Alfred Hitchcock is having a midlife, make that a late-life, crisis. His latest movie, North by Northwest, is a smash hit and yet he is nagged by doubt. “But you’re 60 years old,” a reporter shouts out. “Shouldn’t you just quit while

Taut tales of stealthy undercover agents from the Civil War through the Cold War have provided...

Part of the appeal of theatre is the transformation of reality. Under ideal conditions, an audience is transported somewhere else for the duration of the play. Ideally, a group of actors and various production elements can convince an audience on some level that they’re more than just a roomful of people pretending. Patrick Barlow’s comic adaptation of The 39 Steps plays with the illusion fo...

Just a couple of days ago, The Milwaukee Rep sent out a press release on its upcoming production of Alfred Hitchcock’s 39 Steps.  The comic Patrick Barlow stage adaptation of Hitchcock’s 1935 mystery thriller calls for an ensemble of four. As there were over thirty actors in the original film, the comedy calls for Irma Vep—style quick changes. Sounds like fun. The press release included ...

An innocent man runs for his life, hunted by police convinced he�s guilty of a great crime and by shadowy forces who will kill him if he falls into their hands. It�s the core of many Alfred Hitchcock films and of Tell NoOne (2006) by French director Guillaume Canet. It�s out now on DVD. Hitchcock has long been honored in France, whose filmmakers continue to work out his ideas in contempor...

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a psychological mystery staring Jimmy Stewart, tanked upon its initial release, but over the years the film was re-discovered as a sort of “lost Hitchcock film,” if not a “lost Hitchcock masterpiece.” It doesn’t provide the popcorn thrills that many of Hitch’s best flicks do, but even casual fans of classic cinema will want to see it on the big screen to appreciate the film’s grand sets, gorgeous colors and...

Screening this afternoon at 1:30 p.m. at the Times Cinema is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a psychological mystery staring Jimmy Stewart that tanked upon its initial release. Over the years the film was re-discovered as a sort of “lost Hitchcock film,” if not a “lost Hitchcock masterpiece.” It doesn’t provide the popcorn thrills that many of Hitch’s best flicks do, but even casual fans of classic cinema will want to see it on the...

Often the classic films the Charles Allis Art Museum screens are of the slightly obscure variety, but tonight’s selection is familiar to most film lovers: It’s Rebecca, the 1940 psychological thriller that won director Alfred Hitchcock his first—and, criminally, his only—Best Picture Oscar. Joan Fontaine plays a young...

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” begins the narrator at the opening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The woman speaking, the heroine of the emotionally harrowing classic, is never named. And that is only one of many intriguing twists in a movie that has lost none of its fascination over time. The title character of the 1940 film is never seen but always present. The woman called Rebecca died before the story begins...

Nowadays the streets of London and any cosmopolitan metropolis are filled with professional women, but in London, 1960, Laura Quinn (Demi Moore) is nearly alone in a man�s world. She is 38, never married and determined against gnawing doubts to make a career in a world where few women had careers. Each morning Laura sails into the brightly polished, coldly modern offices of the giant London Di...