Forget the shot in "Notorious" where the camera slowly descends from the second floor to Ingrid Bergman standing in the foyer and a tight closeup of the key in her hand.
Feast your eyes, instead (and try to figure out how cinematographer Wilkie Cooper shot it) on the sequence that begins outside Charlotte Inwood's residence, as Richard Todd gets out of his car, goes up the steps, opens the door, steps inside and . . . as the camera stays on his back, now inside the home . . . shuts the door behind him, starts up the stairs, reaches the second landing, crosses to Charlotte's bedroom door and enters. One continuous shot from exterior to interior and up the stairs. No cutaways. Amazing.
The shot was echoed years later in reverse, in "Frenzy," where the camera pulls back from a murder, goes down the stairs and out the door onto the street.
So why, one wonders, does Hitchcock settle for a cheap double-exposure shot of Dietrich in closeup in the foreground while Richard Todd is at the window in the background, when Gregg Toland had already achieved such "deep focus" shots without "trick photography" nine years earlier in "Citizen Kane?"
Yes, Jane Wyman's American accent is problematic. A glancing reference to her having been "educated" in America doesn't solve the fact that she's supposed to be British.
Marlene Dietrich is 50 and looks it. She actually looks younger seven years later in "Witness for the Prosecution." No matter.
The acting is superb all around.
The infamous "lying flashback" at the beginning seems far less troublesome to today's audiences than it did when the film was released, perhaps because we're more accustomed to films playing tricks with time, now.
The character development is exceptional -- particularly the relationship between Jane Wyman and Michael Wilding. (Quick: name another film starring Michael Wilding. You can't.) Hitchcock takes his time with the characters. Wyman and Wilding in the taxi on the way to the garden party are wonderful.
Is it necessary for Hitchcock to insist on superimposing a bloodstain on the doll's dress to let us know what Alastair Sim is thinking? No.
But then, when you've delivered a shot as spectacular as that long dolly of Richard Todd from exterior to interior and up the stairs, you can do anything you darn well please.
Feast your eyes, instead (and try to figure out how cinematographer Wilkie Cooper shot it) on the sequence that begins outside Charlotte Inwood's residence, as Richard Todd gets out of his car, goes up the steps, opens the door, steps inside and . . . as the camera stays on his back, now inside the home . . . shuts the door behind him, starts up the stairs, reaches the second landing, crosses to Charlotte's bedroom door and enters. One continuous shot from exterior to interior and up the stairs. No cutaways. Amazing.
The shot was echoed years later in reverse, in "Frenzy," where the camera pulls back from a murder, goes down the stairs and out the door onto the street.
So why, one wonders, does Hitchcock settle for a cheap double-exposure shot of Dietrich in closeup in the foreground while Richard Todd is at the window in the background, when Gregg Toland had already achieved such "deep focus" shots without "trick photography" nine years earlier in "Citizen Kane?"
Yes, Jane Wyman's American accent is problematic. A glancing reference to her having been "educated" in America doesn't solve the fact that she's supposed to be British.
Marlene Dietrich is 50 and looks it. She actually looks younger seven years later in "Witness for the Prosecution." No matter.
The acting is superb all around.
The infamous "lying flashback" at the beginning seems far less troublesome to today's audiences than it did when the film was released, perhaps because we're more accustomed to films playing tricks with time, now.
The character development is exceptional -- particularly the relationship between Jane Wyman and Michael Wilding. (Quick: name another film starring Michael Wilding. You can't.) Hitchcock takes his time with the characters. Wyman and Wilding in the taxi on the way to the garden party are wonderful.
Is it necessary for Hitchcock to insist on superimposing a bloodstain on the doll's dress to let us know what Alastair Sim is thinking? No.
But then, when you've delivered a shot as spectacular as that long dolly of Richard Todd from exterior to interior and up the stairs, you can do anything you darn well please.