High Society

High Society (1956)

Starring Fred Astaire, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, John Lund, and Louis Armstrong

Directed by Charles Walters

Written by John Patrick

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

The Country Girl

The Country Girl (1954)

Starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and William Holden

Directed by George Seaton

Written by George Seaton

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Hitchcock Month - To Catch a Thief

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

There's a winking sensibility on display in To Catch a Thief.  It's a little caper that Hitch doesn't take too seriously which is evident when Cary Grant mugs to the camera, looking at it straight on several times, implying to the audience to just have fun with this one with his suave demeanor.  I don't know if it's just Hitchcock (or Cary Grant or Grace Kelly) fatigue at this point in the Hitchcock Month or not, but I couldn't get into this film in the slightest.  It took multiple sittings simply to get through this one in spite of (or perhaps because of) the two leading stars.

There's an incredibly simple plot.  A retired jewel thief, John Robie (Grant) is accused of a new string of robberies along the French Riviera.  He ends up setting out to prove his innocence, along the way meeting a lovely woman, Francie (Kelly), who quickly discovers Robie's shady past, but ends up falling for him regardless.

One of the problems is that the plot just doesn't go anywhere.  It takes forever to get started and it never manages to pick up any steam.  The finale is probably one of the most boring of any of the Hitch films I've watched, and the supposed "surprise" reveal of the actual thief is easily projected from the very beginning.  Ultimately, the script goes a little more comedic than thriller, but the double entendres (including a ridiculously laughable "fireworks exploding = sex" scene) are just silly rather than sexy.

It certainly doesn't help that I never got any sense of connection between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.  I never bought that the lovely Kelly would ever fall for the aging Grant.  Funnily enough, Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest probably had the same age gap as Grant and Kelly, but I never bought into the relationship in To Catch a Thief, whereas the duo in North was kind of sexy.  When your movie is essentially rooted in a romance between two characters and you don't feel any sex appeal, your film simply isn't going to work...and that's the case here.

Unfortunately, despite the desire to like the flick because of its two main actors, I simply couldn't find a whole lot to like about this one in the slightest.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Hitchcock Month - Rear Window

Rear Window (1954)

Starring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Whenever we watch movies, we're kinda being voyeurs.  Secretly looking into the lives of people we don't know, watching their every move, and judging them based on their actions.  My recent viewing of the reality-driven documentary Catfish coupled with watching Rear Window on the same day made this voyeuristic idea really stick in my craw.  I'd love to say that this flick (which is deemed a classic by nearly all) doesn't work just to be a contrarian -- but it works on nearly every level.

Jimmy Stewart is L.B. Jefferies (Jeff, for short), a world-traveling photographer who is stuck in his apartment with a broken leg.  To pass the time, he stares out his window and watches neighbors in his courtyard apartment complex.  What starts out rather innocently turns into something frightening when he believes that one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) killed his wife.  With the help his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) and nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), Jeff attempts to solve the alleged crime.

Let's start by saying that similar to Hitchcock's Lifeboat which was contained to the boat itself, the camera in Rear Window never leaves Jeff's apartment.  Yes, we see outside the apartment, but we only see it through Jeff's eyes.  We see what he sees (including a sexy introductory first-person shot of Grace Kelly moving in on us with her crimson red lips slightly parted for a kiss that we'd certainly be happy to give her).  We are the voyeur just as he is the voyeur.  In my opinion, moreso than in any other Hitchcock film, the viewer is transported into the movie and essentially becomes L.B. Jeffries. 

And let's be honest -- with the alluring Grace Kelly by your side, who wouldn't want to be in Jimmy Stewart's shoes?  Kelly, whom I thought was rather flat and cold in Dial M for Murder, is charming here, as is Stewart (but when isn't he charming).  Raising the flick to another level is Thelma Ritter as the abrasive, yet kind nurse whose line deliveries are good for a chuckle nearly every time she speaks.  Plus, add in the rather amusing cast of neighbors whom we come to know through our view from Jeff's window and all of the acting is top notch.

What really amazes me about the flick (and what I foolishly didn't really notice until this viewing which is why I'll keep mentioning it) is what I already stated above -- we never leave Jeff's apartment, but somehow Hitchcock manages to keep moving his camera so the viewer never gets bored.  With the exception of Psycho, this very well could be Hitchcock's best directed film.  It may not have the extravagance of North by Northwest or the cleverness of Rope's long takes, but Hitch has crafted a film that literally places the viewer in the shoes of the main character -- a rather unique and difficult task that he acheives with seemingly great ease.

The RyMickey Rating:  A

Hitchcock Month - Dial M for Murder

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, and Robert Cummings

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

I knew I had watched Dial M for Murder before and I feel like I remember liking it.  On this viewing, however, the flick fell surprisingly flat to me.  Similar to Rope, this one is based on a stage play and, with the exception of one rather ingenious shot, the whole film feels very boxed in.  Hitch decides to essentially stay within one room the entire film (also similar in that respect to Rope) and he never manages to create lasting moments of tension which are needed for this film to succeed.

Ray Milland plays Brit Tony Wendice, an ex-tennis pro, whose wife, Margot (Grace Kelly), is having an affair with American crime writer Mark Halladay (Robert Cummings).  Tony has discovered this news and creates a plot to murder his wife.  He hires a small-time crook and his detailed planning goes into action.  Needless to say, things don't go perfectly and Tony finds the cogs in his brain having to work overtime in order to save himself.

There are two scenes that work extremely well here.  One is the scene in which Tony describes in great detail to the crook what will happen when he breaks into the Wendice's apartment to kill Margot.  Hitchcock shoots the scene from high above the apartment, staring down at the two men.  In a single shot, Hitch follows the men as the crisscross the room, going back and forth with his camera.  It's a wonderfully shot sequence.  It is, however, overshadowed by the amazingly tense murder sequence.  I'm not going to reveal here whether Tony's crime is carried out, but I was genuinely surprised at how anxious I was as the scene was unfolded.  Beautifully filmed and edited, this is the moment we're so used to seeing from Hitch.

Unfortunately, most of the remainder of the film is fairly undramatic.  The flick is very talky, and, like Rope, it feels like a play...and that's not necessarily a good thing.  Any jittery anxiousness we the audience are feeling is brought down to such a low level by all the excessive verbiage that is being spewed about onscreen.  It's ultimately this wordiness (along with, to a lesser extent, no stand-out performances from the three lead actors) that is the movie's downfall.

But apparently I'm alone in this thought as the film was #9 on the American Film Institute's best mystery films of all time.  Also of interest, this film was originally shot in 3D, oddly enough, and based on a short documentary on the dvd, it looks like it would have been quite good in that format.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

A Book a Week - Rear Window

Book Eight-and-a-Half of the Book-A-Week Quest

Rear Window (original title - It Had to Be Murder)

by Cornell Woolrich (1942)

This one was a short story, so I can't legitimately say it was a book (which is why this is book 8.5). 36 pages just doesn't count.

When I started reading it and I looked and saw how many pages it was, I was utterly confused how Alfred Hitchcock could've made such a great movie with it.

The reason Hitchcock succeeded is that he added so much to it. Heck, Grace Kelly's character wasn't even in the novella...and Rear Window without Grace Kelly would've been sacrilege! (Not to mention the fact that the novel didn't even include the great character actress Thelma Ritter's role as Jimmy Stewart's nurse)

It was pretty much just "eh." That's the best way to describe it. The movie fleshed everything out and was much more suspenseful. In this one, the guy suspects that his next-door neighbor has murdered his wife and then we discover whether he did or didn't. That was it. There was nothing exciting to it.

Do yourself a favor. See the movie. It's one of Hitchcock's best and one of my favorite movies of all time.

You can skip the book.