Hitchcock's penultimate film, his first shot in England in more than 20 years, was widely hailed as a return to form when it was released in 1972. But it hasn't aged well. This story of a serial rapist/killer on the loose in contemporary London combines a number of Hitchcockian tropes, such as mistaken identity, fetishism, and a voyeuristic public response to violence, but it's the first to do so with an R rating.
Hitchcock revels in the new permissiveness, but…
Cooper and Dietrich are at their most beautiful and charming as an American naif and Continental sophisticate/con woman who fall in love. The film, which is directed with customary grace by Frank Borzage, starts out funny before becoming a bit of a moralizing slog towards the end. Dietrich's reformation is no fun at all, and it's ridiculous to imagine her becoming an obedient Michigan wifey after the film's wrap-up. (The Lady Eve handled a similar situation much more satisfyingly several years later.) Still, the two stars generate some real sexual heat, and provide such a feast for the eyes that the narrative shortcomings are obscured.
A little slice of pre-Code heaven as dark-eyed Ann Dvorak suffers on the skids and fast-talking Lee Tracy snaps her out of it.
I don't know when I've been so narcotized by a movie, although it wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling. The music is glorious, the style exceedingly flat and dry in the Straub-Huillet manner. It consists of static presentations of a number of Bach compositions, with music recorded live on period instruments. The spoken text, mostly in voiceover, is an account provided by Bach's wife. The narration (in English) is so fast and so uninflected that it can be very difficult to…
