Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Sandra @ Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:29 pm wrote:Bumping this thread only because I love so many of Hitchcock's films.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would be "Vertigo" followed closely by "North by Northwest".
...
I dislike "Frenzy" and "Marnie". Both are snoozers in my opinion.

"NNW" is basically a remake of "39 Steps" and other chase films.
Where the hero is being chased by both the authorities and the villains.

"Sabotage" is another variation, as is "Foreign Correspondent"

RayS @ Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:18 am wrote:

Sandra @ Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:29 pm wrote:Bumping this thread only because I love so many of Hitchcock's films.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would be "Vertigo" followed closely by "North by Northwest".
...
I dislike "Frenzy" and "Marnie". Both are snoozers in my opinion.

"NNW" is basically a remake of "39 Steps" and other chase films.
Where the hero is being chased by both the authorities and the villains.

"Sabotage" is another variation, as is "Foreign Correspondent"

I never saw (yet) "Foreign Correspondent" but I like "Saboteur." How often do they show a running engine under the hood pf a car? Saw "Marnie" once but was not impressed. I never cared much for "Frenzy" because of the nudity and dead bodies. Blood and gore is better if it is hinted at, not shown. The scene where the detective is "trying" to eat the seafood soup his wife made is worth watching the film for. "North By Northwest" is a real good one but I've seen it too often, the edge is gone.

-1bigsteve (o:

psycho: it is my favourite Hitchcok movie, really really like the tempo of this movie. I wonder what Ed Gein would have thought about this movie...

I also favour the Birds.

nishmat @ Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:28 pm wrote:psycho: it is my favourite Hitchcok movie, really really like the tempo of this movie. I wonder what Ed Gein would have thought about this movie...

Having grown up in Wisconsin I remember as a child hearing about Ed Gein when that whole thing happened. A few years later some government official was touring the hospital where Gein was kept the rest of his life. He asked Gein how he liked living at the facility. Gein said "It isn't too bad, but there sure are a lot of crazy people here." Just remembered that when you brought his name up.

I'm a HUGE fan of Hitchcock. Here are some of my favorites:

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Notorious (1946)
Rope (1948)
Rear Window (1954)
Dial M For Murder (1954)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
North By Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)

Some great flicks.

Having grown up in Wisconsin I remember as a child hearing about Ed Gein when that whole thing happened. A few years later some government official was touring the hospital where Gein was kept the rest of his life. He asked Gein how he liked living at the facility. Gein said "It isn't too bad, but there sure are a lot of crazy people here." Just remembered that when you brought his name up.

Angel, That's soo weird!!!
Ed Gein was such a scary personality.
There's an online documentary on youtube about Gein's life;
and some interviews with some old people from Plainfield who still remember Gein.

Just give me a post here if you want the link...

No need---I saw the documentary, and know from years ago all the details of the case. What was so scary for me and girls my age at the time was a case of a missing girl from LaCrosse, Wis. by the name of Evelyn Hartley. She was a 15 year old girl who had been babysitting and disappeared from the house. You can read about it because there is a site that has all the newspaper articles about it at the time. She disappeared in 1953 and was never found. The baby was left unharmed in her crib. There was blood, the girl's glasses, and her shoe all found at the home. All the windows and doors were locked except for a basement window. There was a handprint and blood on a nearby house. I was eight years old at the time. When I started babysitting five years later that case was always on my mind and on the minds of my friends, so we were always quite scared. They think Gein was the one who took her because he was from LaCrosse, was familiar with it, and was supposed to have been in the vicinity at the time. The case has always weirded me out because it happened so close to where I grew up.

I was just thinking about the case further. Everyone in Plainfield always considered Gein slightly odd, but harmless, friendly and quiet. He evidently was actually asked to babysit on occasion and to do odd jobs around the house of neighbors in town. He was able to put on a believable mask of sanity for 51 years, so everyone was astounded to find out what he had been up to behind closed doors. Who knows if Lizzie did the same thing fooling everyone by her quiet demeanor in public? She could have been hell on wheels in private.

That's some real interesting thoughts on these cases from you, Angel.
I know Gein grew up in LaCross so he must been very familiar with the sorroundings there...(before his mother mother moved the family to Plainfield becuase living in a city was too sinful)

I've read a little about Geins crimes some years ago, and recently read a book by a doctor [My life among the serial killers], who is also a "Profiler"). She met Gein at the hospital when he was old and suffered from dementia. However, she did not get out that much from him because of the state of his mind.

Do you know if there are any pictures of his mother? Would like to know
what she looked like.

I don't know how much we can compare Lizzie to Gein. I still know too little about her.

I wasn't trying to make any comparisons, other than to point out that one never knows what goes on behind closed doors, or in the minds of people we think we know.

That's true.

There's a book out called "Fiend" that is all about Ed Gein. I read it, and it is really horrifying. I can look for it and see if there's any pictures of his mother in it and post here. Surprisingly, it had very little in common with Psycho's character, Norman Bates.

I found a DVD last year called "Gein" starring Steve Railsback as Ed Gein (Railsback played Charles Manson in the made-for-tv movie "Helter Skelter").

Online recently I stumbled across some actual photos of women's bodies they found hanging around Gein's house.

He would take their skin and parts of them off until he had a whole fake costume of a woman, and he would wear it and run around the Wisconsin woods at night. Thank God no one ran into him like that. They woulda had a heart attack.

I never heard of 'Lottery'. Educate me! Can I get it on tape? Is it American? Any one of note star in it? That wasn't the movie where this guy was buried with a half of a winning lottery ticket in his pocket, was it?

Hitchcock said before he died that he wanted to make a movie about a guy who jumps out of an airplane with a parachute on and lands in an unfamiliar place. That's all he had for the idea, and he thought it'd make a great movie.

I liked the German movie "M" with Peter Lorre as a child killer. I think that was a Hitchcock film, but I may be wrong.

My favorite Hitchcock movie? That's so hard to choose one. I guess it'd be "Psycho", tho by now I even have the script memorized. (I did not like the re-make. I thought Vince Vaughn as Norman was horrible. I did like Anne Hesche as Marion Crane, tho. It was word-for-word the same as the original script.) It used to scare me as a kid when Arbogast, the detective, fell backwards down the steps, stabbed. I never looked at that in a humorous way. Now next time I see it, I'll remember it and will probably see the humor.

This is so funny that we are discussing this right now. My oldest son (who already is a writing correspondant for an online boxing magazine) just called me out of the blue asking me my opinion about an idea he has for a book along these lines.

Augusta,

Please post the picture if you can find it. I've searched the web and don't think it's online. I haven't seen the "Gein" movie...but hardly doubt it can be a good one. As you know there are numerous charachters in the world of horror based on Gein. I think Psycho is the only one that's quite good if you think about other infamous charachters like Leatherface...or silence of the lambs.

Angel,

I guess you know all about the Gein case.
In real life Gein was somewhat obsessed with his mother.
Do you think she was that kind of religious fanatic described in media and that it her religious beliefs destroyed Ed.
Would really like your opinion...

Thanks!!!!

That's what was always described in the media.

Ray Bloch (Milwaukee?) was inspired by the Ed Gein horror story for "Psycho". Obviously toned down for the movie, plus added features to make the whole story work.

The woman who embezzles her employer's money is the first known victim. This follows the convention of "bad things happening to bad people". (The other is to have the murderer earlier revealed as doing somthing unethical or illegal.)

"The Silence of the Lambs" used a number of serial killers to create a composite character. Skinning his victims was so very Gein-ish. Keeping them alive in a basement was from a Philadelphia case in the early 1980s?
Travelling around to find victims was like Ted Bundy (read Ann Rule's book).

A good horror movie on a dark and stormy night? Priceless!!!

"Foreign Correspondent" was a great movie, often shown on TV in the 1950s & 1960s. No TV rights?

A reporter witnesses a murder, then tries to follow it up. Like "The 39 Steps" or other chase films. See it if you can, its a good story.

In the "Psycho" movie the rerouted highway meant hard times for the Bates Motel. Ed Gein also suffered economically, somehow.

Note how "senseless violence" almost always comes from someone facing economic hardship, which ofter causes personal problems w/ family.

THe example of a guy losing a job then running away is quite common?

As Angel pointed out, you never know what goes on in the minds of people you think you know, and seemingly normal people can be perfect horrors underneath.

On the other hand, haven't we all known people we were initially suspicious of who turned out to be okay? They really were just harmless eccentrics.

Moral: Always be wary, but don't prejudge.

Constantine @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:30 pm wrote:As Angel pointed out, you never know what goes on in the minds of people you think you know, and seemingly normal people can be perfect horrors underneath.

On the other hand, haven't we all known people we were initially suspicious of who turned out to be okay? They really were just harmless eccentrics.

Moral: Always be wary, but don't prejudge.

On the other hand, trust your instincts. A few years ago when I used to work for the Red Cross bloodmobiles I was in charge of a site where a young man popped up to volunteer in the canteen. My mother was in town visiting at the time and I took her along to work in the canteen so we could spend the day together, even though I was working. I went up to the young man and introduced myself as the charge nurse and went through the usual P.R. routine. His handshake was like a wet noodle. And he wouldn't look at me the whole time. He had a very furtive look about him and he gave me some very unnerving vibes. I asked my mother on the way home if he reminded her of Norman Bates from "Psycho", and she said yes. I found out about a year later that he had been arrested for the murder of a little girl in Virginia and for a young woman in Maryland. His name was Hadden Clark. You can read his case in "Crime Library" online. I still get the willies thinking about it.

Was this before his arrest?
Was he looking for victims?

The post about Ed Gein was that he seemed "normal" if slightly retarded.
Does this remind you of Cousin Willy in Arnold Brown's book?

Please see the Heritage Project topic for the family tree of William Borden, who was so far removed from Andrew's tree they probably would not count as related in Fall River, let alone "cousin." That's a misnomer, and would confuse people.

viewtopic.php?t=2584

By the way has anyone seen Hitchcocks movie The Older Sister, which is based on a play about Lizzie?

I don't know about any such movie. But I'm not an expert.

Hitchcock had a series on American TV from around 1956 to 1960 (?).
Then again posthumously in the mid 1990s. That could be from one of those TV shows.

Feel free to correct me.

I just checked on imdb It was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and aired originally in 1956. Carmen Mathews played Lizzie and Joan Lorring played Emma.

Thanks for your responses, I'll try watch it whenever I get the opportunity. Should be interesting to get the Hitchcock view...I thought his movie The Rope, built on the Leopold & Loeb case was quite sophisticated and daring.

Nishmat - It's called just "Rope" - no "the" with it. It's pretty old - in the 1940's maybe? You can tell it was taken from a play because it's all dialogue and takes place in the same room. Excellent dialogue, tho. It is in color. Jimmy Stewart stars; Farley Granger is one of the killers.

I'm very interested in the Leopold & Loeb case. I knew a guy who knew a reporter who was at the trial. And the reporter told my friend what L & L did to Bobby Franks, the 14 year old boy they killed. My friend said it was so awful he wouldn't tell me. (Rats.)

There was a tv segment on this show about 10 years ago that told the story. I'm glad I taped it. It showed the real typewriter and stuff. Also there was this old man who - as a child - was their first intended victim, but thru some stroke of good luck he was not. Maybe he didn't walk home from school that day or something.

There is a more recent film based on L & L called "Compulsion". Tho it was released around 1960, it was done in black and white. It starred Bruce Dern and Dean Stockwell. They couldn't use the real names. At the time, Leopold was in prison and he raised a ruckus about the movie - or was it the book of the same name? In the movie, Martin Milner plays this reporter who is friends with L & L. In real life, that reporter wrote the book "Compulsion". Seems like he had to use different names for L & L in that, too. The book is excellent. I should check out Abe books or Alibris and see if they have it. Another good book on the case is called "Crime of the Century".

Richard Loeb died not too many years after he went to prison. Some guy stabbed him in the shower. Leopold got paroled! Around 1958, I think. He wrote a book in prison called "Life Plus 99 Years". Now that one I've got a copy of. Haven't read it yet. Anyway, after he was paroled he got married and lived in I think Puerto Rico.

Angel - My God, your story of meeting that strange man was so scary! That's something you never forget.

In Michigan here, we had John Norman Collins who was a serial killer of college girls at Eastern Michigan Univeristy. There's a good book about him called "The Michigan Murders". They weren't allowed to use his real name. But reading the facts, there's no doubt he's guilty. My sister was attending that college at the time, and our family was terrified. It turned out he was in one of her classes. She said he was 'real quiet'.

Someone interviewed him about 15 years ago (he's serving life - I think he is figured to have killed at least 7). He looked like such a nice young guy. I think that's more frightening than someone like that looking the part. Of course he kept saying he was innocent.

I had thought of trying to go for an interview with him, but I can't do it.
I did visit the prison gift shop where he's at. He's in Marquette State Prison, which is maximum security and the real bad ones get put in there. There used to be a store next to the prison (it's gone now). I asked the guard who was minding the store that day about Collins. He looked at me real strangely at first. He showed me some stuff Collins had made for the prison store. It was identified by Collins' prison number on each piece. I bought some leather keychains he had made. They were only fifty cents apiece. I gave most of them away to people who were interested. They're not works of art, but the older I get the more distasteful it feels to have them.

OF course he looked like "a nice young man". If he looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame he would never be successful in luring young women to their deaths!!! You can read Ann Rule's book on Ted Bundy "such a nice young man"?

"Appearances can be deceptive" they say.

Never trust a stranger?

"The Older Sister", of course, which, by the way, you can purchase on iTunes.

Speaking of the Alfred Hitchcock show "The Older Sister", it will be shown tomorrow at 6 a.m. (ugh!) on the Chiller Channel. I don't know how many people receive that channel. Just started receiving it myself on Direct TV satellite.

The description of the show reads:

"A year after the murders, a newspaper reporter (Joan Lorring) attempts to interview Lizzie Borden (Carmen Mathews) and her sister about the killings."

Here's a photo from the show.

Harry wrote:

The description of the show reads:

"A year after the murders, a newspaper reporter (Joan Lorring) attempts to interview Lizzie Borden (Carmen Mathews) and her sister about the killings."

According to imdb.com, Joan Lorring played Emma Borden.

See http://imdb.com/title/tt0508331/

(I'm not saying they're infallible.)

I would not know which one is correct. Direct TV has like a TV guide built in that describes each show. I've never seen the show myself.

I'd trust IMDB.

I haven't seen it either.

So would I, but i've seen a few mistakes on it (which I corrected).

I got up this morning and watched the show. It listed the cast members but not the part they played.

As I was watching it, it looked so familiar that I thought I probably had seen it before. At the end it said it was based on the play by Lilian de la Torre, which I have read.

Emma looked way younger than Lizzie in the story. Not 100% factual but not bad. I was hoping Emma or Lizzie would take a hatchet to the obnoxious reporter. Drat!

Hey, Harry- what happened to your new sexy picture?

Its amazing what a shave and a haircut will do.

Yeah- look what happened to Samson

Damn that Delilah...





Tracy...

Harry, was it any good? How would you rate the movie?

I enjoyed it although I thought it pure fiction. I won't tell the theory as that would ruin it for others.

I thought Lizzie looked too old for 33 and Emma too young for 42 but the acting was good. It all takes place in one room so don't look for 92 Second Street. No violence is shown just a hefty hatchet and I do mean hefty! You wouldn't have needed 19 and 10 blows with that hatchet.

Would I buy it? Depends on the price but being a purist on the case, probably not. But that's just me.

It's on again at 2 a.m. on the 14th.

Here's the Truth as I know it: "Strangers on a Train" is the best movie, because of its mixture of horror, suspense, and comedy. The comedic scenes balance the murder and the insanity of Bruno Antony.

It also documents the life of those days (train travel, etc.)

The screenplay lists Raymond Chandler, the mark of quality. Hammett also took in the easy big bucks rather than working hard on novels.

Rays - Of course you're right. If killers didn't look normal they'd have a lot less victims.

I've read Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me". She actually worked with him at a suicide crisis center. His ruses to lure women to their deaths were chilling, just seeming so normal. Who wouldn't help a young guy with a cast on his arm? Well, nobody after reading that!

"Strangers on a Train" is very good. How bout that part where Bruno pops the kid's balloon with the cigarette? The comedy "Throw Mama from the Train" was based on that film. It's hilarious.

Hitchcock's daughter, Pat Hitchcock, played the younger sister, 'Barbara'. She acted in several of his projects. I've seen her in a few of his tv shows. She was the other secretary in Janet Leigh's office in "Psycho". I always liked her.

I really liked "The Older Sister". It's so true, tho. The Lizzie on it was too old and the Emma was too young - and too pretty. I didn't realize it was taken from a play. I wonder if a copy could be found today?

My husband's godmother was related to Dashielle Hammett. Fifth cousins; never met.

RayS @ Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:37 pm wrote:Here's the Truth as I know it: "Strangers on a Train" is the best movie, because of its mixture of horror, suspense, and comedy. The comedic scenes balance the murder and the insanity of Bruno Antony.

It also documents the life of those days (train travel, etc.)

The screenplay lists Raymond Chandler, the mark of quality. Hammett also took in the easy big bucks rather than working hard on novels.

You must be slipping, Ray. You forgot to add your usual "you can look it up."

I like "Strangers on a Train" too. That scene of him reaching down that grate and the ferris wheel coming off it's mounting shaft are my favorite parts. I like the way Hitchcock played with the contrast between black and white to get the erie feel of the movie.

-1bigsteve (o:

Harry @ Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:47 am wrote:I enjoyed it although I thought it pure fiction. I won't tell the theory as that would ruin it for others.

I thought Lizzie looked too old for 33 and Emma too young for 42 but the acting was good. It all takes place in one room so don't look for 92 Second Street. No violence is shown just a hefty hatchet and I do mean hefty! You wouldn't have needed 19 and 10 blows with that hatchet.

Would I buy it? Depends on the price but being a purist on the case, probably not. But that's just me.

It's on again at 2 a.m. on the 14th.

That photo shows a broad axe, Harry, and they are hefty. Made for squaring lumber. 19 wacks with that one and there wouldn't be much head left.

-1bigsteve (o:

There was something said about the scene in "Strangers on a Train" where they're showing the tennis match, and they show the audience and all their heads are going from side to side, following the ball, at the same time. I think it was deemed to be one of his best scenes.

But yeah, that carousel was scary. When I saw it when I was little, it felt like I was on it, it was so suspenseful.

For a while after I saw that I was afraid to go on a merry-go-round.

One time, as an adult, I put my little girl on a pony on a carousel, and I hung onto her with one arm and held onto the pole with the other, standing up. Geez - that carousel went so fast. It was all I could do to hold on. Sure felt like I was about to fly off.

augusta @ Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:48 pm wrote:There was something said about the scene in "Strangers on a Train" where they're showing the tennis match, and they show the audience and all their heads are going from side to side, following the ball, at the same time. I think it was deemed to be one of his best scenes.
...

Was that copied from a famous Charles Addams cartoon? Or what?
I would call that a sight gag, like those 'police story"(?) movies in the early 1980s. Or the original "Airplane"?

Harry wrote:

thought Lizzie looked too old for 33 and Emma too young for 42 but the acting was good.

I just looked up all the dates on IMDb. Right you are, Harry! Joan Lorring (Emma) was then 29 and Carmen Mathews (Lizzie) was then 41!

RayS: It was comical, now that I think of it. It was probably meant to be by Hitchcock. I never noticed it until someone talked about it on tv and they showed the clip.

I haven't seen all of Hitchcock's films but Psycho scared me half to death. That shower scene bothered me so much for a long time I took a kitchen chair with me & put it under the door when I took a shower. I also loved Rear Window. ( Jimmy Stewart if I remember correctly) I've never seen The Older Sister, I'm going to keep checking the Turner Classic Movie Guide to see if they show it. Sometimes they feature directors, maybe they'll have a month of Hitchcock greats. Ok, help my memory here, did Alfred Hitchcock have a regular TV program? I seem to remember his outline on screen & then he would really walk into it & start talking to the audience.

Nadzieja @ Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:25 am wrote:I haven't seen all of Hitchcock's films but Psycho scared me half to death. That shower scene bothered me so much for a long time I took a kitchen chair with me & put it under the door when I took a shower. I also loved Rear Window. ( Jimmy Stewart if I remember correctly) I've never seen The Older Sister, I'm going to keep checking the Turner Classic Movie Guide to see if they show it. Sometimes they feature directors, maybe they'll have a month of Hitchcock greats. Ok, help my memory here, did Alfred Hitchcock have a regular TV program? I seem to remember his outline on screen & then he would really walk into it & start talking to the audience.

What made the shower scene so terrifying in "Psycho" was the facts that:

A. She was caught completely off guard,
B. She was unarmed and totaly defensless,
C. She was cornered in that shower and had no way of escape,
D. She was naked and had nothing to protect her from the knife

It was Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window." I love the way Hitchcock showed so much action within so little space. The two windows in Burr's apartment, the very narrow ally, and the few other windows in the apartment building. He was able to tell a complete story using so little viewing area. Amazing. As in "Psycho" Hitchcock created a helpless character, Stewart, who has to fight for his life against a killer as Janet Leigh did in the shower."

If I am not mistaken I think that show was called "Hitchcock Presents." It was done in the '50's. He would introduce the show with some speech and end the show with something twisted and/or funny. He had a very dry, droll sense of humor.

I wish he had shot his movies without that #*%@$&! thing on his lens! That gets right up my nose. He was a master of the "creepy" though. I got to hand it to him. He was something.

-1bigsteve (o: