THE GHOST BREAKERS: Havana Frightful Good Time!

As fond as I am of the 1939 version of The Cat & The Canary, the words of that great philosopher Daffy Duck leap to mind:  “If they like that mess, they’re starvin’ for some real hoofin’!”  Well, if Paramount’s 1940 tweaking of The Ghost Breakers (TGB) isn’t the real hoofin’, I don’t know what is!  It’s a premium blend  of snappy comedy, playful romance, and genuine spooky suspense.  Producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. (Witness for the Prosecution; The Asphalt Jungle; Oklahoma!) reunites The Cat & The Canary co-stars Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, as well as director George Marshall (The Gazebo; It Started with a Kiss). Their funny, sparkling chemistry together is better than ever, blending warmth, romance, and comedy as deliciously as a daiquiri.  Hope and Goddard are so darling together, I want to hug them and bring them home for the holidays!  (But a DVD will do!)  I like the cheeky references to Paulette Goddard’s Cecil B. DeMille movies, too (Unconquered; Reap the Wild Wind, etc.).

Be very, very quiet; we're hunting ghosts!

Based on the work of Walter DeLeon and based on the play by John Willard and Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard (any relation to co-star Paulette Goddard?), the film gets off to an exciting start in New York City during a violent thunderstorm that’s almost worthy of Hurricane Sandy.  “Nice night for a murder,” says our heroine Mary Carter (Goddard) as she packs for her voyage to pre-Castro Cuba.  She only thinks she’s kidding, with all the mystery and intrigue afoot!  You see, Mary’s off to Cuba to claim her family inheritance, Castillo Maldito, or “Black Island.”  Sounds cozy already, huh?  Mary’s mom had told her about Black Island and its sinister legends, but Mary’s a good-natured yet skeptical New Yorker who doesn’t scare easily: “(My mother) also told me about Santa Claus, Snow White, and the Seven Dwarves.”  Of course, her Cuban advisor, Senor Havez (Pedro de Cordoba of Anthony Adverse; The Corsican Brothers; Hitchcock’s Saboteur) gives Mary a last friendly warning: “We must admit there is a dividing line somewhere between superstition and the supernatural.  All I know is that during the last twenty years, no human being who has tried to spend the night in Castillo Maldito ever lived to see a sunrise.”  You never know; I can imagine the eager developers eventually showing up waving contracts for chain restaurants and hotels anytime now!  But Mary gets an urgent phone call from Ramon Medeiros (Anthony Quinn of Road to Singapore and Road to Morocco, as well as winning Best Supporting Actor Oscars for Lust for Life and Viva Zapata!) about her upcoming trip. Alas, whatever it was he wanted to say gets lost in a hail of gunfire, and poor Medeiros is no more.  What was Medeiros trying to tell Mary before everyone got trigger-happy?

"Johnny Ola told me about her! They call her 'Superman'!"


Meanwhile, meet our hero, radio star Larry Lawrence (Hope) and his valet Alex (Willie Best of High Sierra; Cabin in the Sky; and Hope and Goddard’s third film together, Nothing But the Truth). Larry’s full name is in fact Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence, a name so nice they named him thrice!   “My parents had no imagination,” Larry explains.  He and Alex are packing for a fishing trip, but will they end up sleeping with the fishes instead?  You see, as if the storm and the hotel’s resulting blackout weren’t already agita-inducing, Larry’s radio show focuses on dishing the dirt on notorious criminal underworld types. Wouldn’t you know Larry has run afoul of gangster Frenchy Duvall (Paul Fix of After the Thin Man; Dr. Cyclops; and ironically, TV’s The Rifleman, as Marshal Micah Torrence!)?  Now Duvall is out for blood.  Sheesh, underworld types can be so sensitive!  As more gunplay ensues, Larry fears he’s the one who accidentally killed Medeiros, and he and Alex end up unwittingly joining Mary on a slow boat to Cuba! 

Young Richard Carlson as The Man in the White Suit!

Romance blooms for Mary and Larry, though that doesn’t stop others from trying to keep our heroes from reaching Black Island, including Dr. Parada (Paul Lukas of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Watch on the Rhine, the film that won Lukas his Best Actor Oscar), Anthony Quinn again, this time as Ramon Medeiros’ brother Francisco.  Look sharp during the scene at the Las Palmas nightclub with Lloyd Corrigan (Whistling in the Dark; The Big Clock; The Manchurian Candidate; the Boston Blackie movies) for a brief appearance by lovely Dolores Moran (To Have and Have Not; The Horn Blows at Midnight; Old Acquaintance) and a dapper young Richard Carlson (The Little Foxes; The Creature from the Black Lagoon; It Came from Outer Space; and the fact-based 1953 to 1956 TV series I Led Three Lives) as Mary’s old friend Geoff Montgomery. Carlson is in one of my favorite scenes:

Geoff:  “A zombie has no will of his own.  You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.”

Larry:   “You mean like Democrats?”

They won't hear nothin' more
from The Mighty Quinn....

 TGB’s comedy and horror elements blend superbly, with character actor Noble Johnson (King Kong; Jungle Book; The Most Dangerous Game) playing a truly haunting, memorable zombie.  John M. Miller from the TCM Web site notes that TGB pre-dates Val Lewton’s I Walked With A Zombie by three years.  For better or worse, like any actors who were even remotely swarthy, both Anthony Quinn and Noble Johnson were frequently cast in supporting roles at Universal Studios and RKO as Native Americans, Latinos, Arabs, and other so-called “exotic” types. 

...Or will they? He resurrects real good!

TGB’s production values are top notch, from Edith Head’s gorgeous wardrobe for Paulette Goddard, to Hans Dreier and Robert Usher’s Art Direction, to the cinematography of Charles Lang (Charade; Some Like It Hot; How to Steal a Million).  Farciot Edouart’s special effects photography with the ghosts emerging is eerily captivating.

Willie Best was highly praised by none other than his co-star Bob Hope, who said Best was one of the best actors he ever knew—and yet so many people have criticized him, or more specifically, the African-American stereotypes he was called upon to portray. I say you can’t fault a performer (or anyone else) for NOT being ahead of his time!  My dear friend and fellow blogger Becky Barnes of ClassicBecky’s Brain Food renown agrees: “Willie Best was one of the best comedians of the era. It's such a shame things were the way they were then. I think he just about carried The Ghost Breakers, and he deserves acclaim for his work.”  Amen to that, sister!

Bob Hope and Willie Best agree: no comedy-thriller holds a candle to The Ghost Breakers!

 Just as zombies never die, neither do remakes:  The Ghost Breakers was successfully remade in 1953 for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as Scared Stiff, with Lizabeth Scott as the heiress-in-distress, including voiceover cameos by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby! 

I think Mary would prefer a free drink or a mint on her pillow!

Ooh, The Zombies!  I loved that band!

Laura, er, Mary is the face in the misty light....

Aha, we've solved the mystery! Mary's ancestor was Dr. Phibes!

Don't you just love a happy ending on the high seas?

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY: Dig That Crazy Grave!

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 comedy The Trouble with Harry (TTwH) truly lived up to the movie poster’s assessment: “The Unexpected from Hitchcock!” The novel was based on British pulp writer Jack Trevor Story’s 1949 novel, but Hitchcock transplanted the action to a picturesque Vermont hamlet in autumn, full of likable eccentrics who find themselves playing hide-and-seek with titular corpse Harry Worp (the uncredited Philip Truex). Instead of the sleek, sinister suspense that was Hitchcock’s trademark, TTwH is more like an Ealing comedy with a gleefully puckish sense of gallows humor. Vinnie and I have always enjoyed well-played comedy with a slow fuse, so TTwH endeared itself to us right away. No wonder Hitchcock showed TTwH to the writers on his long-running TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents; what better way to show the writers exactly what Hitch wanted from them? Even though TTwH wasn’t a box office hit during its original U.S. theatrical release, it was a smash in France for a record-breaking 18 months, and much like Hitchcock’s 1958 spellbinder Vertigo, TTwH finally has the acclaim it always deserved!

Renowned illustrator Saul Steinberg's slyly funny opening credits sequence sets exactly the right tone. Cute little tyke Arnie Rogers (Jerry Mathers, pre-Leave It to Beaver) is the first to find Harry. The kid’s just minding his own business, dashing around the countryside with his toy space gun and his own scrambled way of telling time, when he hears the sound of gunshots and a man’s angry voice yelling, “Okay, I know how to handle your type!” Soon there’s a *thud,* and before Arnie can say, “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” (no, smarty, not Pennsylvania’s governor!), the lad discovers Harry lying supine in a clearing. I love how Arnie innocently stands over Harry’s corpse in a way that looks like they’re sharing the same body. Nobody points fingers at Arnie (what do you think this is, The Bad Seed?), but many of the townspeople seem to have potentially murderous motives. There’s Captain Wiles (appealingly played by that Oscar-winning Kris Kringle himself, veteran Hitchcock supporting actor Edmund Gwenn), who was out hunting and fears he accidentally bagged Harry instead of wild game. But the game gets plenty wild soon enough, in its own droll, understated yet cheeky way. Could that have been Harry’s angry voice threatening one of the other townsfolk, Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick, one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite character actresses)? A gentle lady of a certain age, Miss Gravely admits that the then-alive Harry had “annoyed” and attacked her for no apparent reason; did her sensible hiking shoes multitask as murder weapons? If so, Harry’s outburst might have been a case of mistaken identity (after all, this is a Hitchcock movie, “unexpected” or not!). 

I wouldn't want to be in Arnie's shoes -- or Harry's!

Apparently Harry was really looking for Arnie’s pretty young mom, Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine, making her film debut fresh from the Broadway hit The Pajama Game), who happens to be Harry’s estranged wife. Arnie was the son of Jennifer’s late husband Robert, Harry’s brother. Jennifer had truly loved the late Robert, but Harry, not so much. Still, Harry was all set to marry her just to be noble, so Arnie would be a little dickens and not a little bastard. Alas, Harry ducked out on Jennifer on their wedding night, citing a horoscope warning: “Don’t start any new projects…They could never be finished.” After all that, I don’t blame Jennifer for “knock(ing Harry) silly” with the nearest milk bottle once he finally showed up out of the blue to reboot the loveless marriage. Well, good riddance—any man who’d abandon a sweet dish like Jennifer on account of some silly horoscope prediction doesn’t deserve her, especially considering she’d gone to great pains to show off her nightie to its best advantage! Just as well, since Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) is developing a case on our Jen. No, not that kind of case! Although Sam’s name evokes Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (as well as being the name of the protagonist of Andrew J. Fenady’s 1980 comedy-mystery The Man With Bogart’s Face…but I digress), Sam isn’t a detective; he’s a handsome abstract painter who takes wry amusement in helping his friends scramble around alternately burying and exhuming Harry’s corpse as needed.

Meanwhile, Hitchcock’s subtle humor steadily tickles our collective funny bone throughout the film, while good-natured eccentricity abounds and romance blossoms for young and old as Harry goes from dust to dust. Much as I adored MacLaine and Forsythe as the younger romantic leads, I’d go so far as to say that TTwH’s most charming and satisfying romance belongs to Gwenn and Natwick! The dry-humored Mrs. Wiggs, a.k.a. “Wiggy” (Mildred Dunnock of Death of a Salesman fame), postmistress and proprietor of the Wiggs Emporium general store, teams up with Sam to give Miss Gravely a makeover that’ll “take ten years off your birth certificate.” (What would What Not To Wear’s Stacy and Clinton think?) Now if only Sam would stand still long enough for that New York millionaire (Parker Fennelly, from Fred Allen’s “Allen’s Alley” radio troupe) to buy his paintings, maybe both he and the preternaturally patient Wiggy could make a few bucks!

Harry may be dead, but there’s plenty of life in the characters around him. The denizens of the hamlet treat Harry’s corpse like a whimsical prop, tripping over him (Dwight Marfield cracks me up as absentminded Dr. Greenbow, who I suspect would be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome today), swiping his shoes, making dates over his corpus delicti—if they’d had WiFi back then, no doubt some enterprising jasper would have built a Starbucks around Harry! As the befuddled Captain Wiles mutters at one point, “Couldn’t have had more people here if I’d sold tickets.” How’s that for recycling?  Harry’s done the hard part by dropping dead—the real challenge is not only putting him six feet under, but keeping him there! Good thing the action took place in the cool fall instead of Indian Summer, otherwise our heroes wouldn’t be able to keep Harry’s death a secret for long, especially with wary Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano) making like a bloodhound! I love Jennifer’s wry take on the “paranoia explanation,” too, but that’s a blog post for another time.

Hitchcock teamed up again with screenwriter John Michael Hayes, who also did the honors for Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), and the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock’s trusty Director of Photography Robert Burks captured the beauty of the location’s autumn colors brilliantly. I’ve always liked the irony of the leaves being at their most colorful during a season in which the plants are in fact dying. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitchcock had been thinking along those lines, too, scamp that he was! Even the costume designs by the ever-wonderful Edith Head all have fall colors or earth tones to some degree.

The TTwH ensemble cast is spot-on, working beautifully together. That said, I’ll admit that when I first saw the film in the now-defunct D.W. Griffith Theater in New York City during my college days, my reaction to Forsythe reminded me of a line from Diva (1981): the role suited him so badly that it suited him very well. But Forsythe’s performance has grown on me over the years, and anyway, I’ve always liked his piquant chemistry with MacLaine. By the way, before MacLaine was cast, Hitchcock’s first choice was Grace Kelly (who’s surprised? Anybody? Anybody?), but she wasn’t available. Besides, in my opinion, much as I like Kelly, I think maybe she was a bit too regal for the wholesome yet quirky Jennifer.  Hitchcock also briefly considered Brigitte Auber from To Catch A Thief, but decided Auber’s strong French accent would be too distracting for what had become a very American story. As fans of Raymond Scott’s music, Vinnie and I loved the song “Flaggin’ the Train from Tuscaloosa,” with Scott’s music and Mack David’s lyrics. TTwH was the first score that Bernard Herrmann had ever composed for a Hitchcock film! Herrmann and Hitchcock worked together on 8 more scores, including my favorite, North by Northwest, until their unfortunate falling-out during the making of Torn Curtain in 1966. Herrmann’s score was replaced with John Addison’s, although the unused Torn Curtain score is available on Amazon.com for completists (like me!).

It sure socks to be Harry!

DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID: “You Put on Your Black Dress, and I'll Go Shave My Tongue!"

Steve Martin’s comedy-mystery Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (DMDWP) is as loopy and hilarious as it is affectionate in its salute to the noir mysteries of the 1940s. There isn’t a moment in the film that doesn’t make me laugh out loud or put a big goofy grin on my face. Here at Team Bartilucci H.Q., it’s not uncommon for us to quote the running gags about our hero’s “famous java,” our heroine’s versatile snakebite/bullet-extraction technique, and of course, the dreaded “cleaning woman,” among others. Even better, most of these pay off plot-wise as well; now that’s good writing!

Written by director/co-star Carl Reiner, the late George Gipe, and Martin himself, DMDWP hit movie theaters in May 1982, near the end of my sophomore year at Fordham University in the Bronx. Unless my memory is hazier than I think it is (always a possibility!), I saw it at the (now-closed) Allerton Theater with Rosemarie DiCristo, my dear longtime pal and fellow Fordhamite and film aficionado. We were both Steve Martin fans as well as overall movie buffs, and we weren’t disappointed! DMDWP is not only great fun, it’s also a dazzling technical achievement. Reiner and Martin cleverly interspliced scenes from 18 classic detective thrillers into the 1940s mystery plot bedeviling our narrator hero, private investigator Rigby Reardon (Martin). No static talking heads here; the film hits the ground running—or rather, driving, as noted scientist and cheesemaker Dr. John Hay Forrest (George Gaynes) loses control of his car and hurtles off a cliff in uncredited footage from the noir-ish 1942 Tracy & Hepburn drama Keeper of the Flame.  

Rigby loves the smell of java
in the morning, and lots of it!

We meet Rigby in his P.I. milieu, narrating in fine tough-guy voiceover, considering closing his office for a few days since business is slow—but it picks up pronto when beautiful, smoky-voiced Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward, after Sharky’s Machine made her a star) literally falls into his arms (lots of comic fainting, slipped mickeys, and other forms of entertainingly-rendered temporary unconsciousness, as befits any good detective flick!). After Juliet comes to, thanks to Rigby’s breast-adjustment technique, she hires him to investigate her father’s apparent murder, which seems to be tied in with two lists she’s found, identifying “Friends of Carlotta” and “Enemies of Carlotta.” (Any resemblance to Vertigo’s Carlotta Valdes, My Favorite Brunette’s Carlotta Montay, or Twitter’s own @carlotta_valdes is purely coincidental.)  

Don't mess with a "Cleaning Woman!"

Don't monkey with Rigby!

I remember seeing DMDWP director Carl Reiner on a talk show (The Tonight Show, I think), pointing out the joy of seeing footage of movie stars like Ingrid Bergman woven into the film’s scenes in their prime, when they were “young and juicy.” Reiner was so right; almost every character Rigby meets while investigating the Carlotta Conspiracy is played by a major 1940s movie star, thanks to the magic of film editing. Martin and Ward, who have smoldering yet sweet romantic chemistry, are almost literally playing opposite an all-star cast with Ms. Bergman, Ava Gardner, Alan Ladd, Bette Davis, Lana Turner (forgiving Rigby for abandoning her at Schwab’s while recruiting her in the case), Charles Laughton (as sly derelict: “Know who I am?”  Rigby: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame?”), Humphrey Bogart (as Rigby’s mentor, “Marlowe”!) and, as MGM used to say, more stars than there are in Heaven, aided and abetted by Oscar-nominee Michael Chapman’s atmospheric new black-and-white cinematography.  According to the TCM Web site, Chapman spent six months researching, making sure the new film stock would closely match the classic film stock. I was especially wowed by the scene with Rigby outfoxing a Hitchcockian stranger on a train—played by Cary Grant (not Robert Walker, sorry; that would have been a 1950s movie). 

Juliet and Rigby find fun ways to spend a rainy day

Rigby and Von Kluck play "Duelling Solutions"!

Bud Molin, who worked with Reiner for years on Your Show of Shows, seamlessly edited the old and new footage together; mind you, this was in the years before CGI, when editors had to cut and paste and splice everything by hand. Production Designer John DeCuir had his work cut out for him; 85 sets were required to replicate all the sets in all those scenes from all those wonderful films! Much work and care went into making sure the costumes and hair styles on the body doubles, who were cleverly shot from behind or over their shoulders, successfully created the illusion that Martin really was interacting with all those classic movie stars.Well-done though this gimmick is, it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without the straight-faced, spot-on comic performances of Martin, veteran Reiner, co-star Reni Santoni, and Ward at her most luscious, all doing justice to the daffy, witty screenplay. 

As is the case with the best comedies of Mel Brooks or the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team, if you took out the jokes, DMDWP would still be a solid genre film—always a sign of real quality! It certainly didn’t hurt to have talented veterans on hand, such as costumer extraordinaire Edith Head (it was her last film; there’s a touching dedication to her in the end credits) and one of my favorite composers, Miklos Rozsa (who composed many more superb scores until his death in 1995 at the age of 88).  If you’ve already seen any of the classic films used in DMDWP, the jokes are even funnier, but even if you haven’t seen them, this slyly wacky, winsome salute to the mysteries of yore is a fun way to spend an hour and a half of your time! I only wish that the extra footage I’ve seen in the film when it's shown on broadcast TV would turn up in some kind of special DVD edition; among other things, it explains just why dead men don’t wear plaid. Or maybe TCM might want to run a night of the films used in DMDWP, since most if not all of them are in the TCM library anyway!

REAR WINDOW: Neighborhood Watching

Lisa's goodnight kisses keep red-blooded Jeff wide-awake!

L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (James Stewart) is a man on the go, a globe-trotting photographer who’s no stranger to danger. But when he breaks his leg in a speedway accident, Jeff finds there’s no place like home — for sweltering in non-air-conditioned discomfort, and discovering what just might be a murder taking place across the way in his Greenwich Village apartment complex. Who’s responsible for the sinister events over at 125 West 9th Street? Alfred Hitchcock, who else?  One of Hitchcock's most beloved and brilliant films, Rear Window (RW) brims with The Master of Suspense’s trademark wit, suspense, and romance kissed by tension, thanks to John Michael Hayes’s witty, suspenseful script. It’s also a brilliant technical achievement, one of Hitchcock’s best crafted, cleverly staged movies. In fact, even though RW is based on the great Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 story It Had To Be Murder, I can’t imagine this tale being told as effectively in any medium but film. Little details mean a lot here, like DP Robert Burks’s sinuous camerawork, and the popular tunes woven into Franz Waxman’s score, heard wafting from other apartments in the courtyard.

Upside to wheelchair: Lisa gets to sit on Jeff's lap!

According to the IMDb, RW’s utterly convincing Greenwich Village set was the biggest indoor set built at Paramount Studios at that time. The set was so humungous, Hitchcock’s crew had to excavate the soundstage floor. Ironically, this meant Jeff’s second-floor apartment was actually at street level! One thousand arc lights were used to simulate sunlight. Thanks to extensive pre-lighting of the set, the crew could make the changeover from day to night in less than 45 minutes. It was said that Hitchcock felt like he had his own giant doll house to play with.

Right neighborly of Mr. Hitchcock to drop by so late to fix Mr. Seville's metronome!

However, RW’s technical achievements (explained entertainingly in the DVD's documentaries) would be nothing without its engaging characters. Hitchcock’s gift for visual storytelling is on display from the start with Jeff’s photos telling his life story — literally, with the Life-like magazine cover (also seen in photo negatives; a touch of symbolism, no?) of the fashion spread where Jeff presumably met his soignee fashionista sweetheart Lisa Fremont. As Lisa, the luminous Grace Kelly in her gorgeous Edith Head fashions proved again why she became one of Hitchcock’s favorite leading ladies. Lisa gets one of cinema’s most sensual introductions, kissing the sleeping Jeff awake in glorious slow-motion. Of course, this being a Hitchcock thriller, we see a somewhat sinister shadow before the kiss. That Hitch—such a tease! Thelma Ritter steals her scenes as Stella, Jeff’s cynical yet lovable insurance company nurse, and Wendell Corey makes a fine foil as Tom Doyle, Jeff’s skeptical police detective pal.

Jeff, are you peeking at Lars' law exam test answers again?

Jeff’s neighbors are interesting enough to warrant their own movies, and I don’t just mean the secretive murder suspect Lars Thorwald, played with a fine blend of menace and pathos by Raymond Burr just before Perry Mason made him a TV star. Reportedly, Hitchcock deliberately made Burr look like David O. Selznick as a tiny tweak of revenge for the agita Selznick gave Hitchcock when they worked together in the 1940s on Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case. In addition to providing a wry microcosm of New York City life (the only dated thing about it is the lack of air conditioning), they all reflect possible outcomes for the tug-of-war romance between Jeff and Lisa. There’s a hot young honeymoon couple (Rand Harper and Havis Davenport); Miss Torso (Georgine Darcy), a ballet dancer with a seemingly active love life; Miss Lonelyhearts (Judith Evelyn), a lovelorn Woman of a Certain Age with a drinking problem; a couple (Sara Berner, and Frank Cady of TV’s Green Acres and Petticoat Junction) who dote on their little dog and sleep on their fire escape to beat the summer heat; hard-of-hearing sculptress Miss Hearing Aid (Jesslyn Fax); and our favorite, the frustrated composer played by Ross Bagdasarian, a.k.a. David Seville of Alvin & The Chipmunks fame. The tunesmith gets a visitor: Hitchcock in a cameo about 26 minutes in, fixing the composer’s clock!

Lisa, you vixen, you'll use any excuse for a slumber party!

Sorry, couldn't resist adding this! Besides, I liked Disturbia, so there!

It's a paranoid day in the neighborhood, a paranoid day for a neighbor; won't you be mine?

As Brent Spiner said while hosting a showing of RW on TNT several years ago, the real perversion of the film is Stewart's reluctance to commit to the irresistible Kelly! I was rooting so hard for Jeff and Lisa to stop being so damn stubborn, I felt like smacking them (but only because I cared about them). In fact, one of the things I like about the movie is the way it shows these two very different people gradually learning to compromise and work together. I love how Lisa and Jeff are all smiles and exhilaration after Lisa’s initial triumph of slipping in and out of Thorwald’s apartment. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about the piquant final shot. (Spoiler Alert!) To me, it shows that a woman can have a happy relationship with a man without abandoning her own interests or submerging her own personality; refreshing for the 1950s!