Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Grace Kelly & Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief (1955, Alfred Hitchcock) Francois Truffaut: In other words, what intrigues you is the paradox between the inner fire and the cool surface. Alfred Hitchcock: Definitely. I think the most interesting women, sexually, are the English women. I feel the Swedes, the northern Germans, and Scandinavians are a great deal more exciting than the French, the Latin, and the Italian women. Sex should not be advertised. An English girl, looking like a schoolteacher, is apt to get into a cab with you and, to your surprise, she’ll probably pull a man’s pants open. Truffaut: I appreciate your viewpoint, but I doubt whether the majority of the public shares your tastes in this matter. I think the male audience prefers a highly carnal woman. The very fact that Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and Brigitte Bardot became stars, despite the many flops in which they appeared, seems to bear this out. The majority of the public, it seems to me, prefers the kind of sensuality that is blatant. Hitchcock: That may well be true, but you yourself admit that those actresses generally make bad films. Do you know why? Because without the element of surprise the scenes become meaningless. Look at the opening of To Catch a Thief. I deliberately photographed Grace Kelly ice-cold and I kept cutting to her profile, looking classical, beautiful, very distant. And then, when Cary Grant accompanies her to the door of her hotel room, what does she do? She thrusts her lips right up to his mouth. Truffaut: I’m willing to grant that you manage to impose that concept of icy sexuality on the screen, but I still feel the audience prefers the kind of sex that’s obvious and tangible. Hitchcock: Maybe so. Anyway, when the picture is over, the public’s pretty satisfied with it. -excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Grace Kelly & Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief (1955, Alfred Hitchcock)

Francois Truffaut: In other words, what intrigues you is the paradox between the inner fire and the cool surface.

Alfred Hitchcock: Definitely. I think the most interesting women, sexually, are the English women. I feel the Swedes, the northern Germans, and Scandinavians are a great deal more exciting than the French, the Latin, and the Italian women. Sex should not be advertised. An English girl, looking like a schoolteacher, is apt to get into a cab with you and, to your surprise, she’ll probably pull a man’s pants open.

Truffaut: I appreciate your viewpoint, but I doubt whether the majority of the public shares your tastes in this matter. I think the male audience prefers a highly carnal woman. The very fact that Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and Brigitte Bardot became stars, despite the many flops in which they appeared, seems to bear this out. The majority of the public, it seems to me, prefers the kind of sensuality that is blatant.

Hitchcock: That may well be true, but you yourself admit that those actresses generally make bad films. Do you know why? Because without the element of surprise the scenes become meaningless. Look at the opening of To Catch a Thief. I deliberately photographed Grace Kelly ice-cold and I kept cutting to her profile, looking classical, beautiful, very distant. And then, when Cary Grant accompanies her to the door of her hotel room, what does she do? She thrusts her lips right up to his mouth.

Truffaut: I’m willing to grant that you manage to impose that concept of icy sexuality on the screen, but I still feel the audience prefers the kind of sex that’s obvious and tangible.

Hitchcock: Maybe so. Anyway, when the picture is over, the public’s pretty satisfied with it.

-excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Bee Duffell in Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut) “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Bee Duffell in Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)

“There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Sabine Haudepin & Jeanne Moreau in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut)  (via)

Sabine Haudepin & Jeanne Moreau in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) 

(via)

Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Sabine Haudepin & Henri Serre in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut)

Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Sabine Haudepin & Henri Serre in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut)

The 400 Blows (1959, dir. Francois Truffaut, scene online here) “I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself.” -Francois Truffaut

The 400 Blows (1959, dir. Francois Truffaut, scene online here)

“I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself.”

-Francois Truffaut

Jeanne Moreau in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) “I never laughed before I met you two. I always looked like this. But that’s over for good. Now it’s like this.”

Jeanne Moreau in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut)

“I never laughed before I met you two. I always looked like this. But that’s over for good. Now it’s like this.”

Georges Delerue - Shoot the Piano Player: Charlie (via Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut) “Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea. There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.” -Francois Truffaut

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)

“Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea.

There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.”

-Francois Truffaut

Jeanne Moreau as “Thomas” in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) (via François Truffaut: The Complete Films) “Catherine was proud of her successful disguise. The men were moved, as if by a symbol they didn’t understand.”

Jeanne Moreau as “Thomas” in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) (via François Truffaut: The Complete Films)

“Catherine was proud of her successful disguise. The men were moved, as if by a symbol they didn’t understand.”

Georges Delerue - Jules & Jim: Main Title (via Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Francois Truffaut on the set of Shoot the Piano Player (1960, via François Truffaut: The Complete Films) “I shall wind up my defense of criticism by observing that excessively kind notices, coming from all sides and lasting a career, can sterilize an artist more effectively than the cold shower that wakes one up to real life. That must have been what Jean Paulhan had in mind when he wrote, ‘Bad reviews preserve an author better than alcohol preserves a piece of fruit.’” -Francois Truffaut, What Do Critics Dream About? (1975)

Francois Truffaut on the set of Shoot the Piano Player (1960, via François Truffaut: The Complete Films)

“I shall wind up my defense of criticism by observing that excessively kind notices, coming from all sides and lasting a career, can sterilize an artist more effectively than the cold shower that wakes one up to real life. That must have been what Jean Paulhan had in mind when he wrote, ‘Bad reviews preserve an author better than alcohol preserves a piece of fruit.’”

-Francois Truffaut, What Do Critics Dream About? (1975)

Anthony Dawson & Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) (via) Francois Truffaut: I should mention that this is one of the pictures I see over and over again. Basically, it’s a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn’t all that easy to command the audience’s undivided attention for a continuous dialogue. Hitchcock: I just did my job, using cinematic means to narrate a story taken from a stage play. All of the action in Dial M for Murder takes place in a living room, but that doesn’t matter. I could just as well have shot the whole film in a phone booth. Let’s imagine there’s a couple in that booth. Their hands are touching, their lips meet, and accidentally one of them leans against the receiver, knocking it off the hook. Now, while they’re unaware of it, the phone operator can listen in on their intimate conversation. The drama has taken a step forward. For the audience, looking at the images, it should be the same as reading the opening paragraphs of a novel or hearing the expositional dialogue of the stage play. You might say that the filmmaker can use a telephone booth pretty much in the same way a novelist uses a blank piece of paper. -excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Anthony Dawson & Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) (via)

Francois Truffaut: I should mention that this is one of the pictures I see over and over again. Basically, it’s a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn’t all that easy to command the audience’s undivided attention for a continuous dialogue.

Hitchcock: I just did my job, using cinematic means to narrate a story taken from a stage play. All of the action in Dial M for Murder takes place in a living room, but that doesn’t matter. I could just as well have shot the whole film in a phone booth.

Let’s imagine there’s a couple in that booth. Their hands are touching, their lips meet, and accidentally one of them leans against the receiver, knocking it off the hook. Now, while they’re unaware of it, the phone operator can listen in on their intimate conversation. The drama has taken a step forward. For the audience, looking at the images, it should be the same as reading the opening paragraphs of a novel or hearing the expositional dialogue of the stage play. You might say that the filmmaker can use a telephone booth pretty much in the same way a novelist uses a blank piece of paper.

-excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Richie Andrusco inLittle Fugitive (1953, dir. Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin, & Morris Engel) “The title character is a 7-yr-old boy who runs away from his Brooklyn neighborhood to the Coney Island amusement park after his older brother plays a cruel prank on him. Anticipating the advances in lightweight camera equipment that would propel cinéma-vérité documentary a few years later, Engel did the cinematography with a small, portable 35mm camera he helped design.[Little Fugitive] made a big impression on other aspiring filmmakers who wanted to follow their own instincts outside Hollywood’s orbit. They included John Cassavetes & Martin Scorsese, who began setting stories against vivid New York City backgrounds a few years later. François Truffaut was inspired by the picture’s childhood subject and spontaneous production style when he created his prize-winning debut feature, The 400 Blows, in 1959. ‘Our New Wave would never have come into being,’ he told an interviewer years later, ‘if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie.’” (via)

Richie Andrusco inLittle Fugitive (1953, dir. Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin, & Morris Engel)

“The title character is a 7-yr-old boy who runs away from his Brooklyn neighborhood to the Coney Island amusement park after his older brother plays a cruel prank on him. Anticipating the advances in lightweight camera equipment that would propel cinéma-vérité documentary a few years later, Engel did the cinematography with a small, portable 35mm camera he helped design.

[Little Fugitive] made a big impression on other aspiring filmmakers who wanted to follow their own instincts outside Hollywood’s orbit. They included John Cassavetes & Martin Scorsese, who began setting stories against vivid New York City backgrounds a few years later. François Truffaut was inspired by the picture’s childhood subject and spontaneous production style when he created his prize-winning debut feature, The 400 Blows, in 1959. ‘Our New Wave would never have come into being,’ he told an interviewer years later, ‘if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie.’”

(via)