The Top 10 Hitchcockian Sequences
20th September 2009
By Joe Boden

I don’t know what it is that’s got me thinking about Hitchcock so much recently. Perhaps it’s the comparisons between Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” (2009) and Claude Chabrol’s “A Girl Cut in Two” (2008), both of which involve love triangles and very Hitchcockian undertones, that were instantly drawn whilst watching the Spanish film earlier this week. Perhaps it’s the pair of Jimmy Stewart films I watched earlier this week. Or, more explicitly and probably more likely, perhaps it’s the fact that I bought “Dial M For Murder” only a couple of days ago. And so, as this week’s obligatory filler top ten list, I decided to draw up a list of my ten favourite Hitchcockian sequences directed by the big man himself.

10. Burial, Unearthing, Re-Burial – “the Trouble with Harry”
Beating out Tippi Hendren’s flashback in “Marnie” and the ludicrously hilarious blind man in “Saboteur” for the much-prized number ten consolation spot, “the Trouble with Harry” – often wrongly construed as lesser Hitchcock – just about makes the cut. Hitchcock’s films are often tinged with genius black comedy, particularly the films of the later stretch of his career, and I don’t think he’s ever reached a pitch any blacker than this. Nor funnier, actually, because watching John Forsythe and co repeatedly dig up a corpse that they all think they’ve killed is both hilarious and utterly Hitchcockian. There’s suspense, thrills, and laughs, and this underrated gem surely deserves a little more credit than it often gets.

9. The Looming Army – “the Birds”
Hitch’s thriller-horror, starring Tippi Hendren as a woman living in a town that is invaded by the titular birds, may have dated pretty poorly, but I don’t think there’s a more dominating, imposing, and terrifying image as the finale of “the Birds”. As Hendren emerges from a house after successfully fighting off an attack, she encounters an army of birds, perched around the town, silent except for a smattering of squawks. It sounds rather silly when you think about it, but tonally, it’s perfect, fitting in with the dark mood of the film. It’s been homaged and pillaged whole-sale around a million times, most memorably in a Simpsons Halloween special where the birds are replaced by land-dwelling dolphins, and it’s about to get the re-make treatment with Naomi Watts taking Hendren’s place, but there’s no doubt that Hitchcock’s original is a daunting and unrivalled experience.

8. Following Kim Novak – “Vertigo”
In many ways, the sequence in which Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie follows Kim Novak around San Francisco is the most memorable Hitchcock sequence of all. It’s difficult to say why; perhaps it’s the slow-build nature of it, or the beauty of San Francisco which Hitch manages to extract thanks to his slow-moving camera, or the way everything culminates in a violent and emphatic crescendo. Whatever it is, the main crux of “Vertigo” – the film often said to be the height of Hitchcock’s art and the one that secured his place (at least in Truffaut’s eyes) as one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live – is this scene. Not only does it suggest that what we are seeing is more than just an ordinary thriller and that mysticism and other forces are at work here, but it’s also brimming with tension and suspense, and is a fantastically directed piece of celluloid.

7. ‘What are the 39 Steps?’ - “the 39 Steps”
The earliest film on the list, 1935’s “the 39 Steps” is the blueprint film for at least two more of Hitch’s works. In both “Saboteur” and “North by Northwest”, Hitch replaces the United Kingdom with the United States, and all three films are fantastic. However, the finale of “the 39 Steps” is perhaps the best final sequence of these three films, and provided one of the earliest examples of a truly Hitchcockian sequence. Amidst a torrent seemingly banal and irrelevant happenings, and amongst a crowd of people who have nothing to do with the plot, the protagonists and the antagonists finally get to grips, the battle of wits between them drowning out the banality of the surrounding events. In this film, it’s Roger Donat who plays the every man, taking on ‘the man’ using only his wits. The question ‘what are the 39 steps?’, something we’ve been waiting to hear for the entire film, those five words rising above the surrounding babble and leading to uncomfortable silence, is delivered perfectly. This crowded setting sequence was used many times again by Hitch, most notably in the café diner scene in “North by Northwest”, the circus scene in “Strangers on a Train”, and many of the tense sequences in the Hollywood remake of “the Man Who Knew too Much”.

6. Avoiding Air Traffic – “North by Northwest”
To be honest, you could pick just about any scene in “North by Northwest”, the last film of Hitch’s wonder decade, to qualify for this list. There’s the fantastic café diner scene, the immaculate Mount Rushmore face-off, and just about any sequence involving James Mason, but the best of the bunch is the Airplane scene, where Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill ducks and dives his way out of propeller-themed peril. Sound tracked only by the roaring engine of the plane that stalks Grant’s wrongfully accused advertising executive, the scene is the epitome of perilous Hitchcockian suspense, and so self indulgent that you can’t help but respect it.

Cary Grant evades capture in "North by Northwest"

5. Clearing the Table – “Rope”
If you were playing a word association game in which you had to state the first word that came to mind, and somebody said “Hitchcock”, nine out of ten people would probably say suspense. The owner of various nicknames with suspense within them, Hitch’s main skill was taking a seemingly banal and unimportant event and stretching it, building the suspense bit by bit until he finally releases it. “Rope” is an exercise in suspense, a film made up of around six shots, cut together to make them look like one fluent film. Removing all close-ups, wide-shots, and general technical trickery, Hitchcock really proves just how resourceful he is with the famous clearing the table scene. The plot of “Rope” follows two young, intelligent men who decide to kill a friend before hiding him in their trunk and inviting friends around. Serving food off the trunk where their dead friend hides, they indulge in general joviality in attempts to prove themselves superior. The best scene of the film involves the maid removing the food off’f the table bit by bit, taking a plate to the kitchen before returning for more, slowly but surely – and unknowingly – getting closer to the corpse that lies within. It’s so simple, but it’s also genius.

4. The Difficulties of Murder – “Torn Curtain”
“Torn Curtain” is almost certainly second tier Hitchcock, if not third tier, but it does involve one absolutely fabulous scene. The plot sees Paul Newman jump over to the Red side during the Cold War, but he’s actually a double agent, and when somebody finds out he turns from nuclear physicist to cold-blooded killer. The film itself is pretty ludicrous, but this five-minute scene – which Hitchcock included simply to show how difficult it must be to physically kill a man – makes it worth the two hours single-handedly. Brimming with tension and intensity, the gleam in Paul Newman’s eyes as he is forced to do what is necessary for his country shows you why he has the reputation that he does. In fact, this is one of his lesser performances, and he was probably only involved in order to work with the great Alfred Hitchcock, but that scene is damn near perfect.

3. ‘A Boy’s Best Friend is His Mother’ – “Psycho”
“Psycho features several supremely Hitchcockian set-ups, some more obvious than others. I could have included any one of them, but thanks to my insistence on including only one of them, I’ve picked one of the quieter but certainly equally as worthy moments in Hitchcock’s film. The first discussions that take place between Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins are something quite special. They breathe a subtle yet unsettling warning, and – as the simple conversation wears on – this particular scene spells out a huge tonal shift in what is surely Hitchcock’s most famous film. It is here, in Bates’ den, that we realize that this is not about Marion or her stolen money, it’s about Norman Bates. The way that Hitchcock shoots the scene, mainly using close-ups of the protagonists but often flitting to seeming pointless but quite deliberate shots of Norman’s unsettling stuffed animals, is quite magnificent, building both tension and suspense until he gives us a teasing anti-climax. We’ll have to wait a few more minutes for Hitch’s most famous scene in the shower, but the true genius of “Psycho” lies in that short conversation between Leigh and Perkins, and that infamous sentence; ‘a boy’s best friend is his Mother’.

2. The Tennis Match/Merry-Go-Round Sequence – “Strangers On A Train”
This is a little bit of a cheat here, because it’s technically two scenes, but they manage to seamlessly seg-way into one another quite nicely. The beginning of the end of “Strangers on a Train” sees Farley Granger attempt to see off his tennis opponent as quickly as possible in order to upend a murderer from doing his business. The climax sees the eventual, inevitable face-off between the supposed cohorts take place in one of the unlikeliest settings you can imagine; a children’s circus. The innocent yet implicated bystanders only amplify the peril of it all, and both the spinning merry-go-round and the constant cuts in the tennis match make the entire thirty minute sequence a dizzying experience.

1. Entering the Murderer’s Flat – “Rear Window”
“Rear Window” is the ultimate Hitchcock movie. It features some of the most suspenseful scenes in movie history, a fantastic Jimmy Stewart performance, Grace Kelly at her very best, some technical wizardry, and a certain amount of showing off. I don’t think you could really ask for much more from a Hitchcock movie, could you? As time goes by, some of Hitch’s films rise and fall in my estimation, moving up and down my favourites list, which changes almost every day. The number one spot, though, is constantly occupied by “Rear Window”, which is – for all intents and purposes – just about as perfect a film as Hitch could ever hope to make. The beauty of the sequence that I’m including as my number one is that it wouldn’t be the same without the hour and a half that went before it. The film does several things wonderfully, but perhaps the two things that are most integral for this finale are as follows; Hitch builds up the relationship between Stewart and Kelly, almost implying that Stewart doesn’t know just how much he cares for his partner, whilst also building up the mysticism and eeriness of the potentially murderous neighbour. These two things are the key contributors to the tension and the suspense of this climactic scene, as Stewart watches the woman he unknowingly loves enter grave danger and the murderer comes home to find an alien presence in his home. The whole film is in the balance, and it’s quite possibly the most involved and enthralled I’ve ever found myself in a film, Hitchcock or not. His partnership with Stewart resulted in four films, two of which are incredible, one of which very good, an the other above average, and it’s quite easy to see just why this is regarded as one of the greatest director-actor partnerships in filmic history.