Ginger & Rosa - Filmhouse Cinema Edinburgh

20 The Genius of Hitchcock
THE BIRDS THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
The Genius of
Hitchcock
One of the world’s greatest directors, Alfred
Hitchcock excelled in a variety of genres during his
early British career, before moving to Hollywood in
1939. It was here he became known as the ‘Master
of Suspense’, producing some of the most analysed
works in the history of cinema.
See next month’s programme for more Hitch!
We would like to thank Julie Pearce and her team
at BFI Southbank for their invaluable help with this
season.
TICKETDEALS
Buy any three (or more) tickets for films in this season
and get 15% off
Buy any six (or more) tickets for films in this season and
get 25% off
Buy any nine (or more) tickets for films in this season
and get 35% off
These offers are available online, in person and on the
phone, on both full price and concession price tickets.
Tickets must all be bought at the same time.
The Birds
DAPHNE
Fri 5 to Sun 7 Oct
DU MAURIER
Afred Hitchcock • USA 1963 • 1h59m • Digital projection
15 – Contains moderate threat and horror
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy,
Veronica Cartwright.
By the time of his last du Maurier adaptation, Hitch
was so established (and sure of himself ) that he readily
relocated her story about a Cornish farm labourer’s
family responding to avian attacks to wealthy northern
California. Though Evan Hunter’s script expands the tale,
the film drops the novelist’s tentative explanation for the
apocalyptic events, becoming Hitchcock’s most rigorously
abstract study of the psychology of fear – a quality
enhanced by the non-musical electronic score supervised
by Bernard Herrmann.
The Man Who Knew
FAMILY
Too Much (1934)
PLOTS
Fri 5, Sat 6 & Sun 14 Oct
Alfred Hitchcock • UK 1934 • 1h15m • Digital projection • U
Cast: Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Nova Pilbeam, Pierre
Fresnay.
Vintage Hitchcock, with sheer wit and verve masking an
implausible plot that spins out of the murder of a spy in
Switzerland, with a pair of innocent bystanders left to
track his secret – and their kidnapped daughter – in a dark
and labyrinthine London. Pacy, exciting, and with superb
settings, it also has nice villainy from a scarred, leering
Peter Lorre (here making his British debut).
Mr & Mrs Smith
Sun 7 & Tue 9 Oct
Alfred Hitchcock • USA 1941 • 1h35m • 16mm • U
DEAD
FUNNY
Cast: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack
Carson, Philip Merivale.
Revisiting the ‘be careful what you wish for’ conceit of Rich
and Strange, this has a comfortably volatile Manhattan
couple informed, three years into their marriage, that it
isn’t actually legal. Cue a crisis of confession and criticism,
suspicion and separation, as the wife, unexpectedly,
refuses to renew the relationship. Hitch reworks his
customary concerns about marital trust to fit in with the
sleek conventions of sophisticated comedy; Lombard,
Montgomery and Raymond respond with the requisite
brio.
Strangers on a Train
FAMILY
Sun 7 & Thu 11 Oct
PLOTS
Alfred Hitchcock • USA 1951 • 1h43m • 35mm • PG
Cast: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G Carroll,
Patricia Hitchcock.
Again, we have doubles, deceptions, flawed family
relationships and a play with symmetry, darkness and light,
as Hitchcock’s love of bitter irony shades an adaptation
(by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde) of Patricia
Highsmith’s novel. A tennis champ and a charming if
eccentric fan joke about ridding one another of unwanted
intimates: a perfect (since seemingly unmotivated) crime,
in theory... Hitchcock’s abiding fascination with structural
patterns – both narrative and visual – produces several
unforgettable set-pieces.