Zaphod Likes His Talkies

Wie ghets?!

So I am on my first ever Hitchcock trip. Yes, I know late in life and wag your finger at me all you like but I finished watching ‘The 39 Steps’ yesterday and before you can ask, I have seen the mandatory ‘Psycho’ and thanks to Mummy dearest saw it as a pre-teen leaving me rather worried about the fact that it was his mummy he kept around.

Right so there were a few things I noticed about the film. Remember the silent films, well in them everything was over the top from facial expressions to actions to compensate for a lack of sound. Then you ‘The 39 Steps’ where it isn’t quite like that but the dramatic element is kind of artistic but also obvious in its dramaticism. For instance, the woman tells the lead to look out the window. He walks up and you see the slats of the blinds across his face, he sidles up to the window and you see a frame showing his eyes looking out through the slats. Then you see two guys at the far end of the street in trench-coats with the streetlight dropping a near perfect circle of light on them. And that’s it, you can’t see anything else on the street, no other lights, no one else, no cars nothing.

Another thing I noticed about the movie is the lack of music except in the credits and the end of the movie (in a lot of old movies best b’loved, you would see the credits at the start of the film). Again, music was used in silent movies (okay not quite in them but you had a lackey off to the side either playing a record or hamming it up on the piano/organ) and in a lot of modern films as the score but its not there in this movie…at least I don’t recall there being any.

And another thing (!) modern movies, you kind of feel the suspense building up to the point. In this movie, it just is, turn your head and you missed it. Does it make for better viewing? Well, its ketchup (Koi mujhe please bata de maggie hot & sweet tomato chilli sauce mein different kya hai? It’s different…sorry a throw back from commercials as a kid). But yeah, it just is and I like it.

So now, am getting ‘North By Northwest’, ‘Rear Window’, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, ‘To Catch a Thief’…am also downloading ‘Epic Movie’ but you wouldn’t hold that against Zaphod now would you?

(after inserting all the hyperlinks)
yeah so I just saw the entry for Epic Movie...Zaphod is no longer downloading it, I repeat, Zaphod is no longer downloading it