it?

(03:10):
How was it just seeing us just go into a
tangent and completely ignore you after you wanted to hear it?
I listen several items. First of all, I would love
if before this comic hits the stands, it hits the stage. Well,
you know, I'll put it up on the show. I
don't know actually how much of this we can Yeah, well,

(03:30):
we'll do a live reading of this at the Improv
in Hollywood. Come down in Melrows doing a live reading
of hex Wives and uh soon to be bumped by
Christ'eliah doing sixty minutes of shouting into a mic. Uh Secondly,
I loved that Danny was leafing through it as you
were talking, and seeing her reaction was so satisfying. And

(03:51):
I would kind of love if you just read the
comic what we said just silently. I feel like our one.
I mean, it's the artwork and it is really cool.
But to like ore, we're doing October. Our fans are
really in the spooky stuff. And three, they are also
into the spicies. We know that they are. They follow
Iffie and I. They definitely are, so yeah, and that's cool.

(04:12):
Have you been over at the d C offices I have. Yeah,
I was over there recently for with MAD. They're there too. Yeah.
Are you doing stuff for Mad? Uh? No, I'm not.
I mean, I'm like pitching them stuff. But I was
over there for a twitch stream that they did, so
I was a guest or whatever on there. But my
friend um Ali Gertz is one of the editors there.

(04:35):
She's awful. She's a bad person. Yeah. And then our friend,
our friend Hector Navarro is a host DC Daily. Absolutely, Yeah,
which I think I'm doing. I just heard I'm supposed
to do Daily like next week. Yeah. Hector has with
him he has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics and like

(04:55):
a true appreciation love of all things, Like it's very
hard for him to dislike anything which is good. I
feel like in the Nerds space you need more that,
Like there's so much energy towards hate because good, good
rants get clicks, you know, good praises get skipped. You know,
it's not what I really love about the show, if

(05:17):
you'll allow. Oh yeah, of course. Is that you to
celebrate the things you love rather than taking two tasks
you don't care for that, Yeah, it's okay. Danielle dropped
like five f bombs last time and I caught them
and I was like, oh here this here we do
a bleep here? Yeah, she was, she was, she was
going a hammer and I was all about it because

(05:38):
for Buffy. Ye, So before we even jump into Alfred Hitchcock,
I want to give you a chance to kind of
tell us about Hex. Why let the listeners know what
it's about, what they're in store for. Yeah, I think
I feel like if people listen to this podcast, then
they are into the stuff that I am into, which
means they will like this book because it's like made
of all the stuff I'm into. The hex Wives is

(06:01):
basically Bewitched plus the Stepford Wives. It's about a powerful
coven of witches who is being held against their knowledge
by a cabal of men who fear them and therefore
try to control them. So the first six issues finds
them all of the suburban housewives, and they don't know
that's that they are actually these powerful which is um.

(06:25):
So it's a literal empowerment story. It's also kind of
a documentary about America. Yeah. I was gonna try and
make that joke and then you beat me to the punchline. Oh,
I will not shut up your show. Feel free to shove. Well, no,
this is great because one of these because everyone didn't
get to hear you before. You are so excited to

(06:45):
talk Alfred Hitchcock, And I will say, as much of
a fan I am of him, I am not versed
in his catalog, Like I think the ones I've seen
is Rear Window, some of Birds, Yeah, mostly by some
of Birds. I mean that scene where she's in the
phone booth and she's like these birds. Um. Yeah, you

(07:12):
know I skipped Psycho and saw the sequel American Psycho. Uh,
I know, I definitely want like I've have you never
seen Psycho. I've always been afraid to because I grew
up out here. So we would go to Universal Studios
and we'd go by the Psycho House and the music,
and it scared me so much. I was always afraid

(07:33):
to see the movie. And then there was a point
where it's like, I definitely need to see this movie.
But then it was just it was before Netflix, and
then you know, then you get backlogged, and there's been
so many nights have been like I need to see
all the movies I haven't seen. Uh, buckle up before
we get into this. I'm about to make a few
nerds fall out their seats and sit down. Here's a

(07:54):
list of like, need to see movies I have not
seen yet. I have been seen Princess Bride, I haven't
seen Uh Monty Python. Holy Grail. To see someone go
to Monty Python is hilarious because someone just like at
first did wasn't gonna fall out. I'm turning this off.

(08:15):
Listen if you listener, if you disagree with me about
Monty Python, by two of my books, that'll show me. Yeah, dude, dude,
give give give been the Nike treatment. It's me Bernard
Bins I'll take it. I'll listen before this is gonna

(08:35):
be a ten minute thing about Hitchcock, but every we'll
talk about everything else for fifty minutes. Um. My favorite
Monty Python and I am you know, I came to
it as a young person. My favorite Monty Python show
or film is the documentary about the making of Monty Python,
because I love behind the scenes stuff. But I only

(08:56):
like Monty Python. Okay, Like I like all those guys.
I think they're funny. I want to watch them talk
about their process. But none of the movies are the
show really grabbing. I've never seen Citizen Kane. Okay, it's
a little boring. Yeah, there's a couple like that in
that wheelhouse that I think are all the same movie.
I've never I've missed it and I never cared to

(09:17):
see it until like it became such a point of
contention because of a certain host I used to work
for who married into the family and uh and it
was you know, it was like ever, it just was
so taboo. Yeah, there's only one person in this town
married to a hearst uh. Which that's when you do

(09:37):
your Citizen Kane episode, you will explain that Citizen is
based on the Hearst family. Yeah, oh man, Yeah, so
Schindler's List. I was going to say too, and I
really Oh it's hilarious. I know what it's about, but
I kind of get Citizen Are They both like yeah that,
but are dealing with judicial prisoner shows. One is a

(10:01):
Holocaust movie and the other one is a bad rich man. Okay,
so the Man, Yeah, I guess yeah, that's what I
got confused. Yeah, they're both great movies, make no mistake.
But on the other hand, I've seen It's Wonderful Life
like fifteen times, which is a better movie than both
of us. I've seen him like yeah multiple Christmas is Yeah.

(10:22):
And the last thing I'll say is you'd be surprised
like it was funny because like it was not like
we were in the writer's room just like cranking out
Citizen Kane. But it felt like it felt like as
soon as they got married for some reason, there was
a lot of Citizen Kane jokes. So so it's a
it was very weird um all round. I would love

(10:44):
if you two did an episode about people's like gaps
in nerd knowledge. It would be oh man, that would
be a good like runner to do where it is
like a flip where we find something we like, I
do bring in so one who's like a huge princess
bride or Monty python head and they just just dumb.

(11:04):
I mean, that's kind of what this is gonna be
full disclosure with Alfred Hitchcock, which is why I'm so
excited that you're jazzed on it. Because if we aren't
the source of like excitement and knowledge, we like to
have a guest on who is that source? Because that's
what this is about. Is really just this show is
the equivalent of when you're getting your friend into something

(11:26):
that you're into and you're just like this and this
and uh so let's jump right into it and start
off with Alfred Hitchcock's youth instead of that. Can I
make a suggestion, I don't have that thing that you're
both looking at in front of me. But I think
and I'm not so interested in biography of people because

(11:46):
I don't care about people. Um. I think the best
way or about a good way to talk about Hitchcock
is to look at his three best movies, because he
made three masterpieces basically um Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window
and way that was hilarious because I'm sorry, I'm gonna

(12:09):
just i gotta let the listeners know what just Danny
was in full agreement for for a time and was
they were. They were bonding and connecting on such a level.
And then by the time the end of that list hit,
it was like someone took a knife and cut that
bond in half and they both shot away from each other.

(12:31):
And I was like, whoa, I only know one of
those movies. Um, um m, well, no, I totally agree.
We normally like to give like a tiny bit of
the back story for the person. And also we're clearly
going to talk about the birds. Oh no, no, I'm
not saying solely about because then there's like the second tier,
like great movie like north By Northwest is a great

(12:52):
but it's not a masterpiece. Yeah, and never get into that.
And and to be honest, this is what we to
be honest on our show. Uh, we do get kind
of you know, diing from people that are like, we
didn't talk about this, and you didn't talk about this episode.
I'm like, we literally can't you know? And and it
sounds a person like you already know that episode really well,
so I don't know what I mean. Yeah, but I

(13:15):
like to hear ya. That is, like I do tend
to go first to the episodes where I'm like, when
that Buffy episode came out, yes, I want to hear
all you enjoy it. We picked like the one and
we let Danielle pick them, but it was also ones
that had been ranked and also by Joss is like
his favorite ones and so but her you know, kind
of also agreeing with that. But which is where I

(13:36):
sort of got the idea to like, look at the Yeah,
that's what I think, rather than bish movies. Yeah, you're
totally right. Um, so let's just let's just give some
background on our dude. Yeah, and then we'll jump into
these three grades. But I'm already through British movies whatever
and started over there, which will learn Look something I
learned another brit fact. I hope you're ready for tang

(14:00):
slick Rick born in He's British. He was born in
the United Kingdom but moved to New York like when
he was like tin, so he barely was American. Rick
cast yeah, because I was like, what happened? How do
we get grimes? As slick Rick is like, And I
was like Okay, that makes sense. Same thing with M. F.
Doom Born in UK came to l A, I mean,

(14:21):
came to the USA and it still rhymes. It's still rhymes.
I don't know why I said l A anyway. Sir,
oh yep, I see the English now. Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Uh.
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director and producer,
widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in

(14:41):
the history of cinema, and he was known as the
Master of Suspense, which actually I'd like to give that
title to my mama, who really, you know, really kept going.
What is M. Knight known as? Then the Master of Twists?
And I will give him that title. Then what's Chubby Checker? No, No,
We're just gonna go down this line. Oh, this is

(15:04):
gonna be a goofy one. Uh. He directed over fifty
feature films in a career spanning six decades. Really long.
That's like Ron Howard in it? Yeah? Is that what
it's called? Ron Howard? How old is run out? He's
still doing it. Yeah, he's still doing it. He's been around,
I mean maybe not as directing, but he's definitely been
in Hollywood his entire life. He became known as having

(15:26):
a cameo in his films. He was the first Stanley
There we go, he did, I mean he did, he did.
And so as a teen, this is how he got
into into film. As a teen, he lived with his
widowed mother. He didn't have a girlfriend or much of
a social life. This is something that he's talked about.
And he would take solo trips to the theater. So

(15:46):
at sixteen he was reading trade magazines and visiting London's
movie palaces. Three years later he wrote a short story
called Gas and that was about a moral woman's descent
into the decadence of Paris. And that's kind of gonna
be a theme with him, especially in his earlier films,
but in his continued film kind of this like Pristine Woman,

(16:07):
the you know, beautiful blonde that kind of delves into
horror or sin. It's interesting too. I mean to say that,
like that's going to be one of the themes. We
talked about that and that is the major theme. But
like when you talk about Hitchcock, you talk about themes
because there are the sort of running He's the most

(16:29):
consistent filmmaker that there are these running ideas and also
running technical things that go that you can trace through
his whole career. So I think it's interesting to bring
up that, Like he started going to movies when he
was a teenager, which was really at the time of
the birth of movies. Yeah, Like he grew up in
movies at the same time movies grew up. And so

(16:49):
when he sort of made he started making movies as
a young man, and he made like twenty four British
films and like twelve Years or something like that, And
it was in a time that he sort of synthesized
all the things that movies could and would be when
it came to both performance and story, but also the

(17:10):
technical aspects like moving the camera. Yeah, sound appear like
he made a bunch of silent films. That was actually
his start. He got in in nine He got to
start at an American movie company called Famous Players Last
Key that had moved to London. And so what he
did was he made sample title cards, like so the
way that like um that they would actually draw like.

(17:33):
He was a title card illustrator back for the black
and white silent films, and so he made a bunch
of those and they gave him the job. And then
he started working in props and sets, as you do
when you're when you're working for a movie company, and
someone gave him like a slips like, hey, there's this
company company Adobe out here and that's trying to trying
to encroach upon our photoshops. So, okay, I'm gonna cut

(17:56):
the jokes in the end of the jokes of the episode.
I like to remind people we are how stuff works comedy,
and you know, it's kind of boring when you're just
reciting someone's like, yeah, exactly, this ain't being comedy. We'll
step it up. We'll step it up. But then Paramount

(18:17):
pulled out of London in two but Hitchhock he didn't
stop there. He was hired as an assistant director by
a firm that would be later known as Gainsborough Picture,
and then he worked his way up and had his
first thriller, The Lodge, a story of the London fog,
that dropped in nineteen seven. Man, that is exactly nine.

(18:40):
Are you trying to do the math before? No? Okay,
So The Lodger, which was about the hunt for a
serial killer who wearing a black cloak and carrying a
black bag is murdering young women in London. So again, um,
this was largely based off of his fascination with Jack
the Ripper. Again, we have this this blonde woman that

(19:04):
appears and that will continue to be a trope for him.
Do you feel at all, like, I know, he's such
a respected director, but I mean, this has to be
problemat you're smiling, has to be seen. I mean, it's
not that I want to go back and look at
because we get kind of people get upset when you
look back at art as like, especially when it happens

(19:26):
you know, but you know, it doesn't matter. Some people
like Rod Serling, we learned we're able to be progressive
even in a time which it's not accepted. That's true,
I think, you know. And and that's why I mentioned
like we talked about his masterpieces, which sort of pointed
to his obsessions also, and his obsessions are what makes
him problematic in part. The other part of what makes

(19:46):
him problematic is he was not a nice person. No,
and he was I watched you can watch YouTube videos
because there's footage of him and he was super inappropriate
with his actresses. Is one of him like lifting up
her dress and like while she's speaking, and like the
way he would alert and so it's yeah, it's really
interesting and I'm sorry to interrupt. Um, I there's I

(20:07):
always read about that stuff and I saw those videos too,
and I thought, like, this guy's a monster. Um. And
then I was reading this great biography by Peter Ackroyd
of Hitchcock, and it's sort of a great casual biography.
It's not super in depth because as I said, I
don't like to get into biography. And the portrait he
paints of Hitchcock is basically as a control freak who

(20:29):
was afraid of everything, so as a way of quelling
his own anxiety and his own fear of the world.
Like he was afraid to walk from one end of
a set to another because he was afraid someone would
come talk to him and he wouldn't know how to
have that interaction. So he was this neurotic, anxious guy. Um.
And so the way he treated other people was to

(20:52):
utterly control them. Um. And he did like he was
particularly hard on women because he was so afraid of them,
which doesn't excuse it by any means, but it's his
way of dealing with the world, which is fascinating in
terms of his movies because all of that is in there,
Like his movies are so loaded with his personality. Yeah,

(21:14):
another thing that I learned as we were researching this
is that another another element of that was that he
was very uncomfortable with his body. He was uncomfortable with
his sexuality. In fact, he actually said that he was
celibate at thirty even though he was married, he was
married with a child, and said that he was no
longer having sex anymore, and so the but he also
and I read that too, but he also loved his

(21:35):
wife so much. Yeah, I mean, you can do both.
But he was so so like buttoned up and so
stand offish and that you would think that he would
never display any emotion. But later in their lives, when
Alma got sick, like, he was on the floor, literally
on the floor of whatever film he was directing at
the time because he couldn't deal with it. Yeah. Well,

(21:56):
it's so interesting because just once again touch back on
the whole Rod Serling thing. We when we had Twilight
and we're talking about Rod Serling using his fears and
his shows and everything was so obviously kind of touching
on his experiences with the war, and I feel like,
even what I know about all the Hitchcock films, it

(22:18):
seems very the same situation. Is if you look at
something like rear Window, the one that I've actually seen
someone who is witnessing something and it can do nothing
about it. Of course, that would make a control freak
freak out. You're in a situation that that you want
to do something and you can't do it. You're stuck,

(22:40):
that is, and you know it's it's kind of crazy.
But I think one thing I want to hit on
for my future writers listening to not my future all
my writers out there listening listening to the cast, and
you're like anchoring for ideas for something scary. Think about
what scares you. It seems time and time again that

(23:02):
seems to be what because I also, one of the
best piece of writing advice I've gotten was when someone
was like, right, what you know, don't be afraid to
make your characters you you know, just reskin yourself and
make it. And it's true when you put an element
of yourself into your character because you know yourself so well,
it's so easy to write that. So of course, writing

(23:22):
something scary, that focus on something you're actually afraid of
is going to be good and also can show some
glaring issues that you also have. That's the other fascinating
thing though with Hitchcock is I don't know how self
aware he was about this stuff is he would conceive
of films. And North By Northwest is a great example

(23:43):
for for if you who hasn't seen it, it's basically
a series of set pieces, like you've seen the famous
parts of it where Carrie Grant is being chased by
a crop duster in the middle of nowhere, or he's
hanging off of Mount Rushmore and at the end of
the movie. And so the way that Hitchcock can sieved
of movies was to say, here are the things I
want to do, and logic doesn't really matter. Um. What

(24:07):
he wasn't realizing was how much everything he was putting
together was saying about him. Like Rear Window is another
great example. I don't think he understood, or at least
he never talked about the way that not having control
of the situation would be so terrifying of him for
him right to him, the movie was an opportunity to

(24:27):
one work with Grace Kelly, who was his absolute favorite
in an almost creepy way. Um, but but also like
she's a person and was kind of pals with him,
So there's a sort of strips away the creepiness that
was built up over the years. But to him, it
was about working with Grace Kelly and being able to

(24:50):
build an entire apartment Like to him, that was the
fun of that movie was I get to build this
apartment set, which is both the interior and then the
window looking out to something like a dozen different apartments,
and you had to be able to see into every
single one and orchestrating the movements of the actors in
all of those apartments. Like that was the fun of directing.

(25:12):
To him, he didn't care about story. He didn't care
about character. Um, you both can tell me as an
actor if this is terrible. But the way he would
direct actors is to tell them to do nothing. Is
he would just say like and carry Grant actually responded
very well to this. He liked this kind of directing
where the entire direction was all right, then just turn

(25:35):
your head to the left slightly and look down and
we're done. Like that was it. And someone like Paul Newman,
who did one of the later films, who is a
very method sort of actor, was like, but what am
my feeling? Was my motivation? He was like, because he
always said your motivation is your paycheck. I mean that.
I don't know if that's always the correct part, but

(25:55):
I do know that there are a lot of actors
and famous actors that are just like, just let me
do my think, um. And I do know that Meryl Streep,
who's an amazing actress, obviously has said whatever she is
feeling is truthful for her character, so it can never
be wrong. So if she's feeling angry in that moment,
well then that means that that is true for her character,

(26:18):
which is a really interesting way. And I feel like
my teachers have approached acting with us that way as well,
where it's like, no, I'm gonna cry, and this isn't
right for the scene. This is like something emotionally I'm
dealing with personally, but they're like, but it might actually
because they are actors myself included in class that have
cried during comedy scenes and it's like, this is not right,
but it makes it funnier that you're crying over this

(26:38):
dumb thing that happened, you know, like you got rear
ended or something. It's like a tiny little thing and
you're just having a complete breakdown. But like that is
kind of funny, is it's an unexpected thing. But Hitchcock
wouldn't have any of that. You would tell you to
show absolutely nothing. Oh, show no emotion to me, because
he subscribed to that montage theory, which which is true,

(26:59):
but nobody really lies it to actors, where like you
can show a completely blank face and then you can
show like a wild barking dog and it makes you
think that this is an angry person. And then you
can show a clown and you make it think it's
a happy person, even though the face hasn't changed at all.
So he was juxtaposing what the actor was doing, which
was nothing, with the next image on the screen. Also,

(27:21):
the audience is going to put themselves on it. Then
they're going to put whatever they're feeling on it. It's
all projection. Yeah, for sure, that's great. Do we need
to take a break? We do. Yeah, we're actually going
to take a break and when we get back, we're
going to get into some of our favorite Hitchcock films
right after this, right after this, and we'll come back

(27:50):
to another spooky Apple episode of Narratifficent. Across from Me
is Danny Fernandez and Ben Blacker in the Kinney Corner.
What if we made his chair smaller than ours? I
actually had my first ever commercial agent, uh in his office,
are like, if you sat across from him the chair
was lower than his I thought it was. Isn't it growth?

(28:12):
He's a growth person. I'm not with him anymore, and
I'm doing great. Um. I didn't mean that sarcastically. I'm
doing good. Um. So Ben, you were during the break
talking about that you actually like Rope a lot. I
like Rope. I like a lot of the so Hitgecock
came to Hollywood. Um, he was lured here by the
promise of money and control, and when he got here

(28:34):
he found he didn't have any control, but he did
have money. That makes sense, right. So he was working
with under David Selznick, who was running the studio, and
he made a bunch of really interesting movies that are
on the verge of being great movies, and Rope is
one of them. And Rope is sort of a technical puzzle.

(28:56):
It's based on a stage play about these two guys.
Is who for for philosophical reasons to prove that they
can get away with murder. Murder a friend of them,
and they hied him just to show that they can
do it really man, and they hide him in this chest.
Is the friend along with it? Go ahead? I bet

(29:18):
you can't. I mean, you never know. It reminds me
of like a magic trick or something. You can't cut
me in half? Do you think that's how that magic
trick started? Probably? I can't. Just give me a few
hours to find some mirror. Wait, is that how? So? Yeah?
It truly is so rope came out. Yeah, and so

(29:40):
it was these two friends. So it's the two friends.
They murder their their other friend. They put him in
a box and they throw a dinner party and they
have dinner on the chest that he's in, and they
invite their professor who taught them about this stuff, who's
played by Jimmy Stewart. And this is the first Jimmy Stewart.
I think it was the first affair. Yeah, oh, you
mean the first Jimmy Stewart like his main film. No,
I think it was the first three story in which yeah,

(30:01):
and Stewart was a really I think is probably the
best Hitchcock actor because he brings so much heart to
everything he does. And where like I said, like Hitchcock
doesn't direct people and he has no heart. You need
someone like Stewart or someone like Carry Grant who's so
charming to bring so much bring humanity to the parts.

(30:21):
But the technical puzzle of rope was that it was
meant to look like it's all done in one shot,
so as the story goes along, the camera moves and
it'll like move behind something when it's time to cut
the film, so it's basically done in these ten minutes.
The instance of birdmanning exactly, yeah, I mean it was,
it's totally that um, except without using a computer to

(30:42):
go over like to fix it right, which was really neat. Um.
So it's a fun hands on back when filmmaking was
it was a neat experiment, and he Hitchcock didn't love it,
and Jimmy Stewart hated it because they would do these
eleven minute takes where they had to hit their marks
and they had to get every line exactly right, and
Hitchcock was so precise that it was grueling to work

(31:04):
on and he said he would never work with him again.
But then of course he did. Yeah, yeah, and he
did in uh in rear window that our next Yeah
he didn't. Never the Man who Knew Too Much might
have been in there too, which is for sure. Yeah,
and so there's so there's so many to talk about
on here. We're gonna just hite sentence synopsis of Man

(31:27):
Who Knew Too Much? So I know which ones to rent.
This is a good one. It's a remake of a
movie he made in ninety two. Well that one was
actually oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, am I right
about that ninety four, So he remade the film that
he had already made in London. So he did this
American version with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, who are

(31:48):
a great American couple. Like the most American couple does,
it still stay pretty much the same. So it was
about a man and a wife who received a clue
to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their
daughter has kidnapped to keep them quiet. Look at look
at who our man's took this if he um freaking
what's his name? That does all these films have taken

(32:08):
films Liam Neeson. Yeah. Also, this is the first instance.
This is literally taken. I think that's what we'll do.
We'll just find something that uses an element of a
Hitchcock film and say that it was a blanking Buffy speak,
which is every movie used an aspect of a Hitchcock

(32:30):
film that came every movie that came after it. Um.
But but I do recommend it's a sort of lighter Hitchcock,
which like as much as his Hitchcock was obsessed with
voyeurism and violence towards women, he also had a lot
of comedy. He did have a lot of comedy, which
I think is what makes them watchable. He was a
comedic person if you look at interviews with and his

(32:52):
Alfred Hitchcock Presents was also comedic. I was watching one
where he was like going to the He was like,
we have to take a break now, by no mean
buy this product from these people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, until
like you have to come back here, and well yeah,
he's very dry and it works. It works. So moving
on to Rear Window, which was nineteen against so this

(33:13):
would be his third time working with Jimmy Stewart. You
guys missed my Jimmy Stewart impression during the break. Why
don't clients clients. I want to live Zuzus paddles larns.
You guys, I would say, my mom makes me watch
that every Christmas and she cries. We thought that was great.

(33:36):
We love you. We're just gonna go a different way,
you know, you know, just diversity. But your your mother
is ner house Dash, right, that's right, Okay, I'm done
my spot on Jimmy Stewart, and I think i'm some point.
I think at some point I sounded like Reba McIntyre.

(34:00):
You rear window, rear window, which again, like you said,
so it's starring Jimmy Stewart and and Grease Kelly. Again,
I'm just gonna let you explain it because you are
a guest. Uh No, Yeah. Jimmy Stewart is a photographer
who has broken his leg, and so he's laid up

(34:20):
in his room and he starts looking out the window
and watching his neighbors. Again we're hitting the theme of
voyeurism and what he believes he sees is a neighbor
having murdered his wife, the neighbor's wife. So again violence
against women his twin themes um. Meanwhile, Jimmy's girlfriend, Grace Kelly,

(34:45):
is trying to get him to settle down. There's a
great like romantic relationship plot going on. There's that comic
relief character who is his nurse, who is a friend
of theirs. I can't remember the actor's name. She's so
funny in it. Was it Thelma Ritter, Yeah, she's so
great in that movie. So basically it unfolds that like
Stewart can't leave his room, but he wants. He's like

(35:06):
kind of growing crazy. Yeah, he's becoming obsessed with this neighbor,
and so he sends Grace Kelly over to go to
break into the house, and you get these great scenes
of tension until the climax when it is revealed what's happening.
I won't spoil this. You know what else does this
disturb you? I'm sorry that does this? How? I was

(35:30):
like they did all that in the Rihanna video, but um,
of course not. Because Chila buff is in house arrest
he sees his neighbor. It's yeah, the same that it
is a real rear window. It was remade with Christopher Reeve.
Did know that the eighties? It was? I think it
was a TV movie. I've never seen it with Christopher

(35:51):
Reeve in a wheelchair, so it must have been later.
It must have been after his accident, but I cannot
imagine it's any good. Yeah, okay, so let me say this. Okay.
Hitchcock described Jimmy Stewart by saying he's the perfect Hitchcock
hero because he's the everyman in bizarre situations. I think

(36:12):
that is what why Stewart is like the best in
Hitchcock movie is he's so relatable. How would we act
if we were putting this scenario? Yeah? So then moving
on from that, we have uh, let's see, we have vertigo.
Yeah when was that? Years before? We were born Lord
nineteen again starting Jimmy Stewart. So, I guess this would

(36:35):
be like a weird thing I feel like in Hollywood
to have, you know. I mean I know that um
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan's you know, but like
I think if it were this level where every single no,
I don't know, like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were
Christian Bale. People love their dudes. I need to find
me a director. To find me a director, dude who's

(36:57):
going to be putting me It makes sense, right, there's
a shorthand and if you work well with someone you
want to Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I'm thinking like
if this I'm not trying to say anything back, like
if this would have been weird back in that time
of like having but yeah, that's a good question, like
it was that normal or was it weird to like
have the same person? Yeah, especially if you're like, oh,

(37:18):
Hitchcock's coming out, Well, I guess that means Jimmy Stewart
is going to be the lead, you know what I mean? Well,
through the mid fifties or so, the actors were usually
under contract with Yes so, and then that the directors
are under contract with the studios too, So sometimes I
get matched up, sometimes not, and sometimes they would like
it was it seems sort of arbitrary, like they would

(37:38):
pull actors from other studios too. If this sounds the
least bit interesting to you, I suggest checking out the
Coen Brothers film Halsey's Oh My Gosh. I love that movie.
Like a lot of did not like it. I was
so on board for it, especially if you're like, if
you like goof it on old Hollywood and all like
the dumb stuff, what's his face? You know? Talking about magic?

(38:01):
Mike um Ning tum Channing Tatum. He's you just need
to say magic. If you liked Magic Mike, he does
have a few. Uh Magic mikey. He shows his Magic Mike,
not all of it, but he shows that's a thing now,
and I'm like, I'm here for it. You don't find
Bradley Cooper like everyone's showing their dingling. If I'm seeing

(38:25):
how I'm getting snatched up. I'm praying for another magic.
But I am praying for another magic. But do you
know how quick I will have my manager have me
in a room. I am burning incense. It's talking to mommy.
Watta for a magic? Oh? You can come do moon
rituals with me? If he well, can I just send

(38:47):
you one of my third traps and you'll put it
in for me. I guess I could put on my
vision board for you. But if you get it, you
got to bring me in for a cameo or something. Hey, look,
my friend she put me on our She's yeah, and
she's the reason I'm here. And I'll say, you know,
none of us have anything to do with the Magic
Mike franchise, So you don't have to have your pants

(39:07):
off right now. But you know, I just feel like,
just in case you never know. That's how I walked
into a room and Vitigo came out in nine? Can
you break it down for us? I don't know that
I can. It's a complicated movie. Do you have it
in front of you? Oh? Yeah, for sure. Um, so
again we have Jimmy Stewart, this time with Kim Novak
and Barbara Bell Getties. He wanted so Hitchcock wanted Vera

(39:30):
Miles to play the lead, but she was pregnant and
he was really put off by that. He was like,
how dare someone go off and have a life when
I have a movie to make? Was he really? Oh damn,
I thought you were a kidding You know. This is
how he was about. When he found people he liked,
he wanted to have them, and so he'd become obsessed
with these actresses. He tried to bring Grace Kelly out

(39:52):
of retirement after she became a princess and I don't
want to deal with that. She almost did, which I
thought was really interesting. She was going to come back
for I want to say Psycho, but I may be wrong, Um,
but she was. She would only have been doing it
for the money because Monico is that what she was

(40:12):
princess was in debt and so she was going to
do a movie and take the money. And then when
he found that out, he was so depressed. Producer know,
I was gonna say our producer Dan gave us this
quote from Hitchcock. I was offering her a big part,
the chance to become a beautiful, sophisticated blonde, a real actress.
We'd have spent a heap of dollars on it. And
she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate

(40:34):
pregnant women because then they have children. Your wife literally
was pregnant. Oh yeah, I don't know that. He saw
her as a woman. Like it's a weird, complicated, kind
of gross relationship where he respected and loved her and
she was a creative partner through their whole lives. Like
she started editing his films and they would break stories

(40:55):
together and she never got any credit for that stuff.
But he could not that stuff without her. She was
bigger than him, did you know that? So she actually
started so if he she was at the London production company,
she was bigger than him. And he started out as
an assistant and he liked her for two years. I
remember because I watched the true Hollywood story on this.

(41:16):
He like and we have it in the footnotes. But um,
he liked her, but didn't ask her out until he
thought he was equal to her. And some still do
that to this day. But you are so right. Yeah
she was. She was a businesswoman and and then you
know that kind of fell or he got most of
the credit after that. So so Vertigo. Jimmy Stewart plays Scotty,

(41:37):
a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, which is a
fear of heights, who develops an obsession with a woman
he has been hired to shadow. God, there is yeah
this obsession, okay with obsession. Yes, Scotty's obsession leads to tragedy,
and this time Hitchcock does not up for a happy ending.
Dun dun, dumb um. Vertigo contains a camera technique developed

(41:59):
by Ermine Roberts, commonly referred to as a dolly zoom,
that has been copied many times by filmmakers. Oh yeah,
so this technique was used on me once in my
first TV thing I ever filmed in Hollywood called Drugs
Made Me do it on the Bio Channel. Yeah, I
was in a docu drama where it played Big Lurch

(42:19):
and to do one of the scenes so I can.
So basically the way it works is as you zoom in, uh,
as you physically zoom in the camera, as you push
in the camera physically you also zoom out, and creates
an effect where it looks pretty cool the world kind
of it looks like the world is bending almost uh.
And so they did that as an effect of me

(42:41):
on PCP before I Hate Someone's lungs. Yep, it was.
It is uh generally known as the vertigo shot. In
the place where it's most famously used outside of Vertigo
is in Jaws when Chief Broody is on the hook.
Yeah and he's looking Yeah, it's right shot. I mean.
And we can talk if you like about how Spielberg

(43:03):
is the new Hitchcock. Huh. But we'll wait, Yeah, Spielberg,
it'll be a reveal well, the so vertigo. So the
Vertigo shot was also using Good Fellas, Road to Tradition,
Body Double, the Island of Dr Moreau and Remake The

(43:24):
Lord of the Rings and Josie and the Pussycats, but
obviously a lot of others. An illustrious last I'm glad
you ended with a bang, the Oscar front Runner that
just got snubbed. Um. Yeah, so we're actually going to
take a quick break and then we're going to get
into one of his biggest films of all time, Psycho,

(43:46):
right after this and we're back so so Psycho. It's
kind of cool because we just did the Halloween franchise.
Is so we talked about Jamie Lee Curtis and her
mother was in this. I also think it's pretty cool
whenever actors don't take on their parents last name. No,

(44:09):
I think it's cool, like their famous parents because they're like,
I'm my own person. Because Janet Lee is Jamie Lee
Curtis Lee Lee, but she spelled it differently. True, but
you know her, she did take her famous father's last name.
Oh never mind, Um, is he as famous? Yes, he's
more famous. Please leave that in wait, look up, Tony Curtis.

(44:36):
I'm looking Okay, Tony Curtis. He was in Houdini. Um.
Never some like it hot. You know these were all
before my time? Yeah, did you ever see the Flints
like the sixties, Danny? These were living before our time,
Like I said, was in The flint Stones but then
had a character named Stony Curtis. That's how famous he was. Okay,

(45:00):
just yeah, it's all good because we're living thirty years
before Danny. I know, he kind of looks a little like, oh,
he's done a lot. This is why Alicia Malone is
on Turner Classic Movies and I'm not. I'm also not
a movie reviewer. Nowhere do I care to be. Once
that film gets black and white, I was like, this

(45:21):
isn't for me. Literally, I wasn't allowed in the theaters.
That's a good joke, Iffy. So let's talk about let's
talk about Psycho with um you know the mom of
Jamie Lee Curtis, who Jamie Lee kept her name, both
of them, I guess technically. Um. So, Psycho came out
in nineteen sixty arguably one of his most best, well

(45:45):
known films. Yeah, probably generally regarded as his masterpiece, right,
Like I think Rear Window is really his best movie,
and it's his most watchable movie. But Psycho has in
the way that Vertigo does, has all of his obsession
in it, and it's it's super watchable. So here's the
thing I want to ask, So you've seen Psycho. If

(46:07):
you have not seen Psycho, my wife had not seen
Psycho until a couple of years ago, and we were
watching it. We were at home watching it. Now, you
live in the world, do you know the twist and Psycho? Yes, okay,
because um because it was one of those things. Because
I actually, oh, my gosh, here we go. I have

(46:31):
seen New Hope, Empire strikes back. It's gonna come around, right,
And I stopped there. I was like, Vader one it all,
this is, this is how it ends by. But like
I only saw those I think maybe four or five
years ago, and when I was watching it, it was
so interesting watching a movie that I know all the
references too, because it's so in the world. And same

(46:54):
thing with Psycho. I think it's one of the It
is the horror movie. So yeah, I know Norman is
his mom, so you would think we, as people living
in the world, know all these references. So I'm watching
this movie with my wife and we're really enjoying it,
and towards the end of it, she goes, oh, thank God,
Norman Bates is here to save him. And I stopped

(47:17):
the movie, like, what did you just say? She said,
Norman Bates is going to save her from the murderer
who's here, I said, you don't know what happens in
this movie, do you. This movie is fifty years old
and you don't know what happens. So it was amazing
to watch this pure viewing experience which still works. So
like it works if you know the twist, which most

(47:39):
people do, but it really it's amazing to me that
it can be out there and like people, it doesn't
feel dated at all. Yeah, and I love that you
paused the movie to spoil it for your wife, like
you didn't see this, because if you stop that, I'm like, Oh,
I guess he's not. I guess he's not. She's not
movie savvy at all. She was like it, Well, he

(48:00):
asked me a question. Let's keep watching. Why are you
asking me this? Get it going? I did want to
say that Psycho was based on Robert Block's novel Psycho,
which came out in nineteen fifty nine, which was inspired
by the case of Ed Again. Is that how do
you think I think guying? Yeah? So the Texas chainsaw
masker dude, A bunch of things were based on that
true story. Yeah, leather face or whatever. Uh, someone that

(48:24):
likes to cut people up and put their skin on.
So then eventually would be Silence of the Lambs as well,
a little bit in there. Yeah, and I remember Jonathan
Demi talking about that. I mean, Psycho is sort of
the beginning of modern horror. You know, it's not about monsters,
it's a psychological story. Um, it's definitely the beginning of

(48:45):
the slasher genre, right had there would be no Halloween
without Psycho, which is so fascinating because when we're talking
about Halloween, it was like, this is the start. A
lot of people feel like this is the real push
towards slashers. So it's cool that you know that Janet
Lee and then Jamie Lee were both kind of seen
as the start of their picar their particular generation slashers. Yeah,

(49:07):
Halloween was definitely like the trope catifier, but Psycho was
the sort of primordials that it came out of because
it has all the stuff that great slasher movies have.
But there's something about it that's kind of I wouldn't
say an art film, but there's something elevated about it
because the tropes didn't exist yet. Yeah, it's not just

(49:28):
gore porn. Yeah, there's some substance, but beneath it, Yeah,
we're talking about that on the Halloween episode. Also, I
want to add a little bonus treat for all the
listeners who might be running to go watch Psycho because
tis the season. Um, so obviously now we're in the future,
you can't really watch it in the film unless you
have like an Alamo Drafthouse or something that's doing something

(49:49):
cool like that. So to help you out, I want
you to mark up this next portion right next to
the end of Psycho where where the big twist happened.
And I'm gonna give you a movie watching experience. So
just just on the count of three, they need to
turn down their headphones. No, no, they need to try

(50:11):
to turn it up. So here it is. Oh, Norman
Bates is the Psycho. That's what I was called psycho.
Damn alright, perfect. So that's that. That is an experience
that's would be like if if you were in the
movie theater with me watching it, which is all anyone watch.
Oh my gosh. I love when you're in the theater

(50:33):
with someone who likes to call out like the connection
or like if they the title, and so it's like
if you and I get we go to screening sometimes together.
We haven't as much anymore, but like we used to
go a lot together. That's all right. I literally pressed
Funimation to make sure. I was like, yo, I haven't

(50:54):
been any screenings. You got something coming up, and I
was like, no, we don't have the next one until
Dragon ball Z. Broadly, I'm like bet yeah, No. I
was going to say. We went to a bunch of
the Marvel ones when they were coming out. We went
to UM and it was so it was so funny
to sit next to you Um, because you were just like,
when Tony start calls that dude squid word, You're like,

(51:15):
he called him squid word. Theater, I'm like, damn, it
was great. Don't open that door. Yea Psycho. Psycho, we
started the unprecedented violence of the shower scene. We had

(51:39):
the early death of the heroine, which is not normal
and innocent lives distinguished by a disturbed murderer became the
homeworks of a new horror film genre, something that I
thought was really interesting and doing my homework for this
UM was to read that Hitchcock, like Psycho is his masterpiece.
This is a brilliant movie. V He did not care

(52:01):
about it, like he he didn't feel compelled to make
it in the way he did some of his other films.
He saw that horror films were popular in the fifties,
like The Fly and stuff like that, and was like,
I could make a horror film. I could make a
lot of money. He had had a couple of flops
before that and was like, this will make some money.
And he put most of his own money into it.

(52:22):
So he wound up making a ton of money off
of it. Yeah, so it was actually his most profitable
of his career. He earned fifteen million personally, he earned
fifteen million, and he shot it fast and cheap too,
which is really interesting. Yeah. So I want to say
that's the equivalent of a hundred and twenty four over
a hundred twenty four million in today. Passionate. But but

(52:48):
he subsequently swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV
anthology for a hundred and fifty shares of m c A,
making making him the third largest shareholder and his own
boss at Universal. Look, guys, I just got into stocks
and I just know that's tight. Also, if you want
to join me on robin Hood, hit me up on
Twitter so I can send you my invite link. We

(53:09):
both get a free stock um ain't been tight. Good
time to buy in right now? Is this the time
for plugs? Yeah? Do you have a Robert check out
hex Wives? It's out on Halloween. Sorry, I just need
to add something. I meant a hundred fifty thousand shares
of m c A. That's a lot of shares, two
shares a Nike and uh I was going to say, yeah.

(53:32):
So Psycho was made on a very constrained budget of
eight hundred thousand, which even for the time, was nothing. Yeah. Yeah,
it was a different kind of filmmaking for him, and
I think that's part of why it became something greater
than the stuff he had done leading up to it. Yeah.
And it was shot in black and white on a
spare set using crew members from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I

(53:54):
didn't realize that he was doing that at that time,
which also which which I was interested to read. And
I'm not very familiar with Alfred Hitchcock Presents because they
were hard to find for a while. Um, but that
was just a cash grab for him. Also that he
was sort of a name brand director and they said
do you want to do TV? And he was like, well,
what do I have to do? Do you have to
write or direct anything. They said, no, just come in

(54:17):
and introduce these things and put your name on. He
was like, done, I mean why not? Yeah, I'm game.
Uh So then we have my favorite the Birds that
came out and I sound like I'm saying the Birds,
The Birds nineteen sixty three, and this is uh, I
don't know, this is to me like peak horror, like

(54:38):
peak scary movie. This I don't want to say. It's
not like gore Port necessarily, but it kind of is
to have your eyeballs like Pete, you know, pecked out
by birds. When was the last time you saw it?
M hm? You were a youth, right, yeah, I mean
I was like maybe I was in my twenties. It's
not as gry as you remember it. You know what.

(54:59):
We were talking about that with Halloween, which is actually
didn't have like any blood really, but you imagined. Yeah,
the Birds has the same. Similar thing. We'll look at
that he's they are walking in each other, well, he's
walking in his footsteps. Then like there's the shower scene
and you see blood going down the drain somebody in
birds like their eyes are pecked out, like yeah, look

(55:23):
it up. Oh damn I'm going to watch. I've an
it in a long time, but I really think it
is because you couldn't get away with that. I mean,
like not necessarily show, but they feel like they show
them going at their face. There were Tippy Hedren was
pretty much abused on the set of this movie. She
was a commercial actress that he saw and was like, Okay,

(55:44):
that's my next blonde that I'll be obsessed with. That's
it's so crazy because you know it really speaking of
like influences in Hollywood and the idea of like the
perfect leading lady is this blonde blah blah blah. We
have this director who's like, that's all I want. It's blonde, blonce, blonce, blonce,
and he happens to be this influential. It's like, oh,

(56:05):
you did that. Would it surprise you to learn that
his mother wasn't icy blonde? You know what they say
about moms or at least freud. Yeah, I didn't. We
didn't even That is Ben Acker's joke. I want people
to know he hasn't pinned on Twitter. That is my
writing partner's joke. But it was so appropriate I did

(56:25):
want to say because we didn't even say What the
Birds Was. It focuses on a series of sudden, unexplained,
violent bird attacks on the people of Bedega Bay in
California over the course of a few days. Um. I
loved it. My parents used to show it to us
when I was a little and I just thought it
was so terrifying. It's a great scary movie. But it's
a scary movie that young people can like kids can

(56:47):
watch because it's not terribly gory. What I love. One
of the things I love about it is that the
bird attacks are never explained, like he was not interested
in that, and they that, yeah, they're sort of throughout like, well,
it could be this, or it could be this at
various points, but you don't know. It just happens. If
you if I am to put on my guide you

(57:09):
had for a second, that's what makes the perfect monster movie.
And I and it was funny because a lot of
people was really mad about that. In the one good
American Godzilla movie, which was the Brian Kranston went fight me.
Uh is is people like you don't find out where
he comes from. It's like you never knew where he
comes from. We assume it's like I think one says

(57:31):
it is like atomic uh, like lizard, but it isn't
like explored, and like there isn't like a backstory behind
the people who did it. Because there's a giant lizard
attack in your city, who cares, you know? And I
think that's what's beautiful about monster movies. If birds started
attacking their giant lizard, the news might be trying to
find out, but you, as a person won't give a

(57:52):
damn about where it came from. Your only concern is
I need to be alive. Yeah, I totally agree. And
I think like the most boring part of any horror
movie is when the thing is explained, right. You want answers,
but you don't never necessarily want an explanation. And I
think as horror fans, we are attracted to ambiguity and

(58:14):
tell me, maybe you'll cut this out, but tell me
how you feel about this. I was in a meeting
pitching a horror movie and it's it's basically like these
monsters attack. That's the gist of the movie. Um, and
the person I was talking to wanted to know the
whole backstory of the monsters. Well, they're from hell and

(58:34):
there's a double deal and there's stuff but that's not
in the movie. And the person I was pitching to
was adamant about like these you have to have these answers.
We have to see it in the movie because people
are going to have these questions that I don't know
that that's true. It's not. I would I would even
go as far to say no no, I'd just say no, no,

(58:57):
m night. Shamalan signs, which again I'm going to rep
for are because I really enjoyed it. But you don't
really know anything about the aliens other than the end
when you realize they're allergic to water. You don't know
why they came. I think Jaws is the best example, right,
is one of the great horror movies. You don't know
why that shark attacks. That doesn't matter why that shark attacks.
What matters is that shark attacks, and then how do

(59:18):
the people deal with it. That's the story we want
to see. Yeah, boy, I'm fighting mad now. Yeah. After
the Birds everything went downhill? Did it? Oh man? After
the Birds everything went downhill? He was sort of chasing
the success of Psycho. The Birds actually didn't do very
well and it wasn't very well received, although it's gone

(59:40):
on to be like like you and I have that
it's we adore it, but I think it's not a
great movie in the way we're just like Scar, Yeah,
that happened to us, and there's fun stuff in it.
And like hearing the stories about UM about how how
the actress was it was really bad. Yeah, like she
even live birds take to her. Yeah, she had live

(01:00:02):
verds that she was put in a cage and they
were like thrown at her. Yeah. I mean they did
some bad stuff to the birds and to her. It
was it was not good. So he made after that
a series of movies where I think there were a
lot of compromises involved UM and he was sort of
chasing stuff that was Poppet like James Bond had started
to become popular. So he did a spy movie and

(01:00:24):
it wasn't very good. It still had thriller aspects, and
he did UM a couple of things that were more
you know, they were in the thriller genre, but they
were sort of outside what Hitchcock really does until Frenzy,
which was I think his final movie UM, and he
did that in Britain. He went back to England. That

(01:00:45):
was UM and I can't remember why he chose to
go back to England, except that it seemed real right
and full circle E and um Frenzy is not a
great movie, but it does come back to all of
Hitchcock's a sessions where it's about watching, and it's about
violence on women and it's about um sort of a

(01:01:07):
pure cinema experience in that, like the camera is moving
a lot more than it does in his other movies. Uh.
And it was pretty it was pretty well received and
it did very well. So he went out on a
note that he could be proud of. And he did
not plan for that to be his last movie. He
was I think eighty at the time, but wanted to
keep making movies and then until his health just failed him. Yeah,

(01:01:30):
he would end up passing away about eight years later.
In Night we couldn't get anything off the ground, and
that eight years later and eight years before we were
born counted down. I think that's what's really import before
you were born. Uh So, before we wrap up, I
just want to touch on another thing that was, you know,
some pretty popular, which was Alfred Hitchcock Present, which was

(01:01:53):
an anthology series that, like we said, was hosted and
produced by him. Uh. It aired on CBS and on NBC. Yeah,
I remember this because this was the big, big show
that had the intro of him walking into a silhouette.
And I gotta say, it's a pretty baller move to
like have your gut in the silhouette, because me, it
would have been a silhouette with a nice bulge six pack.

(01:02:14):
He was like, no, I'm gonna get the whole road
toun gut. You knows, yeah, I mean he you can
go back and watch it. He joked a lot. There's
a lot of comedy in it. He joked about himself,
you know. Yeah. So it was a series of literary
anthologies essentially that they did, and I think most I
think some of them you can watch. I think most

(01:02:35):
of them you could probably still waking. They're out there.
I think they're on Hulu or something. Are you familiar
with them? I know there are great ones, but I
don't really know. I don't really off the top of
my head. But I mean, other than that, a lot,
you know, thriller anthologies were big at the time. I
bet if you go on the A. V Club or something,
they have a list of these are the ten you
should watch. Yeah, so one of them is among the

(01:02:55):
most famous episodes is Ronald Dolls Man from the South,
which came out in nineteen sixty starring Steve McQueen and
Uh and Uh, in which a man bets his finger
that he can start his lighter ten times in a row. Yes,
that's a great episode, Yeah, and Peter Laurie. It was
ranked number forty one on TV Guides one dred Greatest

(01:03:17):
Episodes of all Time. The episode was later reference and
remade in the film Four Rooms, with Quentin Tarantino directing
a segment called the Man from Hollywood instead of his
finger was feet right? You know who knows? Probably cutting
off the finger in Four Rooms is the only good
thirty seconds of that movie. It's so no joke, like

(01:03:38):
it's so well executed, Like the editing is so tight
and so interesting, and the build up to it is
so good. But it lasts like seconds that it's perfect.
Oh man, the rest of the movie can go hang.
So I think we we tackled his biggest hits. We
couldn't tackle everything, but we got a little bit into
his mindset and some of the problematic issues, which again

(01:04:00):
it's okay to talk about the problematic things of the
things you love I think ignoring them is absurd. Yeah,
you know, I think it's definitely, especially when, like I'm sorry,
it kind of influenced it, you know, for better or
for worse. So you I feel like you do kind
of have to in this situation. But uh no, that
that was it. And you know, let us know if

(01:04:22):
you have some Alfred Hitchcock films that you love, and
definitely add a synopsias for it and where I can
see it because Alfred Ish Crock ain't on Netflix. Yeah,
I don't know what's happening. Oh. Also, if you are
Hitchcock head and you haven't been go on the tram
right at Universal Studios, they always stop in front of
his office and it has his silhouette on the window

(01:04:43):
and they're like, he used to write right there. I
don't know. It's it's funny because like, are you kidding?
Mean that guy went out to lunch to eat, right?
I mean, I can never work in in the office
and I always do most of my work outside of worship.
I just want to know like that. I can understand
if that's the building they relocated it, but that specific
one right there, Yeah, we took the tram to it

(01:05:06):
every day. We should ask our universal friends. They would know,
is the Psycho House still there? Yeah? Still? That won't
go anywhere. And I still tell that a joke about
when Jim Carrey was shooting on set. Oh you haven't
been on the tram when they tell you. Apparently one
time Jim Carrey was shooting on the lot and he
got an address and hid in the house and during

(01:05:26):
one of the Tram shows, runs out with a knife
and dress and freaks everyone out. And I was like,
why couldn't that be mine? Why can I get that experience?
That was tight? I would love the idea of Jim
Carrey just hanging out there still yeah, over there anymore. Also,
I liked the idea of, like there had to be
a good fifteen minutes of him just sitting at dusk,

(01:05:48):
probably creeping right there here. Now, I love it. I
was going to say, I know. Also, if you're a
big hitchcock head, I guess hit up or any of
these black and white films hit up. Alicia Malone, because
she's the host of Returner Classic Movies, is constantly live
in that life. I think she wishes that she was
back in that time. Yeah, you know, tweet at at beIN,

(01:06:11):
beIN black er and and do it, get into it.
I'll talk about it with you and and Tag you
know Alicia, just get all the get all the people
that are Yeah. Um, Ben, when is a hex Wives
dropping again? I'm glad you asked. It's out on Halloween.
If you're here in l A. What this comes out

(01:06:32):
before Halloween? Right? Yeah? If you're here in l A.
I'm doing a signing at Golden Apple Comics at am.
We love Golden Apple Halloween. Yeah, come have a coffee
with me the morning, bring him a coffee. People from
that Golden Apples where Image Comics at their first signing?
Is that right? Is that the insane one where there
are helicopters and stuff. You can learn about that in

(01:06:54):
our Image Comics episode. Just redeemed a gift certificate given
to me by Jordan Morris. Uh, I forgot to use
for two years and you know those don't expire. Yeah, yeah,
you're fine, you will use it. Come out and buy
hex Wives. Ben did you give your handle? Uh? Guys,

(01:07:15):
you can find me on Twitter at Ben Blacker. It's
my name. It's also my Halloween name. I love it.
I refuse to change mind. So yeah, months dark enough
is I think only people who know how my name
sounds works because it's if you should goul day. I
like it. But everyone's like, what are these amalegation of ladders? Um,

(01:07:36):
I'm at MS Danny Fernandez and all the socials. You
guys be nice to each other out there, please. Um.
It's the world is really rough and I just see
a lot of awfulness uh and particularly directed at me. Uh.
And you know, I don't know there's another person on
the other side of that screen. So just this is
why we do our podcast. We want to bring back

(01:07:58):
the joys and beauty of fandoms and the things that
we all fell in love with as kids and try
to remember that. That's all I got. Yeah. Um, and
for me, speaking of joy I'm doing a show October
at eight pm. If you want to be happy, how
about you come down a Highland Park. It's a bookstore.
It's called Laughter House five. It's a nice Slaughterhouse five reference. Uh,

(01:08:22):
come come through. It'll be fun and great. And you
know Highland parks good. You could go to Highland Park Bowls.
Been way too much money to go bowling. Oh yeah,
the pizza is right. Yeah, I'd go for the pizza,
don't bowl like like mooch on some friends go to
a park of like, Hey, do you mind if I
slang a few balls? Uh? But anyway, this has been fun. Ben,

(01:08:46):
thank you so much for coming on. We've been goofing.
This is probably one of the top goofiest, craziest, joke
filled uh episodes, and I thank you for it. Big
shout out to Dande for the research. His last name
is Goodman. I don't know why I had a D there,
but uh yeah, yeah, yeah, double d. Dan Goodman on

(01:09:08):
the research and the editing. A man Zach McKeever and
the booth always pressing buttons or whatever he does over there,
and you know, stay spooky everyone,