Microblog: A very long article Wikipedia article on the orientation of toilet paper [Jun 7th, 22:52] [R]

Saturday, February 29th, 2020

To Catch a Thief

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Catch_a_Thief

Wikipedia

John Robbie, a former jewel thief, is suspected of being active again on the French Riviera. Chased by the police, he first visits Bertani, a former accomplice who now owns a restaurant and employs all of John's former gang. The gang is afraid John will have them arrested again, but Bertani helps John escape. John then meets the representative of the company that insures many jewels owned by people currently present in the area and enter with him into an agreement to catch the actual thief, in order to prove his innocence. Posing as a rich American, he befriends the Stevens, the mother Jessie and her daughter Frances. Frances is convinced that John is the actual thief and wants to participate in his next robbery. Based on the list of insured jewels, John stakes out the location of the most probable next robbery but is almost killed by an accomplice of the real thief. The accomplice dies accidentally and is presented by the press as the actual thief; he actually is one of John's former accomplices. John and the Stevens then prepare a trap for the thief during a masked ball. The thief is finally caught, she is the daughter of the former accomplice, working under orders from Bertani.

[ Posted on February 29th, 2020 at 11:11 | no comment | ]

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Sabotage (The Woman Alone)

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_poster/the_woman_alone_1936.htm

© MovieGoods.com

After Sabotage_(film) on Wikipedia:

Karl Verloc, the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs from an unnamed European country who are planning a series of attacks in London. Scotland Yard suspects Verloc's involvement in the plot and assigns Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer to investigate Verloc, initially under cover. Spencer conducts the investigation posing as a greengrocer's helper, selling fruit and vegetables in a shop right next to the cinema.

Verloc's young and beautiful wife believes that her husband is a good man because he has been kind to her and her little brother, Stevie, who lives with them. However, gradually she comes to suspect that her husband may be one of the people behind the terrorist attacks. The final straw comes when her little brother is killed, along with many other people, when a bus explodes. The boy had thought that he was simply delivering a film canister, but he was unknowingly carrying a time bomb for Verloc, to be detonated in the London Underground station under Piccadilly Circus. The boy had become distracted along the way, which had delayed his delivery, and thus the bomb exploded en route to its final target.

Verloc confesses to his wife, but then blames Scotland Yard and Spencer for Stevie's death, saying that they were the ones who prevented Verloc from successfully carrying out the bomb delivery himself. Soon afterwards, as Verloc and his wife are preparing to eat dinner, she stabs him to death with a knife. When Spencer arrives to arrest Verloc he realizes what has happened, but insists that she shouldn't admit that she killed her husband. Nevertheless, she starts to confess her crime to a policeman. Then an explosion and fire at the cinema intervene, destroying all the evidence of her crime and effectively preventing the policeman from remembering whether it was before or after the explosion that she told him, “My husband is dead!”

At the end we see Mrs Verloc and Ted Spencer walk away together.

[ Posted on January 11th, 2011 at 10:40 | no comment | ]

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Secret Agent

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Agent_%281936_film%29

Wikipedia

1916. The death of a British officer is faked. The man is then sent to Switzerland, as Richard Ashenden, along with “the General”, a professional assasssin, to kill a German spy. Elsa Carrington, also a British agent, poses as Ashenden's wife. Before Ashenden's arrival, Elsa is already being seduced by Robert Marvin, but nothing happens. Ashenden's first contact is found strangled, and a clue leads to a man named Caypor, whom the General murders during a hike in the mountains. When they learned from their superior that he's the wrong man, Ashenden and Elsa want to resign. But the General accidentally discovers that a chocolate factory is used as a secret post office for German spies. During their visit of the factory, they barely escape the Swiss police, but learn that the spy is actually Marvin. Elsa however, is disappointed by Ashenden's sudden renewed interest in the mission. She decides to leave Marvin to Greece. Ashenden and the General rejoin Elsa at the train station and find out that Marvin is actually leaving to Constantinople. They board the same train, which soon enters Germany. A confrontation takes place in Marvin's compartment while British airplanes attack the train. Elsa doesn't want the General to kill Marvin and interposes hersel just as a bomb derails the train. Marvin and the General get killed, but Ashden and Elsa survive and finally quit the Intelligence Service.

[ Posted on September 14th, 2010 at 23:17 | no comment | ]

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

The Man who Knew too Much

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Too_Much_%281934_film%29

Wikipedia

From Wikipedia:

Bob and Jill Lawrence are on vacation in St. Moritz with their daughter Betty. The couple befriend a foreigner, Louis Bernard, who is staying in their hotel. One evening, as Jill dances with Louis, she witnesses his assassination as a French spy. Before dying, the spy passes on to them some vital information to be delivered to the British consul. In order to ensure their silence, the assassins, led by a charming and nefarious Abbott, kidnap their daughter. Unable to secure much meaningful help from the police, the couple return to England and, after following a series of leads, discover the group intends to assassinate a European ambassador during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Jill attends the concert and distracts the gunman with a scream. The assassins are killed by the police during a street shoot-out, Betty's sharpshooting mother dispatching the assassin who formerly beat her in a sharpshooting contest. Abbott commits suicide rather than be captured. Betty is returned to her parents.

[ Posted on October 3rd, 2009 at 23:20 | no comment | ]

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

The 39 Steps

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_39_Steps_(1935_film)

Wikipedia

Richard Hannay meets Anabella Smith at a theatre where gunshots have been fired. Frightened, Anabella convices Richard to take her with him to his appartment. There she reveals she is a spy, that she's being followed and tells Richard she needs to meet a man in a given place in Scotland to prevent vital military secrets to be leaked outside of Britain by an organization lead by a man with a missing little finger joint. She also mentions the “39 Steps” with no further explanation. During the night, she's stabbed in the back, and just before dying gives Richard a map of Scotland with a name underlined. Richard flees from his appartment to Scotland, but is chased by the police under suspicion of murder. He eventually ends up at the place, but ends up in the lair of the villain. He manages to escape but is arrested by two detectives who are actually henchmen of the villain. He manages to escape, and later overhears them speaking about the London Palladium where their boss is going. Richard leaves for London, and while watching the performace of “Mr Memory”, who can recall anything, understands that the stolen secrets are in Memory's head, which explains that no secret document had gone missing. While the (real) police is arresting him, he shouts to ask Memory what are the 39 Steps, and the other answers they are an organisation of spies working for a foreign country. The villain, who attended the performance, shoots him, but is apprehended.

[ Posted on July 5th, 2009 at 14:27 | no comment | ]

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

The Lady Vanishes

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Vanishes_(1938_film)

Wikipedia

Because of an avalanche, a bunch of people are stuck in a hotel in central Europe (clearly not nazi-controlled Austria), waiting for the train which will arrive the next morning. Iris, a young woman meets Miss Froy, an elderly lady and a governess. Just before getting on the train, Iris is hit on the head by a falling flowerpot (pushed by a mysterious hand). They get on the train together, drink tea together, and then Iris gets asleep. When she wakes up, the Lady has disappeared. All the passengers of the wagon deny having seen her, for various reasons of their own (avoiding scandal, or trying not to get delayed any further). For the surgeon who happens to be on the train, she is hallucinating. The surgeon is receiving a laid down, bandaged-face patient at one station, travelling with him to the next where he's going to operate him at the local hospital. Suddenly, a false Miss Froy reappears. Iris finally manages to convince Gilbert that she is not hallucinating, and that the couple in her compartment (an illusionist and his wife) are involved in the lady's kidnapping. They conclude that the bandaged person is actually Miss Froy. They confront the surgeon who admits the kidnapping, then with the help of his remorseful accomplice, the substitute the fake Miss Froy to the real one. When the surgeon finds out, he gets the local authorities to stop the train in the middle of nowhere. A gunfight follows, where Miss Froy admits to be an English spy. She gives her coded message to Gilbert and Iris, to transmit to the Foreign Office, leaves the train in an attempt to escape on her own. The passengers of the train manage to restart the locomotive, and cross the border. In London, Gilbert and Iris arrive at the foreign office and meet Miss Froy who somehow managed to arrive there before them.

[ Posted on May 28th, 2009 at 13:00 | no comment | ]

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Family Plot

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Plot

Wikipedia

Adapted from Wikipedia:

The story involves a fake psychic, Blanche Tyler, and her con artist taxi driver boyfriend, George Lumley, who attempt to locate the nephew of a wealthy and guiltridden old woman, Julia Rainbird. Julia, one of Blanche's clients, was responsible for her now-deceased sister giving up a boy for adoption years earlier and now wants to make him her heir. She will pay $10,000 if he is found.

However, the nephew and prospective heir is now a successful jeweler in San Francisco known as Arthur Adamson, who has a secret and lurid past, having apparently murdered his adoptive parents and faked his own death. With his girlfriend Fran, he has successfully kidnapped an assortment of millionaires and dignitaries, returning them when the ransom, a valuable gemstone, has been delivered, which they hide in their chandelier.

When Arthur learns that Blanche and George are pursuing him, he suspects the worst, putting their lives in danger. They first escape a murder attempt by the man who helped Adamson to kill his adoptive parents. Later George finally discovers the name of the heir to Julia Rainbird. Since he cannot go and visit Adamson immediately, Blanche goes by herself and discovers Adamson and his girlfriend's secret activities. Blanche is kidnapped, but George comes later, frees her and catch the kidnappers.

[ Posted on September 24th, 2008 at 23:29 | no comment | ]

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

The Birds

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_%28film%29

Wikipedia

Melanie Daniels meets Mitch Brenner in a pet shop in San Francisco. She decides to follow him to his home in Bodega Bay. There she and other persons get repeatedly attacked by large flocks of birds, for no apparent reason. After spending the night under attack in Mitch's house, they take advantage of a period of calm to escape and drive to San Franciso.

[ Posted on June 7th, 2008 at 00:30 | no comment | ]

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Topaz

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_%28movie%29

Wikipedia.org

From Wikipedia:

When an high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer defects to the West with a story of an agreement between the Russians and Cubans and the existence of a “mole” within the French intelligence service, CIA agent Nordstrom enlists the aid of his friend and French agent André Devereaux, encouraging him to accompany his daughter Michèle on her honeymoon with journalist François Picard as a premise to get him to New York. André accepts, but his wife Nicole is worried for him.

After managing to get hold of some seriously damning papers from the visiting Cuban official Rico Parra, in New York to appear at the United Nations and staying in Harlem to show solidarity with “the masses”, sneakily of course, a concerned Devereaux jets off to Cuba and catches up with his mistress Juanita de Cordoba, who is now secretly involved with a local underground movement whilst also being involved in another way with Parra. Parra finds out and kills Juanita. Devereaux then is recalled to Paris, where he attempts to get to the bottom of this whole leak problem. Michèle wants to reconcile her parents.

Nicole cheats on André after his Cuban affair with the man who proves to be the leader of the spy ring, “Topaz”, Jacques Granville, their old friend from their days together in the French Resistance. François goes on to find out who “Topaz” is by interrogating NATO official Henri Jarré. A short time late Michèle finds the murdered Jarré and François is missing. A short time later François arrives at Michèle and her parents and shows her a drawing of Jarré. Nicole knows him and tells André, that Granville is the head of “Topaz”.

[ Posted on October 23rd, 2007 at 18:07 | no comment | ]

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

Rope

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(film)

Wikipedia.org

From Wikipedia:

“Two brilliant aesthetes, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, plan the perfect murder inspired by lectures on the art of murder once made by their erstwhile housemaster, Rupert Cadell. They invite a former classmate, David Kentley, to their apartment for drinks, strangle him, and hide his body in a chest, thus, they believe, demonstrating their superiority. Straight afterwards they throw a party in their apartment. Among the guests are the victims father and aunt, his fiancee and her former boyfriend. Rupert Cadell also attends.

To impress Rupert and to gain his approval, Brandon subtly drops hints throughout the party about the murder of David, and begins a discussion on the art of murder. David, his connection to the guests and his curious absence forms much of the conversation during the evening.

In contrast to Brandon, Phillip gets more and more nervous throughout the party. Rupert quizzes him over Davids absence and some inconsistencies that have been raised: Phillip denied strangling a chicken at the Shaws farm when Rupert knows that he did. Phillip later complains to Brandon that he had a rotten evening (a reference to Ruperts probing, not Davids murder).

At the end of the party Rupert is handed another persons hat by mistake. In it he sees the initials D.K. (as in David Kentley) and becomes rather uneasy. Highly suspicious Rupert returns to the apartment after everyone has departed, claiming he has misplaced his cigarette case. When he arrives back in the apartment, he plants his cigarette case, finds it, but then stays to theorize about the murder of David, encouraged by Brandon who seems eager to have Rupert discover it. When Rupert lifts open the chest to reveal the body still tucked inside and realizes that his two former students have indeed murdered, he is horrified and ashamed of his own rhetoric that had led them to perform the morbid deed. He then takes Brandons gun and fires several shots into the night in order to attract police attention.”

[ Posted on September 22nd, 2007 at 22:06 | no comment | ]

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

Marnie

Categories: [ TV/Cinema/Hitchcock ]

Spoiler: do not read if you don't want to know!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058329/

© IMDB.com

Marnie makes her living by getting hired as a secretary in places dealing with money. She then steals the money and disapears, changing her identity and her city of residence. One day her scheme is discovered by the boss of the firm where she works, who gives her the choice to be sent to jail or to marry him. She goes for the latter, but the husband discovers that his wife has psychological troubles (fear of thunderstorms, of red color, of being touched by men, recuring nightmares). He wants to help her, and gets information on her past. He then drives her to her mother's place to face the truth about the trauma she had lived during her childhood: her mother was a prostitute, and one night of thunderstorm Marnie was being abused by a client. Her mother tries to protect her, hits the client with a poker, and gets injured in the process. In order to help her, Marnie kills the client who ends up in a pool of blood. Due to the shock, she kept no memory of the event, and her mother raised her to despise men.

[ Posted on August 23rd, 2006 at 01:03 | no comment | ]