Alfred Hitchcock’s name is synonymous with the thriller genre, but the director also made a handful of non-thrillers that are must-watch movies for those fascinated by his work. He may be identified with suspense films likeNorth By Northwest,Rear WindowandVertigo,but Hitchcock was capable of more than just keeping audiences on the edges of their seats.
Hitchcock said he wanted to play the audience like a piano, and though there were certain tunes he liked to bang out, he could stretch beyond his standard repertoire if needed. He could make his audience scream with fright, yes, but he could also make them howl with laughter.
There is romance in a lot ofHitchcock’s thriller movies, so it should be no surprise that he could explore such territory in non-thriller too. He could give things a melodramatic cast when need be, or depict the psychology of complex relationships.
Dark humor is present in most of Hitchcock’s movies, so black comedy was right in his wheelhouse, but he could do lighter humor too, and even pull off screwball. A more multi-faceted director than most give him credit for, Hitchcock was an overall master of cinematic storytelling, regardless of genre.
Under Capricorn
Cast
Under Capricorn is a period drama set in 1831, revolving around Charles Adare, an Irishman seeking a fresh start in Australia. He encounters Sam Flusky, a former convict turned landowner, and his troubled wife Henrietta at a dinner party, leading to complex personal and business entanglements.
Hitchcock began experimenting with the ten-minute takeon his 1948 thrillerRope. He continued his tinkering withUnder Capricorn, an adaptation of a stage play that was itself based on a novel.
The long-take approach may not be entirely successful, but it’s still fascinating to watch as Hitchcock experiments with this new way of using the camera. The Dogme 95 crowd would later champion the self-imposed challenge as a way of unlocking inspiration, but Hitch beat them to it by several decades.
Thriller mechanics are almost entirely absent, as Hitchcock focuses on the love triangle between Ingrid Bergman and two men.
Under Capricornis atypical Hitchcock for a number of reasons. Its tone is decidedly more melodramatic than suspenseful, in theRebeccavein. Thriller mechanics are almost entirely absent, as Hitchcock focuses on the love triangle between Ingrid Bergman and two men.
Bergman’s performance may beUnder Capricorn’schief attraction. It marked her third and final collaboration with Hitchcock, and though the movie is a huge departure fromNotoriousandSpellbound, it still displays the special magic that existed for this actor-director duo, cementing Bergman’s place as an essential Hitchcock star.
The discovery of a dead body, and a group of otherwise normal people’s odd reaction to this event, would have made for a fun vignette in one of Hitchcock’s murder-mystery films (it would have been right at home inBlackmail). This time, the diverting episode takes up the whole movie, with the unexpected corpse serving as the MacGuffin.
Though standard suspense mechanics may be absent from the film, its playfully macabre tone could not be more quintessentially Hitchcock. Indeed,The Trouble With Harrymay bethe purest expression of the director’s twisted, ironic, very English sense of humor.
1955 critics didn’t know what to do with Hitchcock’s offbeat non-thriller, yet still found it amusing.The Washington Post’s Richard L. Coe offered:
An odd one—sparkling cider spiked with arsenic and a sprig of poison ivy. Although I can recognize its drawbacks, I must confess it almost made me drunk with perverse pleasure.
ThoughThe Trouble With Harryis consistently filed under “minor Hitchcock,” the film’s 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating suggests it has been reassessed dramatically upward in the decades since its release. The film’s humor may have struck critics as odd in 1955, but feels much more accessible 70 years and many Coen Brothers movies later.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a romantic comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film follows Ann and David Smith, a couple living in New York, who discover due to a legal loophole that their marriage is invalid, leading to humorous and unexpected developments in their relationship.
Mr. and Mrs. Smithstars Carole Lombard and husband Clark Gable were personal friends of Hitchcock and Alma Reville, and Hitchcock later claimed he only made the movie as a favor to Lombard. If he’s only impersonating a screwball comedy director for Lombard’s sake, then it’s a flawless act of mimicry.
Hitchcock’s fascination with fear made him the perfect person to become cinema’s Edgar Allan Poe. OnMr. and Mrs. Smith, the director set aside his morbid fixations for once, affording a glimpse of an alternate-universe Hitchcock who would have indeed given Howard Hawks and Ernst Lubitsch a run for their money.
Lombard directed Hitchcock’sMr. and Mrs. Smithcameo, jokingly forcing the director to do the scene over and over.
Mr. and Mrs. Smithcracks open a doorway to another intriguing alternate timeline, one where Carole Lombard and not Ingrid Bergman became Hitchcock’s muse of the ‘40s. Tragically, Lombard died in a plane crash not long after the film’s release, depriving the world of whatever she and Hitchcock might have cooked up next.
Mr. and Mrs. Smithmay have been a lighter confection than normal for Hitchcock, but it is still a tasty one, sitting at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes.
When marital infidelity comes up in Hitchcock’s films, the takeaway is almost always the same: testing the waters can be a fun diversion, but that’s all it is – a diversion. InMr. and Mrs. Smith, the titular pairing is uncoupled by a legal screw-up, but after dallying with others, they find that separation has only strengthened their love.
Hitchcock’s 1931 filmRich and Strangemade a very different stew from some of the same ingredients. In it, a young couple go on an extended sea cruise, where each strikes up a new romance, but in adherence to the formula, wind up back in each other’s arms, more certain than ever of their undying affection.
Rich and Strangeis an oddball romance whose charms are harder to clock, given the movie’s awkward part-silent/part-talkie mix of techniques.
The later Carole Lombard film is an assured screwball comedy.Rich and Strangeis an oddball romance whose charms are harder to clock, given the movie’s awkward part-silent/part-talkie mix of techniques.
Rotten Tomatoes has 13 reviews to draw from in assigning the movie a 69% fresh rating, reflecting a consensus view that, though not one of Hitchcock’s classics,Rich and Strangehas enough going on to warrant a look.
The Paradine Caseis not only not a Hitchcockian thriller, it arguably isn’t even a Hitchcock movie. The director’s tumultuous relationship with David O. Selznick began withRebecca, a film Hitchcock dismissed as not his own, due to Selznick’s overwhelming input. That teaming ended withParadine Case, a courtroom drama made largely in reshoots, dictated by Selznick’s incessant note-giving.
Rebeccafamously was the only Hitchcock film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.The Paradine Casesnagged just a single nomination, a Best Supporting Actress nod for Ethel Barrymore. Though not as acclaimed as Selznick’s 1940 Best Picture winner, the 1947 movie had its admirers, among them theNew York Times’ Bosley Crowther, who praised the film effusively:
With all the skill in presentation for which both gentlemen are famed, David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock have put upon the screen a slick piece of static entertainment.
The Paradine Casesits at 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film’s cast receives much of the praise, with special mention to Gregory Peck, whose performance as a lawyer presages his laterOscar-winning work as Atticus Finch inTo Kill a Mockingbird.
Madeleine Carroll is most frequently cited as the first “Hitchcock blonde” (with all the problematic baggage that term entails).If there was a proto-Hitchcock blonde, it was Anny Ondra, the Austrian and Czech actor Hitchcock worked with onThe Manxman, and then cast for his fantastic early-career suspense movieBlackmail.
Love triangles come up a lot in Hitchcock’s non-thriller output.Under Capricornhinges on one, and so doesThe Manxman. There is suspense in such stories, of course, as the viewer is kept in doubt about who will end up with whom. Maybe that’s why Hitchcock was drawn to these scenarios.
The New York Times’ Mordaunt Hall found plenty to like in Hitchcock’s romantic melodrama, saying, “The Manxman is filled with enchanting scenes and the story itself is quite well told.” Rotten Tomatoes has found 12 reviews, almost all positive, resulting in a 92% fresh rating.
The Birdsmay contain thriller elements, but it’s at heart a horror-fantasy. There is suspense in its unfolding, but its tension-and-release pattern might be closer to a slasher filmthan something likePsycho,a thriller with horror elements. What makesThe Birdsmore horror than thriller, above all, is the violence.
Hitchcock may have amused himself with the odd gruesome touch over the years, like when the would-be killer falls on the scissors inDial “M” For Murder, driving them further into his back, but it never felt like violence was the point.
Great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarvkovsky admiredThe Birds, but original book author Daphne du Maurier disliked it, because of its setting shift from England to California.
Psycho’s shower scene marked the turning point. Hitchcock could get away with being more lurid and perverse, so he began laying it on.The Birdsis his most relentlessly sadistic film, and the violence, this time, is absolutely the point.
The Birdssits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, certifying it as one of Hitchcock’s most acclaimed movies. It was a huge hit in its day, grossing $11.4 million on a budget of $3.3 million. It’s often said thatVertigois the key to understanding Hitchcock, but the brutally nihilisticThe Birdsmight frankly be a more revealing work.
