July 26, 2020:
In his movies, the villains are smooth, likable, elegant
High consumption is typically the prerogative of financiers and spies, or spies dressed as financiers, as in Notorious
In Psycho: Hitch said: “This is going to need someone with a sense of humor.”
“When you mention murder, most writers begin to think in low-key terms. But the events leading up to the act itself might be very light and amusing. many murderers are very attractive persons; they have to be in order to attract their victims.” (Robello, Psycho).
Actors who played Villains:
H’s villains are sharp dressers or aristocratic aesthetes, often made sinister by stereotypically homosexual traits or other hints of sexual perversion.
39 Steps, Godfrey Tearle
Man Who Knew, Peter Lorre
Lady Vanishes, Paul Lukas
Shadow of Doubt, Joseph Cotten
Spellbound, Leo J. Carroll
Notorious, Claude Rains
Rope, John Dall
Strangers on Train, Robert Walker
Dial M, Ray Milland
Vertigo, Tom Helmore, Gavin Elster
North, James Mason
Pyscho, Tony Perkins
Marnie, Sailor
Hitchcock was dissatisfied with the endings of both The Lodger and Suspicion.
The popular images of Ivor Novello in The Lodger ad Cary Grant in Suspicion, it would have been impossible to cast them as villains in other films.
Notorious (1946)
The villain in Notorious, Alexander Sebastian, is one of the most sympathetically tragic villains in Hitchcock’s cinema.
Significantly, his character is more developed and nuanced–we learn more about him–than that of the hero Devlin (Cary Grant) or heroine (Ingrid Bergman.
