‘I Am Alfred Hitchcock’

A standard but nevertheless fascinating biopic documentary of one of the masters of film and (early) television.

One of the greatest directors of all time, responsible for the likes of The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, North By Northwest (the list could go on), Alfred Hitchcock initially struggled to gain recognition in 1920s London. Art director, set designer, script writer, assistant director before finally taking the helm in 1927 with The Lodger, a (silent) commercial and critical success followed a year later by the first British talkie – Blackmail. He married Alma Reville in 1926 and who remained his closest collaborator for the rest of his (and her) life.

Several box office successes in quick succession saw Hitchcock invited to Hollywood under David O. Selznick and a seven year contract. It was not a smooth arrangement (reportedly two control freaks working together) but the Oscar-winning Rebecca was the first collaboration.

As revealed through archival footage, interviews and film clips, focussed, obsessed, knowledgeable and enormously talented, Hitchcock was not without humour but became notorious through his relationships with his (usually blonde) leading ladies – from Vera Miles to Kim Novak to Tippi Hedren. Success begat success but Hitchcock felt abandoned by Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly, both leaving for Europe for love and marriage. Not everything was plain sailing in the US in spite of critical acclaim: Psycho was self-financing, his studio unconvinced that the schlock airport novel material was appropriate.

From film to television, Hitchcock broke new ground – the shower scene in Psycho with its 78 shots and 52 cuts changed cinema forever – and I Am Alfred Hitchcock revels in highlighting the importance. But with so many other films – mostly dealt with chronologically – the Joel Ashton McCarthy documentary is not short of material. Add a great deal of archived interviews with Hitchcock himself and his actors along with contemporary commentary provides comprehensive insight into the man that was Alfred Hitchcock.

Rating: 70%

Director: Joel Ashton McCarthy (After Film School, Taking My Parents to Burning Man)

’The Hollywood Con Queen’

Investigative journalist Scott Johnson of the Hollywood Reporter initially reported on the strange phenomenon of a con artist impersonating some of the film industry’s most powerful women. The extraordinary story escalated.

The resultant book The Con Queen of Hollywood: The Hunt for an Evil Genius forms the basis for this overlong, repetitive three part documentary from Apple TV+ directed by Chris Smith. From Hollywood to Jakarta to Manchester, Johnson tracks down the man who passed as the likes of Donna Langley, Amy Pascal and other film producers/senior executive in the industry, conning freelance actors, writers, photographers and make-up artists. 

Phone calls to photographers with progam outlines asking them to travel to Jakarta for location shots: actors offered roles in forthcoming blockbusters. All are fictitious – all out-of-pocket. Yet hotels and transport in Indonesia were covered, airlines received payments thus enabling the ruse to continue. But what is very apparent is that along with the financial cost, many suffered mental health issues and crises of confidence as a result. Which made the tracking down of internet influencer Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani to Manchester in the UK the more bizarre.

As much a power trip as financial, the gift of impersonation, manipulation and deception provided Tahilramani with opportunities to reek havoc. And as Johnson digs deeper, so more is revealed. But as a three part docuseries, The Hollywood Con Queen loses momentum. Repetition sets in as scenarios are repeated. It’s a disturbing story – one which could have been told, to acheive more impact, in two parts rather than an overextended three.

Rating: 57%

Director: Chris Smith (Fyre, TV’s Tiger King)

‘Sunset Boulevard’

A classic of the Hollywood Golden Age as a struggling screenwriter finds himself in the thrall of a faded film star of the Silent Age determined to make a comeback.

Avoiding having his car re-possessed, Joe Gillis (William Holden) finds himself hiding the vehicle in the grounds of what appears to be an abandoned Hollywood mansion. But it turns out to be the home of the once-great Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Living alone in the vastness of the house with only Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim) for company, she sees the scriptwriter as her way back.

Money is no object as Gillis becomes a kept man by the possessive, obsessed Desmond demanding complete commitment from Gillis. Her mental balance is tipped over the edge on discovering his liaison with Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a script reader at the Studios.

Writer/director Billy Wilder is at his searing best with this savage but heartfelt melodrama of the Hollywood system at its worse with a tour de force over the top performance from the deranged Swanston. In short, brilliant.

Nominated for 11 Oscars in 1951 including best film, director, actress, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress – won 3 for best screenplay, art direction, original score (Franz Waxman)

Rating: 94%

Director: Billy Wilder (The Apartment, Stalag 17)

Writer: Billy Wilder (The Apartment, Stalag 17), Charles Brackett (The Lost Weekend, Ninotchka), D.M. Marshman Jnr (Taxi, Second Chance)

Main cast: Gloria Swanson (Sadie Thompson, Queen Kelly), William Holden (Stalag 17, Network), Erich von Stroheim (La grande illusion, Storm Over Lisbon)

’Feud’

A legendary feud between two legendary screen idols comes to a head with the making of the 1962 feature Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? – the first time Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had shared the limelight in the same film.

It’s a delicious premise as the once most beautiful woman in the world (Crawford – Jessica Lange) is pitched head to head with the once most talented woman in the world (Davis – Susan Sarandon). With their popularity on the wane with few roles for older women (extraordinarily they were both only in their mid-50s), both stars need the feature to be a success. As does director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina) – his last few films have all bombed at the box office.

The alcoholic Crawford is old school Hollywood – Los Angeles resident who continues to maintain the glamorous front in spite of a distinct shortage of cash. Confidant with the notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (a splendid Judy Davis), Crawford is generally safe from the poison pen of Hopper. Which is more than can be said of the east coast resident, the intelligent, determined Bette Davis. Made party to the negotiations with the film by Crawford, Hopper has a field day in revealing any salacious gossip she can on the upstart, Davis.

Feud is a fun eight part ride as barbed comments fly eighteen to the dozen – with studio boss Jack Warner (Stanley Tucci) encouraging the feud. With leaks aplenty, the media is never far from the story and as long as the two women are at loggerheads, the more interest there is in the film. And of course, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was a box-office success, leading to Oscar nominations and the hag horror genre. The film’s success led to further confrontations between the two women – their connection to the film did not end when the director announced ‘that’s a rap’ on the final day of shooting.

It’s an engrossing eight part miniseries that goes behind the scenes of old Hollywood. But old style glamour is in short supply – Crawford’s only friend (aside from the vodka bottle) appears to be her maid/general dogsbody Mamacita (Jackie Hoffman) whilst Davis is struggling with motherhood and 16 year-old daughter, B.D. Merrill (Kiernan Shipka). Not lost is the irony that the two were being played by the system and had they pulled together, they and others could have had so much more say in the industry. Both individually recognised it but personal enmity could not be overcome.

A Ryan Murphy production and based on the book by Laurence Leamer, Feud is calmer and more restrained than series such as Hollywood and American Horror Story. At eight episodes, pace palls as the energy is strained. But, thoughtful and considered, Joan with desperation and Bette with defiance, Feud looks to the impact the system and expectations placed on the two women and the resultant decades of bitterness that existed between them.

Rating: 70%

‘Babylon’

Bombastic, grotesque, overlong – yet strangely, for a time, compelling before outstaying its welcome, Babylon is 1920s Hollywood in all its braggadocio, coarseness and self-indulgence.

A fixer at wild parties and events, Manny Torres (Diego Calva) dreams of working on movie sets. The brash and outrageous Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) dreams of stardom. Both find themselves at the outrageous excess of Babylon‘s opening bacchanal extravaganza hosted by superstar Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt): both find their pathways to their dreams.

Epic in content, epic in length (189 minutes), the feature from Damien Chazelle demands stamina and commitment from audience and players alike. It looks stunning in all its excess – vast desert film lots with multiple film scenes being simultaneously shot with orchestras, Irish jig and bluegrass renting the air (these movies are silent, after all!); extended bacchanalia, indulgence and the many shortlived marriages of Jack Conrad. But then the Babylon world changes with the New York premiere of The Jazz Singer. Sound has arrived. As Torres struggles behind the scenes to keep things going, his industry and those he has remained loyal to are falling by the wayside. As do the audience – at 40 minutes too long, the overstuffed Babylon struggles to maintain the required commitment.

Nominated for 3 Oscars in 2023 – score (Justin Hurwitz), production design and costume (Mary Zophres)

Rating: 63%

Director: Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land)

Writer: Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land)

Main cast: Diego Calva (Bird Box: Barcelona, Help Me Make It Through the Night), Brad Pitt (Bullet Train, Ad Astra), Margot Robbie (Barbie, Bombshell)

‘Bombshell’

Controversial Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr was more than a glamorous beauty – she was also a genius inventor.

Fleeing Vienna and a loveless marriage with the threat of war, Hedwig Kiesler eventually found her way to Hollywood and the world’s most beautiful woman tagline promoted by all powerful studio head, Louis B. Mayer. She had some success in the 1940s but, outspoken, her career went into decline in the early ’50s.

But it’s her spare time interests and ideas that have had massive impact – her frequency-hopping radio signal patent that was scandalously ignored during the war yet years later developed with no official recognition for Lamarr. The principles of her theory are to be found in wifi, internet, GPS and CDMA.

Directed by Alexandra Dean (This Is Paris, Secrets of Playboy), Bombshell is an engrossing, warts-and-all exploration of the moving life of a Golden Age Hollywood actress overlooked by the studios but also marginalised by her adopted country. Based on believed-lost cassette taped recordings, Lamarr herself talks of days gone by.

Rating: 64%

‘The Artist’

The joie de vivre and charm of the Oscar-winning feature is oddly dated as a silent film star struggles with the advent of talkies.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin – OSS 117, The Monuments Men) is a swashbuckling hero of silent movies. But his loveless marriage flounders as his career takes a nosedive to the talkies. It’s only Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo – The Past, Godard mon amour), a former fan and now a rising star at the studios, who believes in Valentin as his former friends and colleagues abandon him.

A paean to the golden age of Hollywood, a silent black and white movie itself from writer/director Michel Hazanavicius (OSS117, Godard mon amour), The Artist is old-school escapist romance without the aid of spoken dialogue or sound. Refreshing on first viewing, it’s unexpectedly flat and uninvolving on the second.

Nominated for 10 Oscars in 2012 including best supporting actress, original script, art direction, cinematography (Guillaume Schiffman), won 5 – best film, director, actor, costume (Mark Bridges), score (Ludovic Bource).

Rating: 57%

‘She Said’

A tense, wholly engrossing investigative journalism feature as two female reporters of The New York Times blow the lid on the silence surrounding sexual assault in Hollywood.

In the mould of Spotlight and All the Presidents Men, the female led She Said responds to Hollywood’s worst kept secret – constant accusations against Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse. With dogged resilience, Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks, The Big Sick) and Megan Twohey (a particularly fine Carey Mulligan – An Education, Suffragette) look to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’, knowing the ramifications should they get anything wrong. Travelling between New York, California and the UK, meeting sources in darkened bars, the two slowly build the article as they try to convince reluctant victims to go on record. On publication the article made history.

It’s a surprisingly tense telling from director Maria Schrader (Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, TV’s Unorthodox) as revelation after revelation is exposed and followed through as deadlines loom. The strength of She Said (aside to the strong newsroom camaraderie and support – especially from department editor Rebecca Corbett – Patricia Clarkson, The Station Agent, The Party) is its calm telling and non-judgemental respect shown to the women who endured the abuse, kept silent due to the industry indifference – and then finally spoke out.

Surprisingly, She Said failed to secure any Oscar recognition.

Rating: 78%

‘The Great Buster’

A homage to one of the great stars of the Silent era – Buster Keaton – as celebrated by director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Mask), himself a former renowned critic and film historian.

It’s a glorious entertainment of restored material and interviews from Tarantino to Herzog, Mel Brooks to Johnny Knoxville as the importance of Keaton as actor, producer, comedian is discussed and highlighted. And while Bogdanovich as narrator can occasionally over egg the pudding with film critic commentary on a sight gag that needs no words, The Great Buster dishes out a plethora of delight, from the classic The General to lesser known shorts.

But, in spite of all the slapstick highlights (the stunts of which he did himself), what lets Bogdanovich’s film down is that it’s more concerned with anecdotes and often apocryphal tales more than it is with details of Keaton’s life. Whilst it provides the key events from birth to death, somehow little is learned of Keaton the man.

Rating: 66%

‘Sidney’

A warm, modest homage to the late Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, Sidney provides a context to the groundbreaking Hollywood career that, in a few short years, saw Poitier labelled as a sellout Uncle Tom by the burgeoning civil rights movements of the late 1960s.

From an illiterate, dirt poor Bahamaian childhood to a close call with the Florida KKK as a young teenager, Poitier’s trajectory into stardom did not follow the obvious path. But a chance performance with the American Negro Theatre in New York as the understudy to Harry Belafonte resulted in an invitation to Hollywood. And, with the backdrop of racism in the US in the 1950s and ’60s, Poitier’s career developed to include becoming the first African-American male to win an Oscar (Lilies of the Field in 1964) and biggest male box office attraction in 1967. But his successes backfired in the more politically active black communities.

Sidney is more a context to Poitier’s significance in the history not just of Hollywood but a wider United States – as born out by the likes of Morgan Freeman, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey. In spite of interviews with his six daughters and two ex-wives, Sidney, as directed by Reginald Hudlin (The Black Godfather, Marshall), never sufficiently plumbs the depths of the more personal difficult life lived. The result is both enjoyable and informative yet a carefully curated immortalisation of the man himself.

Rating: 64%