Netflix, the streaming service famous for not streaming older movies and not bringing movies to the big screen, is – in a surprise twist – bringing a bunch of old movies to the big screen! The Hollywood Reporter has announced this afternoon that the Netflix-owned Paris Theater in New York will be celebrating Alfred Hitchcock […]
Hollywood would soon come calling for Hitchcock, pairing incredible star power with his increasingly virtuosic directorial style. This era would see him win his only Best Picture Oscar – for 1940’s Rebecca – and would be heavily influenced by World War II, seen clearly in spy thrillers like Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, and Lifeboat, as well as two rarely-screened short films (Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache) made by Hitchcock to aid in the war effort, but shelved by government officials for being “inflammatory.”
The 1950s saw Hitchcock in peak form, with internationally beloved movie stars like Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Montgomery Clift, and Marlene Dietrich all lining up to headline some of the director’s most universally praised classics – from the pulse-pounding thriller Rear Window, to the psychological labyrinth of Vertigo, which frequently polls as one the greatest films ever made. But despite acclaim and success, Hitchcock’s appetite for grit, experimentation and boundary-pushing never waned, well into the 1960s where he completely upended audience expectations and helped launched horror as the popular genre it is today with the legendary Psycho, and delivered a vision of apocalyptic doom with The Birds.
As his career drew to a close, Hitchcock continued to deliver surprises— through the entertainingly vicious Frenzy and the dark comedy of his final film, Family Plot. This period also saw a new generation of filmmakers producing work clearly indebted to the Master of Suspense—from the overt thrills of Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black to the affectionate parody of Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety. Over two decades later, Robert Zemeckis offered his own Hitchcockian thriller with What Lies Beneath—a tradition that continues to this day, as many of today’s horror auteurs trace their cinematic lineage back to Hitchcock.
Thirty-five films in this series will have showings in 35mm, including Hitchcock classics like Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and The Lady Vanishes, as well as enduring masterpieces like Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, Fritz Lang’s M, and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique, screening on an imported 35mm print courtesy of Institut Français. We’ll also have special treats like two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, featuring memorable small screen roles for stars like Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre and the directing prowess of multi-hypenate Ida Lupino. And those curious to learn more about the filmmaker’s history can take in two featured documentaries: Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut, and My Name is Alfred Hitchcock by Mark Cousins.
