Films of the week: Escape into the wonderful world of Alfred Hitchcock

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

Wednesday, BBC2, 2.50pm

ESCAPE. Isn’t that what our lives are all about at the moment? Dodging Covid. Trying to stay safe until hopes can be rescued by vaccine? Staying away from a menace that wants to obliterate us, even though we’ve done nothing to deserve it.

So isn’t this the perfect time to wallow in an innocent’s tale of hiding away and dodging death?

Let’s connect with the story of Roger O Thornhill, an ace advertising executive (we know he’s ace because he wears Savile Row suits that make him look like the best-dressed man alive).

Roger finds himself in a hotel bar where somehow he is mistaken for the mysterious George Kaplan.

The goon squad have Roger kidnapped, they hose bourbon down his throat and then proceed to frame him for murder.

And that’s just the beginning of his problems. Out and on the run, his life hanging by a thread, Roger tries desperately to lose those who want him dead.

But they’re like Covid. They don’t carry a sign saying “Killer”. All he can do is dodge the attacks when they arrive.

Thankfully, for Roger and the viewer, this movie isn’t all about running away from menace. We discover the beautiful ice blonde Eva Marie Saint has come along for the ride and together the pair dodge bullets and any accusations of overly melodramatic acting.

There is a little ham in amongst this Hitchcockian great. One of Roger’s lines has him declare: “In the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie. There’s only expedient exaggeration.”

Hitchcock’s script doesn’t lie to the audience. But it certainly plays with a little fancifulness.

And it isn’t any the worse for it, even if the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief is tested.

Somehow, for example, Roger is almost run over by cars and swatted like a fly by a crop duster (isn’t a cornfield a brilliant place to be attacked in, with nowhere to hide?), yet somehow his suit and demeanour remain relatively uncrumpled.

This is of course down to Cary Grant’s ability to play contained comedy.

He allows the film fan just a hint of the fact he’s not taking all of this too seriously, yet suggests a believability that gives the storyline, like his travel suit, just the right weight. Grant is

certainly the master of the dry line; “Now you listen to me, I’m an advertising man, not a red herring.

“I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself ‘slightly’ killed.”

Ernest Lehmann’s script is just about perfect, as are the performances of James Mason as the criminal boss who pursues Roger across the points of the compass and Martin Landau as the creepy henchman. And of course, Alfred Hitchcock knew instinctively how to run the right tone through his film, the perfect injection of dramatic tension and black humour.

Yes, maybe it will seem a little preposterous at times. We think Roger and his lady friend are safe, but then evil descends once again. But isn’t this a great way of reminding us how little we can take for granted?

WITCHFINDER GENERAL Talking Pictures, New Year’s Day 9.45pm

IF it’s an allegory for modern times you’re after (as well as a right good fright fest), this 1968 film is scarier than the unemployment predictions for the New Year.

If the Witchfinder General were alive and well today there’s little doubt he’d be fronting up a social media website, offering a forum for those desperate to be upset – and recognised.

He’d be one of the selfrighteous fanatics out to destroy reputations, wreck careers and lives with a series of spurious, yet undefendable accusations.

Vincent Price’s character Matthew Hopkins is all the more powerful when we realise he was real, a 17th century witch burner and megalomaniac who decided to use his powers for absolute evil.

The lawyer who claimed (he lied) to have been appointed the Witchfinder General by Parliament during the English Civil War, with a remit to root out sorcery, was in fact a serial abuser who cited God as his champion when in fact he sat far closer to Satan.

Witchfinder General is a powerful film that will make you glad of the safety of your duvet.

But it will also make you that little more aware of those who so swiftly leap to the high moral ground and plant their flag. Who are they really, and why should we do what they say?

Above: Cary Grant stars in North by Northwest and Vincent Price in Witchfinder General