Hitchcock One By One

I've been a film fan for most of my life, but I've skipped a lot of the typical cinematic milestones. For example, I've never seen a GODFATHER film. I've seen next to no Hitchcock. I haven't seen a number of latter-day fixtures like THE MATRIX and, until recently, had neglected many of the celebrated cornerstones of "highbrow" cinema, such as THE SEVENTH SEAL, SEVEN SAMURAI, THE 400 BLOWS, and 8½ (note to self: if I ever make a "highbrow" film, be sure to include a number in the title). 

All of which isn't to say that I don't take all of this seriously. Far from it. The trouble is that my M.O. has always been to pick a narrow subject area and run it into the ground, which means that I've seen virtually everything available by D.W. Griffith, but I still haven't seen THE GODFATHER.

So—in the spirit of playing to y strengths, I've decided to run Hitchcock into the ground. I will watch Alfred Hitchcock's complete run of feature films (or at least those that I can get my hands on—some of his early pictures are pretty scarce) and I'm going to share what I think of them. And I'm going to do it as someone who is relatively unacquainted with his work, so it'll be a real voyage of discovery. I love the little of Hitchcock that I've seen. I can't wait to see the rest.

I'll get started shortly after Christmas with Hitchcock's first feature, THE PLEASURE GARDEN. Join me—it'll be fun!