Saturday 11 December 2010

39 Steps
(1935)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD



Despite not being a great dramatist or superlative artist, Hitchcock was a superb plot-driven storyteller whose mastery of film technique and editing brilliance created engrossing thrillers like this. This one utilizes a common plot device in the great man's work of a man unjustly accused of murder out to prove his innocence. the deftly handled sexual humor always bring a chuckle and the fact that he started his career when films were silent shows through in his ability to make telling plot points without resorting to dialogue. A behaviorist/determinist film director largely uninterested in the psychological motivations of his characters; making him cinema's greatest entertainer.

Robert DONAT is suitably dashing and Madeleine CARROLL appropriately beautiful in this astonishing template for all the couple-on-the-run movies you have ever seen since (eg The Bourne Identity). What a pity no filmmaker today comes anywhere close to duplicating the suspense and the adroit comedy (that does not overwhelm the story) of this masterpiece.



Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Contact Form:

Name

Email *

Message *

Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.