I have a feeling that tonight you're going to see one of the Riviera's most fascinating sights.

To Catch a Thief
(1955)

As lightweight and breezily enjoyable as Hitchcock's third collaboration with Cary Grant is, it is maybe a little bit too pleased with itself. With all the ingredients for success present, there’s a sense of not needing to try very hard to win the viewer over.

John Michael Hayes' script is rife with innuendo-laced (censor-baiting) dialogue, which means that all the cast has to do is show up in the Riviera (or on the sound stage) and deliver their lines. The flipside of this is that it doesn’t give credit where it’s due for making it all seem so effortless. But, really, Grant’s could play this in his sleep. Witness his leisurely conversation over lunch with insurance investigator Hughson (John Williams).

Hughson: The pastries are light as air.

John Robie: Germaine has very sensitive hands and an exceedingly light touch. She strangled a German general – without a sound.

Following hot on the heels of Rear Window (contender for the best of the auteur’s films) and with back-to-back male stars and back-to-back Grace Kelly, this is as close as the director would come to a “sure thing” period in his career. By all accounts Thief was a decent-sized hit, but his slightly mercurial tastes meant it was never certain what he would turn to next (The Trouble with Harry would follow). The talent on board is all that weighs down a film that so slight it could blow away at any moment.

We are presented with mild intrigue but little real suspense. The result is that Hitchcock amuses rather than tests himself (although, the extensive location shooting was something of a departure and he makes use of helicopter shots; needless to say he wasn't present). The film certainly looks gorgeous (Robert Burke’s cinematography won an Oscar). It was only on the language side that there were problems to overcome. Notably, Charles Vanel (as Bertani) was dubbed as he did not speak English.

Grant plays retired cat burglar John Robie, falsely accused of being back in the game, and makes a more convincing fist of it than Sean Connery would much later in Entrapment. There’s clearly a desire to make Robie a fine and upstanding former criminal; not only is he repentant but he served with the resistance during the War. And still he can’t catch a break! The former Archibald Leach was a 50 when this was released, and considering retirement (it took him another decade). The script pegged Robie at 35. As healthy as he looks, his tan is slightly scary; everyone else appears bleached in comparison. Grace Kelly [i]did[/i] retire a couple of years after making this (only a quarter of a century Grant's junior). She and Grant have a playful chemistry, although it’s difficult to believe that Grant wouldn’t come across as easy going opposite anyone. If all this age concern seems excessive, the studio didn’t think so. The film was in the can in ’54 but delayed by Paramount execs fretting over the gap between them.

The "thriller" plot is really just there to top and tail Kelly’s (Frances Stevens’) conquest of the reluctant older man, which she does with relish (“Do you want a leg or a breast?” she asks him as they picnic). Her first scene is subdued, very much the demur ice queen. But when Grant escorts her to her door she reveals herself, moving to kiss him. Later, Hitch takes delight in cutting from Robie and Frances embracing on a sofa to a succession of exploding fireworks. Post-Airplane! such scenes can never be seen as less than ridiculous, but it’s not as if Hitchcock wasn’t smirking as he gave full rein to the naughty schoolboy within.

Regarding Kelly, I have to be honest; I was more taken with Brigitte Auber's Danielle (the daughter of one of Robie's old associates). She's so much more playful and, well, fun than Kelly. (Auber’s interplay with Grant is marvelously feisty; told she is only a girl compared to Kelly, she asks Robie “Why buy an old car if you can get a new one cheaper? It will run better and last longer”). Since I’m stuck on the cast’s ages I’ll mention two more; Auber was a couple of years older than Kelly. And then there’s the older lady.

Jessie Royce Landis steals every scene she's in as Kelly's mother (no wonder Hitchcock invited her back for North By Northwest, this time as Grant's mother – there are eight years between them). A motif of the director’s, destruction towards eggs, is present on twice here. One of which repeats the particularly violent act of subbing a cigarette out in a fried egg that was last seen in Rebecca. The mother-in-law final gag (she will come and live with the happy couple) seems very familiar, but achived the desired aim of not to making the ending too blissful.

***1/2

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

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Tully (2018)
(SPOILERS) A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I'll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging.

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Hold the Dark (2018)
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Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

Well, you did take advantage of a drunken sailor.

Tomb Raider (2018)
(SPOILERS) There's evidently an appetite out there for a decent Tomb Raider movie, given that the lousy 2001 incarnation was successful enough to spawn a (lousy) sequel, and that this lousier reboot, scarcely conceivably, may have attracted enough bums on seats to do likewise. If we're going to distinguish between order of demerits, we could characterise the Angelina Jolie movies as both pretty bad; Tomb Raider, in contrast, is unforgivably tedious.

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Phantom Thread (2017)
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Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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