November 2019 | Sight&Sound | 95
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AMERICAN SNIPPER
It is wrong to suggest that all British Board of
Film Censors records were destroyed in 1941
(Hitchcock and the Censors, Books, S&S, October).
The correspondence and commentaries still
exist for Hitchcock’s 30s productions, at least,
and can be consulted in the BFI’s Special
Collections at the Reuben Library in London.
These documents present a nuanced picture
of civil servants genuinely trying to grapple
with the intentions of the filmmaker in the
context of the wider issues of the day, and
offering solutions – some quite clever. Joseph
Breen from the Hays Office was another matter
altogether. According to Eddie Muller’s book
Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (1998),
Breen was silent partner to the Mafia-connected
Johnny Roselli and, before Roselli was convicted
for corruption and murdered, co-financed a
number of particularly sadistic films noirs.
Hitchcock was right to view the
Hays Office with cynicism.
Stephane Duckett London
HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIEN-ATE PEOPLE
I read with interest Murray Farrell’s letter
(‘Mission critical’ S&S, September) , in which he
took Nick Pinkerton to task about his tendency
to trash popular films. Then I turned to the
Review section and blow me down, here was
Nick, at it again in a hostile review of Alexandre
O. Philippe’s Memory: The Origins of Alien. Not
content with dismissing Philippe’s documentary
as “nothing to do with film and everything to
do with hegemonic franchising”, he takes a
couple of bad-tempered swipes at Alien itself
- “a tedious movie” – quoting another critic’s
denunciation of it as “an empty-headed horror
movie with nothing to recommend it...”
Over the weekend I saw both films at the
Screenplay Film Festival here in Shetland.
Memory stimulated intense debate among the
audience (and the debate was all about the film,
not about “hegemonic franchising”). For me,
watching Philippe’s film felt like being plunged
into an impassioned after-screen discussion
in the pub, where you agreed with some folk,
violently disagreed with others, were baffled by
some and irritated by others – but, like any good
debate, you learned something. Nick probably
has these discussions all the time, but for us
here in the isles, the opportunities are fewer.
And there was no evidence of tedium among
a spellbound audience, some of whom were
seeing it for the first time on a big screen, while
others were, like me, reliving the experience
after 40 years. I was a young woman in 1979, and
can hardly begin to describe the thrill of seeing
a heroine like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley on
screen – an intelligent, passionate, courageous
action-woman, technically adept, physically
and mentally strong and bristling with integrity.
She was a revelation and an inspiration, and
she still is. So thanks for that, Ridley Scott.
Kathy Hubbard Shetland
PAST PROJECTIONS
Ian Christie poses an unresolvable question in
his excellent article about Robert Paul and his
Animatograph (‘The Man Who Foresaw Cinema’,
S&S, October): “Who invented cinema?”
The picture is no clearer in Australia. In
September 1896, the Animatograph was
demonstrated nightly at Sydney’s Tivoli Theatre
by the conjuror and magician Carl Hertz, the first
views being traffic on London Bridge. But Paul’s
machine wasn’t the first moving picture projector
to arrive in Australia: that was one made in Paris
by A.J. Pipon, which local film pioneer A.J. ‘Mons’
Perier imported in February 1896. The machine
arrived with only 12 films and no instructions for
assembly. Meanwhile, the Lumières sent Marius
Sestier to Bombay and Sydney: he demonstrated
their Cinématographe at the Lyceum a week
after Hertz had demonstrated Paul’s projector.
However, all were beaten to the post by Joseph
MacMahon, who had imported a Georges
Demenÿ machine which he demonstrated at
Sydney’s Criterion theatre on 26 August 1896.
Sadly, Paul’s machine was considered inferior
by the press because of poor luminosity – I
suspect Hertz was trying to impress by having
a larger screen. It is a surprise to learn that
Paul used 70mm film, according to an article
published in The Sydney Mail on 11 August
1900, which also revealed that much of
Paul’s Boer War footage had been restaged in
British training camps: our first fake news?
Christie notes the German claim that the
Skladanowsky brothers were the first to show
pictures to a paying audience, but there is
evidence that Woodville Latham and his sons
did the same in New York, at 156 Broadway, eight
months before the Lumières in Paris. In Australia,
the Lumières’ associate Walter Barnett claimed
that Edison hadn’t invented the Kinetoscope, that
honour instead belonging to Anschütz of Berlin.
I hope Mr Christie in his forthcoming
book can tell us more about the various
film gauges used by the early inventors.
Despite the tyranny of distance, and the time
it took to get to Australia in 1896, Robert
Paul was up there with the rest of them.
Anthony Buckley New South Wales, Australia
Additions and corrections
October p.56 American Factory: not submitted for theatrical
classification, VoD Certificate 12, 109m 35s; p.63 Good Posture:
Certificate 15, 91m 42s, UK/USA 2018, Northern Stories and Talland
Films present in co-production with Two Flowers and a King, Looking
for Levi Productions a Dolly Wells film; p.65 Killer Kate!: not submitted
for theatrical classification, VoD Certificate 15, 80m 18s; p.70 Mother:
Certificate PG, 82m 10s; p.75 Sea of Shadows, Certificate 12A, 105m 3s
September p.76 Phoenix: Certificate 15, 85m 52s
READERS’ LETTERS
FEEDBACK
I much enjoyed Philip Kemp’s enlightened
review of John Bilheimer’s book, Hitchcock
and the Censors (Books, S&S, October). To
take Kemp’s final point, that Alfred Hitchcock
(pictured) might have needed the stimulus of
“horse-trading” with the censors to keep him
on the right track: some of the later films do
indeed have a certain grossness of image, and
often cruelty – for example, the gruesome fight
around the oven in Torn Curtain (1966 ) and the
murder of Barbara Leigh-Hunt in Frenzy (1972).
The earlier productions are all the better for
a more subtle suggestion of transgression.
However, I feel that the real reason for
the lower quality of many of the later films
is Hitchcock’s use of second-grade actors
instead of stars: the wooden Frederick Stafford
in Topaz (1969) and the stolid Rod Taylor in The
Birds (1963). This was in combination with the
miscasting of actors, such as Julie Andrews
in Torn Curtain, her wholesome image at odds
with the ice maidens usually associated with
this director, and downright poor choices,
such as the unaffecting Tippi Hedren,
who disappoints in the otherwise cleverly
constructed The Birds and Marnie (1964).
By this point, Hitchcock appeared to
believe that his name above the title was
alone guarantee enough of quality. It wasn’t.
Kevin J. Last Somerset
LETTER OF THE MONTH
THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE KNEW TOO MUCH
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