The key in Ingrid’s hand.  The ring on Grace’s finger.  It’s not her key.  It’s not her ring.

Rio is beautiful…even in black and white.  Only Hitchcock could make it so.  Christ of the Andes.  The greatest creator of forms of the 20th century.

Icy.  Pithy.  Notorious is stoic Cary Grant.  And this shall be a terse dispatch.

It’s a very fine vintage…1946…1940…1934.  I pity the sommelier assigned to this house of horrors.  God forbid he pick the 1934.  You can tell, old man, when a seemingly-polished chap makes a completely inappropriate choice of wines.  Strangers on a train bound for Zagreb.  Yes, a keen eye for detail is certainly not to be underestimated.

T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) knows every trick in the book.  When to bluff.  When to kiss.

It is only when matters of the heart come into play that the C.I.A. has no official manual.  It will never be declassified.  Because it doesn’t exist.  The manual is Petrarch.  Shakespeare’s sonnets.  The manual was written long ago.  It is no secret.  Only a mystery.

We will kill her off slowly, they say…on the installment plan.  She will gargle in the rat-race choir.  Until Devlin comes with his pointed threats to bluff with scorn and Claude Rains is left like a groom standing at the altar…except it’s not his wedding, it’s his funeral.

It’s the way they killed Sindona in Voghera.  Poison in the coffee.  C.A.B.A.L.  It’s not a Fleming invention.  Far older than that.  And I.G. Farben…not a fanciful name plucked from Hitchcock’s imagination.

Mata Hari.  Theda Bara.  Arab Death.

MacGuffin.  Mackintosh.  Scotland Yard.

This was the first time Hitchcock was really in charge.  Byb-bye David O. Selznick.

Ben Hecht.  Clifford Odets.

This is really loose crap.

That’s a quote.  ” ”

This is a puzzle, dear friends.  This is your dossier.  Jigsaw.  Fragmented.

It is Vivre sa vie.  The back of a head only.  Cary Grant’s black hair.  A man, as yet, with no name.

Susan Sontag was on a different mission.  We defer to Cahiers du Cinéma.  To Henri Langlois.

These are our agents.  Our “Wild Bill” Donovans.  Our O.S.S.

She may not sniff it through a cane on a supersonic train, but it still makes me laugh.  Murnau more now than ever.

A full 360°.  The subjective, drunken camera.  We have suspicion of Grant from the start–is that fizzy aspirin or a glowing glass of milk?

The con man exploits your trust.  What was the bait?

It is like Dostoyevsky.  We feel sympathy for Norman Bates just as we do Raskolnikov.

Yes, sometimes…Mother Sebastian, we are protected by the enormity of our stupidity.  Forrest Gumption.

The key was stolen.  The key brought such luck.  The key was passed on.  And now, Mr. Hitchcock, the key has been returned.

Thank you.

 

-PD