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This was a fantastic podcast. I’m going to rewatch the movie . And I’m looking forward to what the next podcast tells me about The Birds.
Thanks for the enthusiastic praise! Probably up next weekend.
I’m publishing a brief essay with the paintings Hitchcock placed in the movie & some discussion of the religion – respectability – art problems we were trying to get at in the middle of the discusion…
Re # 2
Very good, because it would help to easily be able to look at the paintings while I’m considering what you’re saying.
Yeah, I thought so, too.
We paid a lot of attention to that because it’s the sort of stuff Hitchcock added to his movies without any connection to the stories–he didn’t write stories, but he made them into what he wanted, irrespective of original source, screenwriter, studio, &c.
We’re trying to draw attention to much-neglected planning in the stories–especially as everyone has seen the movies, it’s easier to give them a sense of the sophisticated design.
Of course, not on Father’s Day. But soon-
I’m not sure I saw the movie when I watched it. For instance, before this podcast, I never noticed that the psycho might essentially be like Francis Macomber’s wife in Hemingway’s story. And, Francis Macomber and Marion, what could they be said to have in common ? Wierd.
I’m going to watch the movie again.
Still about halfway through, but I have a question.
I read the screenplay many years ago and I recall the early draft had the movie set in the summer, which would make sense when everyone is complaining how hot it is. The title at the beginning of the first scene says December 11. Given the level of precision of so much of this movie, I suspect there is something deliberate.
So far as I know, it’s silly: In the great opening pan shot, there are some Christmas ornaments. So they changed it around to making that make sense…
I’ve been to Phoenix in November & yes, it was still very hot. You’d have to ask our Arizonans about December, but I think it still works–but of course, ‘hot as fresh milk?’ I dunno…
Ah! Continuity fix.
And Tom looks like a Texan. Surprised an Arizona winter would be tough for him.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s supposed to be tough for him as much as an occasion for a very vulgar, but not obviously objectionable remark–the first of several aimed at Marion…
Re # 8
“Hot as fresh milk”? You feed milk to babies. Doesn’t this also imply Marion is as vulnerable as a baby and about to be tempted by forbidden food that is also inadequate nourishment? (Money isn’t what Marion and her lover need to be married. She just thinks it is.) Isn’t the guy who makes the remark like the devil?
I think it’s a joke about breasts–the guy proceeds to mix up his daughter with Marion–& then to tell her how a weekend in Vegas could be great. Leering all the while.
Marion’s coworker gets strangely jealous about how a pass had not been made at her–she has a ready excuse–she’s got the wedding ring on is why…
Re # 13
I think it’s also, on the surface, a joke about breasts.
My essay on the paintings in the movie is up!
Oh, I forgot to say: The milk right out of a cow’s udder (“fresh”, in other words) might be referred to as “hot”. So, you have in this line another allusion to human beings as nothing more than animals. (Marion looks sexy, and is also not much more than a cow, to this man who seems to be standing in for the devil.)
Considering all the work it does to underscore other things done and said in the movie, “Hot as fresh milk”, is a powerful line. There’s kind of a Flannery O’Connor quality about it.
In Christianity, God is Our Father. The Church is the bride of Christ. The devil is presented as a seducer and called the father of lies.
On the surface, you have the coworker soothing her own vanity by telling herself the evident fact that she’s married is the only reason she didn’t draw what she implies is flattering—and what the viewer sees is lewd and creepy—attention from the Texan.
On a deeper level, the message is that we don’t know to be grateful when we’re protected from evil , or to honor and foster what protects us from it, because we no longer recognize the spiritual reality and power of evil.