This is in 2 parts so I'll try and keep it simple. You can contribute to one or both parts if you wish.
Part 1: Which (if any) Hitchcock movies between 1940 - 1960 would you erase and replace with another movie of the same era, and give any reasons for your choice.
I'll start off with an example: I'd erase Hitchcock's 1949 movie Under Capricorn and replace it with The Third Man of the same year. I love Carol Reed's movie but I think Hitchcock could have made it even darker. He'd have had lots of fun playing with images of post-war Vienna with its bombed streets, frightened citizens, and its multi-powered military presence. He'd worked with Joseph Cotten before on Shadow Of A Doubt and I think a collaboration between Hitchcock and Orson Welles would have been unforgettable. I also think that Alfred Hitchcock's The Third Man would have less dialogue and rely more on the visual elements which after all was one of Hitchcock's trademarks.
The second part is a flight of pure fantasy and imagination and based on the fact that Hitchcock's international movie-making career really took off after David O Selznick brought him to the US to make Rebecca in 1940. His career spanned 40 years up to his death in 1980. Now...I've just moved Hitchcock's birth forward from 1899 to 1935 (which would make him 25 years old in 1960) and given him a 40 year movie-making career from 1960-2000. So...
Part 2: What movies made between 1960-2000 do you think Hitchcock should (or could) have made if he had been younger and in his prime?
This is more difficult to judge, I think, given today's much more explicit use of violence and sexual content. We know that with Psycho, Hitchcock pushed the boundaries of nudity and violence to its limits back in 1960, but what direction would he have taken today? Probably a good starting point would be with a process of elmination - in other words, what movies does anyone think Hitchcock would not have made?
Well, I don't think he'd have made Alien or Star Wars because he seemed to have no interest in Sci-Fi. I feel he would have used CGI technology sparingly for such things as people plunging from high places, as he did in Vertigo and North By Northwest, so no computer-generated Jurassic Park dinosaurs for him. No westerns, no musicals, no outright gothic horror movies, and costume/period dramas weren't really his thing either. I don't think he'd have touched Bond, Indiana Jones, any super hero movies, or ghost stories either. So what's left? Plenty...Fatal Attraction? Basic Instinct? The Silence Of The Lambs? (oh yes to that last one!)
Okay...over to you...
