Natalie Presents…

Okay, so I know I promised you San Fran pics and wacky stories, but…I’m a total liar. Because today is someone very special’s birthday, and I couldn’t let the day pass without paying due respect.

I gather that you all recognize the famed silhouette featured below?

That’s right, kids. I am crazy enough to devote an entire blog post to my all-time favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock, no matter how much of a lunatic said director is purported to be. Honestly, any director who pairs Cary Grant with Grace Kelly wins the coveted award of My Favorite Director.

Wait, don’t leave! I am not that shallow as a rule. C’mon, give me a little credit here.

Why do I love his movies so much, especially given his apparent proclivity to turn women into objects of voyeuristic pleasure? I’m so glad you asked.

Now, I could SOOOO easily launch into a academic reading of Hitchcock’s films, complete with bibliography and current criticism. In fact, I started to do that until I realized no one was interested in reading that but me, so I hit the backspace for you, gentle reader. That’s how much I care about you.

[Although if you’re interested in this sort of thing, email me and I’ll totally write an academic paper for you and we’ll probably become best friends.]

Let’s keep it simple. Subtlety. Carefully nuanced suspense. Attention to detail. There is no more powerful scene than the one in which Cary Grant carries the glass of possibly-poisoned milk up the shadowy staircase for his terrified wife; the milk glows sinisterly against the darkness, as Hitchcock saw fit to rig a tiny light bulb in the glass to increase the overall eeriness of the situation. GENIUS!!!!

Okay, I’m sorry, it’s just impossible for me to write any more without indices or an extrapolation about the scene in Rear Window where Thorwald finally looks across the courtyard and the voyeur becomes the object of the gaze. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

Instead, here’s a list of my All-Time Favorite Hitchcock movies.

• Rear Window
• To Catch a Thief
• Vertigo
• Notorious
• North by Northwest
• Suspicion
• Rope
• Rebecca
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• Dial M For Murder

Now, I am still working on his filmography so I haven’t seen a lot of the less critically acclaimed films or the ones not available via Netflix. I am nothing if not a lazy fan. I rationalize and tell myself it gives me something to look forward to. Plus Mike refuses to watch them with me.

So happy birthday, Al. Your films make me happy and give me something good to do on my sick days, and I guess that was the point, huh?