My Year With Hitchcock: July

This year (2026), from January until December, I'll be watching every Alfred Hitchcock film I can find. This is similar to the viewing projects I did for Woody Allen in 2016 and Disney Animation in 2022. I'll be watching a different movie each week, in chronological order and reviewing them as I go. The rule for the reviews is that I cannot reference any movie I have not yet watched. They don't exist yet. Each film is reviewed as if it were brand new (sort of). The only difference this time is that I have to watch two movies a week in January and February, since there are more than 52 movies to watch (plus TV stuff later on). Reviews will also be posted on my Letterbox'd page. 

WEEK 27

Shadow of A Doubt (1943) - 107 min.

Watched on 7/5/2026

Availability: Universal blu-ray set

After watching two marriages crumble (or nearly crumble) because of past behavior from the newlywed husband coming back to haunt the protagonist in “Rebecca” and “Suspicion”, Hitchcock’s “Shadow Of A Doubt” keeps the drama within the close-knit family unit. The stakes, more or less, remain the same, but instead of a woman marrying for love or fear of old-age, the woman is much younger and still lives with her nuclear family in an idyllic small town. It's only when her beloved uncle shows up to stay for a few days does her perception of normalcy come into question. 

Teresa Wright plays Charlie Newton, the oldest daughter in the Newton household, with two loving parents and two younger siblings. Right when we first meet her, she has come down with a case of small town malaise. It’s dull. Nothing happens. When she gets news of her Uncle Charlie Oakley (yes, another Charlie, this one played to perfection by Joseph Cotten), her spirits lift. He comes bearing gifts for everyone, but needs a place to stay. Unbeknownst to the Newton household, he has a lot of cash on-hand that he needs to hide and those nosey guys in hats purporting to be census takers investigating the typical American household, might not be census people after all. 

“Shadow Of A Doubt” is a fun variation on the domestic thriller where nothing is as it seems. Where “Suspicion” ultimately failed to convince us of its ending (and thereby just about everything else before it), “Shadow” has its characters’ motivations all worked out, with no monkeying from the studio to complicate things. Both Charlies get the upper hand at one point or another in this. Charlie Newton’s glowing admiration for her Uncle fades away convincingly, while Charlie Oakley gains more confidence in his diabolical plans with each plot turn. It’s fun to watch these two try to outsmart one another, but only one of them is capable of murder. At one point, the way in which he talks about “wives” in one scene reminded me of the “knife!” scene in “Blackmail.”

Hitchcock’s humor is at its darkest here. Take the character of Herb (brilliantly played by Hume Cronyn), a seemingly mild-mannered nobody with an awkward disposition that, for some reason, makes him ideal companionship for Mr. Newton (Henry Travers). Together, they talk gamely about the perfect murder and how they would try to do away with one another without leaving a trace or having to employ an alibi. These are among the funniest scenes in the movie. Or, the waitress in the bar when both Charlies go to hash some things out. She’s all slouch, a fascinating story of failure and compromises in itself that we never get to hear. That character could’ve been anyone, but instead, she’s as much a part of the distorted scenery as anything else in the film. 

“Shadow Of A Doubt” achieves what “Suspicion” didn’t have the courage or the conviction to achieve (I still rather enjoyed that film, mainly for Cary Grant’s performance). Here, Cotton isn’t chewing scenery, but intruding on it, disrupting it and filling it with long, deep shadows in the hallways that otherwise would go unnoticed. Hitchcock has fun with the balancing act between Cotton and Wright. Both convince us they could be family while also being convincing as adversaries. Naming them booth Charlie, oddly enough, makes it that much more fun and worth investigating further. They are tied together in multiple ways. At a certain point, we’re not sure who will come out on top. 

The film works beautifully most of the time. Only in the third act does it let itself wander a bit too much. Nevertheless, you can see why he loved it, or at the very least, loved making it.

WEEK 28

Lifeboat (1944) - 96 min.

Watched on 7/12/2026 

Availability: Amazon Prime

“Lifeboat” feels like more of an event movie for Hitchcock during this period, since he confines himself and his cast to one singular location. It involves no chases, no trains, no complex set pieces, no exotic locales, no dogs and no wrongfully accused men. It does, however, maintain Hitchcock’s streak of commenting on the world at large during the 1940s as he simultaneously coped with the loss of his mother. By limiting his visual scope to just a boat lost at sea, Hitchcock is able to explore that loss through various characters who all lose something of value along the way. There’s nowhere for anyone to run, not even the director.

The first character we meet is Constance Porter (so memorably played by Talulah Bankhead), a woman who doesn't look the slightest bit disheveled after rescuing herself from a sinking ship. She’s a photographer and a writer and it’s not long before she loses her tools and has to acknowledge the fact that she could be lost at sea for weeks or months. More and more characters soon climb aboard, but Bankhead’s character, who can hold her own against any male archetype that comes her way, remains the glue that holds everything together. Unlike some of the other heroines who show up in HItchcock’s thrillers of this era, we can understand why Constance might eventually fall for one of the men here after being at sea with them for weeks. 

That’s not really the point of “Lifeboat” anyway. Thai is 1944, so naturally there have to be some political overtones (or direct references) that have to come into play. The main conflict among everyone is that there is a German on board, who is instantly branded a Nazi, though some try to reason that he may be just a hired hand. Only Constance can speak German and do the translating. The man makes himself useful in one of the film’s most harrowing moments, a scene of perfect build-up and dimension that makes it more than just a horrifying what-of scenario come to life. 

Of course, Hitchcock had adapted a few plays into films back in his early days, and this certainly feels like a play but he skillfully makes it seem more cinematic than it might have been from another director while also making some moments feel just as suspenseful as anything else he had made up to this point. There is a feeling of dread that comes with any tale of survival along these lines, but I also felt as if I was seeing another side of Hitchcock’s humanity that I had not yet seen, that he really did try to see the people behind the masks that some–in this case, every German citizen–was supposed to be wearing during that time. 

“Lifeboat” almost never gets mentioned as one of Hitchcock’s best films, but I think it deserves reappraisal. It has one of his most clever cameos (just when you think he can’t possibly insert an image of himself into a movie, you’re wrong). It will make anyone unfamiliar with Bankhead want to rush out and see what other films they can find of hers. It almost never makes a questionable or wrong choice and the action sequences (all involving giant waves, of course) are among his best ever. A film like this wouldn’t work without a great cast, and it has that going for it as well. Most of all, it feels more personal than most of his other films from this decade. 

WEEK 29

Bon Voyage (1944), Aventure Malgache (1944), The Fighting GEneration (1944), Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945)

Watched on 7/20/2026

Availability: 1993 VHS tape checked out from library that I had to rewind; YouTube

Bon Voyage - Hitchcock took a detour from features to make a couple short films overseas for Britain’s Ministry of Information. This one, shot in England with a French cast, is a quick espionage drama about two guys carrying out a covert operation (one of them is also really hungry and salivates at the thought of a well-sticked cafe being part of the plan). Really, though, it’s about how one of them might not be who he seems to be and, thus, the nature of being a spy during wartime. Without a major producer or studio breathing down his neck to try and make a crowd-pleaser, Hitchcock appears free to go for a darker ending than he had been used to during this period. War is hell, even for those involved who don’t wear a uniform. This is the better of the two films he made for the Ministry, who promptly shelved the films after viewing them. 

Aventure Malache - Like his other short, “Bon Voyage,” this one is told in flashback as a French actor in a theater troupe recounts his days as a spy in Madagascar during WWII. Not quite as involving as “Bon Voyage” (and calling that film “involving” seems pretty generous), the structure of a story told backstage before a performance does not live up to Hitchcock’s usually strong narrative instincts to draw an audience in. Every spy is a performer, of course, and that's hardly a new theme for Hitchcock to explore. These two shorts were shelved until 1993 since they were thought to be inflammatory pieces of propaganda for their time. Today, they are merely curiosity items for Hitchcock completists and nothing to get too excited about.

The Fighting Generation - A trailer of sorts with Eddie Bracken and Jennifer Jones pleading with Americans to buy more war bonds. Pretty straightforward propaganda that first takes place in a movie theater, then in a trailer playing at that theater, a low-key bit of meta that Hitchcock thought might be a clever way of presenting this. 

I don't know much about Eddie Bracken, but I do know that the only person who should play him in the bio-pic is Edward Norton. 

Watchtower Over Tomorrow - Featuring “straight-backed children.” I watched this simply for completion sake. It’s not known to what Hitchcock was involved with this one, but one can venture a few reasonable guesses where he might have lent a helping hand. The narrative throughline involves two guys on a bus reading from the headlines and trying to figure out what it all means before we’re given narration and stock footage explaining everything. One shot where we see a large crowd of men and women walking into a large government building looks pretty well-staged and might be Hitchcock’s lone contribution, but who knows? 

WEEK 30

Spellbound (1945) - 111 min. - 118 minutes with overture and exit music

Watched on 7/26/2026

Availability:  MGM Blu-ray

“Spellbound” feels like another turning point for Hitchcock during this period, even if it falls short in some areas. While a few films leading up to this one attempted to probe the psychology of its main lead (“Rebecca” and “Suspicion” come to mind), this one explicitly delves into psychoanalysis to the point of dream interpretation being the key to unlocking aspects of the mystery. Our main protagonist, Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) happens to be a psychoanalyst, so it is up to her to figure out what is going on with this tall, dark, handsome new colleague (Gregory Peck) who may not be who he says he is. 

Without getting too deep into the weeds of the storyline, “Spellbound” has some of the usual Hitchcock conventions of this period, which keeps it from being a true masterpiece. Peck’s character is eventually another wanted man who has to run from the law, with Dr. Peterson by his side and trying to understand his blackouts. Of course, she must also be in love with him in a way that feels a bit forced and unnecessary (even Bergman didn’t believe it when she read it). What a relief it would have been if they had just remained “a doctor and her subject.” But with these two as the leads, a certain amount of romantic tension was probably necessary to get butts in seats back in the day. I mean, they are pretty damn attractive. 

What makes this film stand out is the influence of surrealist Salvador Dali, who was in charge of giving the dream sequences a truly unique sensibility that even a great artist like Hitchcock would have trouble manifesting. This happened to be the same year Dali collaborated with Walt Disney on a film called “Destino” that never saw the light of day (at least, not until 2003). Dali’s stamp is unmistakable, particularly a moment that recalls the famous eye-splitting sequence in “Un Chien Andalou.” His dream sequences breathe life into the narrative when it desperately needs it, but also help inform Hitchcock’s style. One of the most memorable shots occurs when the couple kiss in a hallway for the first time. As they do, door after door after door opens up behind them, symbolizing many things (limitless possibilities, the depths of one’s mind, the unlocking of a layer of psychosis… pick one, or suggest another. There’s lots of talk of “doors” in this film). It’s a visually stunning moment.

Hitchcock also loves to use his subjective lens to help keep the viewer off balance. First, he does it with a glass of milk (another eye-catching means of filming a glass of milk, after the glowing glass of poison in “Suspicion”) and again with a gun toward the end. The second usage comes with the added bonus of a flash of red as the gun fires, marking the first bit of color we ever see in a Hitchcock film (not counting the color tinting in his silent films). 

At the center of “Spellbound” is a luminous performance by Ingrid Bergman, who tries her best to convince us that she loves this new doctor at first sight. Dr. Peterson also has to deal with a very condescending colleague (John Emery) who comes onto her in one of their first scenes. The way in which she fends him off is a brilliant piece of character development, as we see Dr. Peterson react to his behavior while also analyzing the purpose of it in her head. Later in the film, when Peck’s character is dealing with memories that might not be his own, she shows a softer side that cares for him as a human and a patient. Peck, likewise, makes a good victim who could also be a murderer, while convincing us of his distinguished and dignified exterior in his first few scenes. As good as they are, though, there’s just no convincing me of the whole skiing sequence. It was a good try, but no.

“Spellbound” mostly works, but I would likely forget about it if it were not for Dali’s contribution, which made Hitchcock try his hardest in matching his style with the surrealist qualities Dali brought to the film. We still see Hitchcock’s love of German expressionism in this one, but in some cases (again, the doors), he goes even further with his own version of surrealism. These two seem like they were made for each other and “Spellbound” is all the better for their collaboration, even if the biggest dream sequence had to be scrapped.