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PrintCircle Cinema's low-down on “Hi-Def Hitch”
A monthly series of Alfred Hitchcock films at Circle Cinema, which began last year, will soon come to a close.
Early in his fine book “The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock,” biographer Donald Spoto calls the legendary film director “a visual poet of anxiety and accident who … deserves a place with Kafka and Dostoevski and Conrad and Poe.” A rather grim bunch, to be sure, however brilliant.
And in his essential “Film Encyclopedia,” writer Ephraim Katz tags “Hitch” (as some called him) as “the grandest wizard of cinema magic the screen has ever known.”
One of the greatest movie directors ever, then, was also, in terms of subject matter, one of the creepiest. And one of the most recognized.
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) — who made more than 50 feature films, along with his pioneering TV work — remains among the best-known filmmakers in history. And the world of Hitchcock’s films remains, in our collective mind-set, one of nervousness, uncertainty, strangeness and murder. They didn’t call him the Master of Suspense for nothing.
But for all its brooding, bloodlust and bizarre content, Hitchcock’s world is also an enormously entertaining one — indeed, part of why it’s so entertaining is because it’s so long on mystery and the macabre. And it’s a world that’s been on view (on the big screen, as originally intended) at Circle Cinema here in Tulsa for the last several months.
Since April 2009, the Circle (12 S. Lewis Ave., www.circlecinema.com) has been running a more-or-less monthly series called “Hi-Def Hitch.” That’s “hi-def” as in “high-definition,” meaning that the movies are essentially downloadable computer files, rather than 35mm celluloid prints, and that such files have been digitally remastered for better sound and cleaner, sharper pictures.
The films in this series are programmed through Emerging Pictures, the largest all-digital theater network in the country. (The Circle uses this company to obtain and show other films, too, and it’s one of only 65 venues to do so.) Currently, eight Hitchcock films have been remastered (and thereafter circulated) by Emerging Pictures. Thus far, the Circle has screened six of them — including such classics as “Rear Window” (1954), “The Birds” (1963), “Vertigo” (1958) and “Psycho” (1960), the last of which inaugurated the series, as one might expect, to a very large audience.
The Circle’s two remaining “Hi-Def Hitch” films will be shown this month and next: “Torn Curtain” (1966) is set for March 8, and “The Trouble with Harry” (1955) will run on April 12. Both films begin at 7:30 p.m.
In the former, the eponymous curtain is the “Iron Curtain.” The film is a Cold War-era espionage thriller about an American scientist pretending to defect to East Germany. Paul Newman is the lead, and Julie Andrews plays his suspicious but well-meaning assistant (and bride-to-be). Both stars were really hitting their respective strides when this movie came out; Newman would soon appear in “Cool Hand Luke,” and Andrews had just graced “The Sound of Music.”
And in the latter film, “Harry” is, well, a dead guy. Set in and around a beautifully photographed New England village, it’s a dark comedy about a corpse that simply won’t stay put. Why does the body keep getting moved? Because several different people think they’re the one who killed Harry. The film’s stars include John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine (in her first screen role). Baby Boomers might also recognize little Jerry Mathers (who went on to appear in TV’s “Leave It to Beaver”).
Also worth noting is that both these films feature the super-stylish work of Edith Head, the famous Hollywood costume designer who won eight Oscars (amid 30-plus nominations) in a career that ran from the ’30s through the early ’80s. It would be difficult to list every outstanding movie for which Head designed the threads, but (in addition to the many Hitchcock films she worked on) a handful of such classics would include “A Place in the Sun,” “All About Eve,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “Sabrina,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “The Sting.”
Speaking of whom, and lastly: Anyone interested in great Hollywood movies — or in great costumes, for that matter — will be pleased to learn that an exhibition of Head’s work is now on view at the Price Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville. “Lights! Camera! Fashion!: The Film Costumes of Edith Head” runs through May 16. (Visit www.pricetower.org/exhibitions for more info.)
TU film fest
Here’s a cool, local film-related event that’s a.) worth checking out and b.) free to the public. The second annual University of Tulsa Film Festival happens in the lecture hall of Chapman Hall on the TU campus on March 1. It will begin at 7 p.m. and will feature short films across a variety of genres, all of them completed over the last year or so by TU students and alumni. For more information, call 631-2969.
Scott Gregory hosts “All This Jazz” on Public Radio 89.5 KWGS, where he’s also the producer and editor of “Studio Tulsa.”
