Recent Watching: Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot

If Alfred Hitchcock had retired after he made Psycho, he would have been remembered as one of the all time great filmmakers. Almost none of the movies he made after that were nearly as good. However, I would say that Frenzy, which was released in 1072, is one of his great movies, maybe not as good as Vertigo or North by Northwest, but still a great picture. Family Plot was Hitchcock's last movie, and it is, by no means his best movie.

I watched this movie a couple nights ago and have been thinking about it for a few days. There are some nice things about the movie. Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris seem well cast as comically inept small-time con artists. The plot is an elaborate riddle that keeps the viewer interested, but never becomes too dense. Well, maybe the plot is a little too intricate. And I would say, perhaps most importantly, the movie has a nice sense of humor.

However, the movie has its flaws. Most of the film was obviously shot in a studio or on the back lot of a studio when most films had embraced location scouting. And Hitchcock still uses back projection for his scenes shot inside of a car -- a technique that had been seen as out of date for nearly twenty years. Consider the fact that Taxi Driver -- itself a movie very much inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo -- was released the same year and makes extensive use of filming in and on the car.

With all that said, I think the pros outweigh the cons. Family Plot is a fun movie worth seeing, even if it is not as good as the great movies Alfred Hitchcock made in the 1950s.