<<< January 22 - 29, 2009 >>>

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At once the most beloved mass entertainer in Hollywood history and the most personal of directors, Alfred Hitchcock gave his obsessions free creative reign for all the world to enjoy. His command of both cinematic form and content, integrating them into seamless motion picture entertainment, is virtually unrivaled. From early classics like REBECCA through mid-period spellbinders DIAL M FOR MURDER and REAR WINDOW, to later suspense spectaculars NORTH BY NORTHWEST and THE BIRDS, Hitchcock delivers on all fronts, both popular and artistic. Not to mention the incomparable groundbreaking tension of his hair-raising PSYCHO, a movie still sending shock waves more than four decades after its release. View these titles, and you begin to realize the astonishing versatility and scope of this universally recognized virtuoso. Join us to once again marvel at a handful of the master’s classics, including underrated and rarely screened gems like I CONFESS and STAGE FRIGHT.

Thursday, January 22 - 7:30 PM
50th Anniversary

NORTH BY NORTHWEST, 1959, Warner Bros., 136 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Cary Grant gives one of his greatest performances as womanizing, mama’s boy executive Roger Thornhill -- whose cozy life of afternoon cocktails with the boys is turned upside down when he’s mistaken for elusive government operative George Kaplan by suave villain James Mason and his murderous crony, Martin Landau. Eva Marie Saint co-stars as Mason’s elegant mistress, with the wonderful Jesse Royce Landis as Grant’s fur-clad society mom ("You gentlemen aren’t really trying to murder my son, are you?"). Brilliantly scripted by Ernest Lehman (THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS) and photographed by veteran Hitchcock collaborator Robert Burks (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, REAR WINDOW).

Friday, January 23 - 7:30 PM
John Michael Hayes Tribute – Double Feature:

John Michael Hayes began writing for the radio, and his scripts are marked by supremely stylish dialogue as well as plotting that doesn't insult the audience's intelligence. He was known for smart, original crowd-pleasers including PEYTON PLACE and the four classics he wrote for Hitchcock: REAR WINDOW, TO CATCH A THIEF, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1956, Universal, 120 min. Alfred Hitchcock remakes his own entertaining but lightweight 1934 thriller as a melancholy examination of the pleasures and nightmares of family life. When the son of James Stewart and Doris Day is kidnapped while on vacation, the couple’s long-simmering resentments threaten to get in the way of their attempts to rescue him. Although the film is rightly celebrated for setpieces like the famous Albert Hall assassination sequence, the depth of Hitchcock’s vision is more effectively felt in the film’s quieter moments: The scene in which Stewart tells Day their son has been kidnapped is one of the most powerful in all of Hitchcock’s cinema.

TO CATCH A THIEF, 1955, Paramount, 106 min. Retired cat burglar Cary Grant and ravishing American party girl Grace Kelly fall in love against a backdrop of fireworks, the French Riviera and a string of unsolved jewel robberies -- all the while wearing some of Edith Head’s most singularly stunning costumes. Alfred Hitchcock’s tongue-in-cheek soufflé, complete with surprisingly daring sexual innuendoes for the time, is perfect escapist fare. With Charles Vanel (WAGES OF FEAR), Brigitte Auber.

Saturday, January 24 - 7:30 PM
Double Feature:

REBECCA, 1940, Walt Disney Co., 130 min. Director Alfred Hitchcock’s Gothic romance asks the question: Did guilt-ridden, rich widower Laurence Olivier do away with his notorious wife Rebecca, or not? And what secrets does sinister, manipulating housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) hold that may unlock the mystery? Naïve young Joan Fontaine wants to know because she’s in love with Olivier and has just moved into his haunted seacliff mansion as his second wife. Will the answers come too late? Adapted from Daphne Du Maurier’s novel (who also supplied the source for Hitchcock’s later chiller THE BIRDS) and winner of the 1941 Oscars for Best Picture and Best Cinematography.

NOTORIOUS, 1946, Walt Disney Co., 101 min. "Notorious woman of affairs…Adventurous man of the world!" Director Alfred Hitchcock’s crackerjack espionage thriller set in South America during WWII is also an intoxicating love story that mirrors the personal subterfuge and emotional upheaval amongst the three major characters. Hard-nosed Allied agent Cary Grant convinces Ingrid Bergman, the disillusioned daughter of a supposed traitor, to marry, then spy on a wealthy friend of her father’s (Claude Rains) who is leading Nazi Germany’s search for weapons-grade uranium in Brazil. The catch is Grant and Bergman are in love with each other.

Sunday, January 25 - 7:30 PM
Double Feature:

REAR WINDOW, 1954, Universal, 112 min. "See It! - If your nerves can stand it after PSYCHO!" That was the tagline for the 1962 re-release of one of director Alfred Hitchcock’s most rigorously structured thrillers. Adapted from a short story by noir master Cornell Woolrich, REAR WINDOW stars James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries, an ace photographer stuck in a wheelchair after breaking his leg on assignment. Despite receiving visits from his high-fashion sweetheart, Lisa (Grace Kelly), Jeffries is bored and soon resorts to spying on his tenement neighbors through a telephoto lens. Suddenly, he has cause to regret his indiscretion - it seems the ailing wife of a traveling salesman neighbor (superb heavy Raymond Burr) has taken an abrupt trip. Or has she? "The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first." - Roger Ebert, Chicago

DIAL M FOR MURDER, 1954, Warner Bros., 105 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Suave, cold-blooded Ray Milland plots to murder his beautiful wife (Grace Kelly), and leaves the key to their apartment outside for his hired killer (Anthony Dawson) But the killer has a bit of trouble with a pair of scissors -- to put it mildly -- and a new Pandora’s box of complications opens up. Unfortunately, scheming Milland may still be able to pull off his plan -- that is, unless Kelly’s old flame, Robert Cummings and unflappable Scotland Yard inspector John Williams can determine what really happened that fateful night. Maestro Hitchcock masterfully adapts Frederick Knott’s hit stage-play to the big screen (it was originally presented in 3-D).

Wednesday, January 28 - 7:30 PM
Double Feature:

PSYCHO, 1960, Universal, 109 min. Coming off the comparatively big-budget NORTH BY NORTHWEST, director Alfred Hitchcock decided he wanted to make a nice little, low-budget B&W film for a change of pace. PSYCHO was the result, and the shockwaves are still reverberating. Lovely embezzler Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is forced to take refuge from a rainstorm off the beaten track of a lonely California highway. Unfortunately, she checks in at the Bates Motel, presided over by young Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a strange fellow living with his mother in a nearby mansion. Hitchcock used the small crew from his popular TV show for this hair-raising example of California Gothic, and it still remains one of the most influential thrillers ever made. With Vera Miles and John Gavin.

THE BIRDS, 1963, Universal, 119 min. Director Alfred Hitchcock’s love affair with northern California (begun in SHADOW OF A DOUBT and continued in VERTIGO) climaxed with this stunning shocker about the residents of picturesque coastal town Bodega Bay, who find themselves targeted by a murderous invasion of birds. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s novelette. Starring Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright.

Thursday, January 29 - 7:30 PM

Underrated Double Feature:

I CONFESS, 1953, Warner Bros., 95 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Montgomery Clift plays a priest who undergoes a crisis of faith when he hears a murderer's confession; as the film progresses, he takes on the man's guilt as his own, both literally (as police wrongly suspect him of the murder) and psychologically. The French critics of the 1950s considered this to be one of Hitchcock's major works, and it remains among his most underrated masterpieces.

STAGE FRIGHT, 1950, Warner Bros. 110 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman is a struggling actress who helps hide fellow student Richard Todd when he's accused of killing his lover's husband. Marlene Dietrich co-stars in this murder mystery set in the world of the theater, a setting that allows Hitchcock to explore deception from varying perspectives in every scene.