★★ The 39 Steps
[Gino: 2.0]
This is a Hitchcock film from 1935. The film = mostly harmless. The DVD quality (Laserlight version) = embarrassing. I must say, this is probably my third Hitchcock viewing, and so far, I am not really impressed. It might be that he was the first to do this and that, but that is lost on me outside of a film class context.
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I have to totally agree with you on Hitchcock. I've seen a bunch of his films. Family Plot and Frenzy were just embarrasiing. Psyho so very very overrated. Rope and The Troble With Harry so very boring. Vertigo was entertaining but I found it ridiculously far fetched. Birds was just silly. That being said I did enjoy Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and Strangers on a Train. None of them blew me away but all 4 very entertaining. Have you seen any of them? Oh and I really liked To Catch a Thief.
I have not seen the really big ones yet (other than the "meh... just ok" Psycho). However, I did see Strangers on a Train. That I only gave that two stars as well, though come to think of it, it was better than The 39 Steps. I paste my review here:
Here, I think we run into the old problem again, where my enjoyment of old movies rarely can measure up to modern day films. Sure it's Hitchcock. But once we've seen, say The Usual Suspects is any pre-1960's thriller going to have the same effect? Or will you sit there deciding whether previous generations of moviegoers were really imbeciles? I am sure I would have liked it more if I had seen it in a film class. So let's say if you have a tolerence for classics, give it a 3.5, but for me, a 2. I will say that this one took some slightly unexpected turns, had some intentional laughs and some less-intentional. Some jabs and winks at movie conventions while still sticking to them. And the climax was more climactic than expected (spoiler: a fight to the death on a merry-go-round gone haywire!?).
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