Team Top Ten: Most Memorable Performances in a Hitchcock Film

Amir here, with this month's edition of Team Top Ten. To celebrate Alfred Hitchcock's birthday next week (Aug 13th), we've decided to celebrate his career by looking at something that isn't discussed quite as often as it should be: the performances he directed.

Hitchcock has more auteur cred than any other director so its understandable that his presence behind the camera attracts the most attention in all discourse about his oeuvre. Yet, his films are undeniably filled with amazing performances, from archetypal blondes and influential villains to smaller, eccentric supporting turns from characters actors. The list we've compiled today is the Top Ten Most Memorable Performances from Alfred Hitchcock's Films.

Make of "memorable" what you will! Our voters each certainly had their own thinking process. Some of us - myself included - took the word literally and voted for what had stuck with us the most, irrespective of size and quality of the performance. Some went for the best performances, some for the best marriage of actor and role and some for a mix of all of those things. Naturally, the final list veers towards the consensus, but as always, I've included bits and pieces of our individual ballots that stood out after the list.

Without further ado...

10. Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont (Rear Window)
There's memorable, and there's iconic. And then there's Grace Kelly in Edith Head. A performance all at once decadent and demure, Hitchcock's crown jewel struts and strolls glowingly in Rear Window, lithely giving off the allure to which she's come to recognize is her signature (and she worries, her sole) appeal. It's only as the mystery of the picture begins to unravel that the shades are lifted (literally) and the flinty little girl we thought we knew positions herself to be the real knight in shining armor. The famed icy Hitchcock blonde archetype manages that most remarkable and memorable of transformations in this, his best film; thanks to and because of Ms. Kelly, the sculpture discovers itself and its purpose. It's a beautiful thing when an actor can make a director forget himself and his tendencies. Something New Happens.
- Beau McCoy

9 more iconic turns after the jump

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Two TV Takes: "Southland" & "Bates Motel"

As I wait anxiously for the next great TV series to arrive -- where are you? -- I thought we should talk a little about two very different shows and the axis of Concept and Execution. Mad Men gets "A"s in both but most TV shows have to struggle through by leaning on one or the other. Having a good and/or original concept can win you a lot of leeway if your execution is problematic (see: Smash) but what of the inverse? Enter... Southland now in its 4th season. On the surface and at its core Southland is just another police procedural. You've seen it before and you will see it again.

So why the hell is Southland so damn good?

"How to Be Awesome"
The answer is all in the Execution. more...

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Visual Index ~ Psycho's (Best) Shots

With Bates Motel premiering tonight on A&E starring Vera Farmiga as the infamous Norma Bates, let's look back at your choices (and mine) for Psycho's Best Shots. Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece made for one of the most popular editions ever of Hit Me With Your Best Shot (this Wednesday's film is 1952's foreign Oscar winner Forbidden Games so don't miss out)... so let's revisit.

We all go a little mad sometimes. If you feel like escaping click on any of the images, presented in chronological form, play the shrieking violins in your head, and be transported to the article on that shot...

Please to note: I cheated a little since we lost some articles (why do people shut down their free blogs/tumblrs?) and put in all three of my favorite shots in this visual breakdown. 14 more shots after the jump...

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Curio: The Exiled Elite

Alexa here. After posting the gorgeous pencil drawings of Marie Harnett, the work of another artist out of the UK who takes pencil to paper was brought to my attention. Matthew Warren has a passion for film that was nurtured when he worked on film sets during art school.  After a viewing of Drive inspired Matthew to seek out alternative poster designs for the film, he discovered the rich online world of fan art, discussed here at The Film Experience (he's a reader) and elsewhere on the web. Soon his project, under the name The Exiled Elite, was born. 

Matthew mixes his pencil sketches with marker-drawn text to create his wholly handmade designs; I love how you can see each marker stroke.

I've posted more of his posters after the jump.  You can see all his designs on his website, and you can buy prints at his shop.

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Review: "Hitchcock"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

The first thing HITCHCOCK gets right about Hitchcock is the humor. Director Sacha Gervasi's serio-comic adaptation of the book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" starts with a playful dodge, beginning not with a shot of that infamous house on the hill or the Bates Motel or even a Hollywood soundstage but in the rather humble yard of a Wisconsin farm. It's home to Ed Gein, the gruesome 1950s killer who inspired Psycho. The camera pans away from Gein's (fictional) murder to reveal the iconic plump suited figure of The Master of Suspense cooly observing him (Sir Anthony Hopkins in Sir Alfred Hitchcock drag).

Hopkins addresses the camera directly as if he's welcoming you to a very special edition of television's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" or recording a promo for his latest cinematic thrill ride. He'll break the fourth wall again to bookend this film with an even better visual joke that's absurdly hokey.

More...

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