We are excited to launch our upcoming Classic Suspense Journey. You can register for it here.
We had to make a programming change. Anthony Mann’s The Tall Target was the perfect choice for Genre Suspense. Unfortunately, it is no longer available to stream, so we have replaced it with another worthy Western suspense film, 3:10 to Yuma for Chapter One. That would be the original from 1957, which bears a similarity with High Noon because of how a ticking clock plays a role in the narrative. We are pairing that with Diabolique from 1955, which is sort of a jumble of genres, so we’ll see how people respond to that. As it happens, both of these films have been re-made. Buyer beware if anyone watches the Diabolique sequel, but the Yuma is pretty cool.
The second chapter is going to be figuratively and literally fire. We are pairing two films that are a powder keg of suspense. Speaking of remakes, this double feature just happens to be an original and remake. Sensing a theme? It may have been a little bit planned, but seriously kids, don’t try it with Diabolique. The pairing of Henri Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear and William Friedkin’s Sorcerer is to show the extreme rarity of a remake that actually enhances and compliments the original. They also work in different ways, with different geographic locations, and have some creative choices that make the suspense element hit the viewer in distinctive ways. They also happen to be two of the best examples of their era in building suspense without overloading the film with action.
Finally, in the third chapter, we are going to visit some late career films from British masters. They are both close to or beyond the post-Production Code boundary, so as a result they are more graphic than the prior work of these two auteurs. Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom was ahead of its time, and not what audiences were ready for at all. Coincidentally, that was the same year as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which was exactly what people were ready for and became an unqualified success. We’ll be revisiting later Hitch with Frenzy, which is surprisingly from 1972. This is also a grisly story, which is saying something for the nicknamed Master of Suspense. We’ll look at it through the lens of Hitchcock’s previous work, much of which was impacted by the studio, producer interference, and/or the Production Code.
Finally, Jill and Aaron will be spending some time diving into the Master of Suspense’s work, and we expect some combination of videos, articles, and podcasts to be part of this. That combination will depend on how the Journey hits us, and what we choose to revisit in this classic suspense month — which we are dubbing SUSPENSTEMBER. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? That name may or may not stick, but the films are going to leave an impression.
Of all of our Journeys, we are seeing more early activity with Classic Suspense. If you plan to participate, we encourage you to register while you can. This could be the first Journey where we have to cap registration before the start date. We’ll keep you in suspense …