Here’s the second set of movies in my onging Patrick’s 100. I know that it has been a while since the first post in this series, but I decided I wanted to save a few listings for this special weekend.

The first 10 of my favorite motion pictures can be found here. As before, these are in no particular order, although all of these happen to be films directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. The first two on this list, Psycho and Vertigo are my favorites of his work.

My longtime readers probably already know that I’m an Alfred Hitchcock fan. I think he was a genius when it came to telling a story and there are still young directors being influenced by his work. There are some obvious titles that any fan of Hitch would have, and at least one that they probably don’t talk about all that much.

11. Psycho (1960) - Probably the best horror movie ever made, as long as you go in not knowing the surprise ending, Psycho was intentionally made in black and white because Hitch felt that color would be too gory. And it was made without nudity so that Hitch could have fun with the censors by creating the famous shower scene that showed no breasts, but made it look like you’d seen everything. So what did Gus Van Sant do in the remake? Go with color and nudity. Way to miss the point! For those of us who rush to get to a movie on time, or at least on time enough that we miss the endless previews and not any of the movie itself, we can thank this film for starting that tradition: in the old days, it was customary for people to just show up in the middle of a film and figure out what was what as it went along. Since the top-billed star of the movie was shockingly killed off in the first third, Hitch demanded that his audience see the movie from the beginning, and got movie theaters to play along, thus adding to the intrigue of what the movie was about. Even today, its low-budget shooting is enough to send a chill on a dark and stormy night.

12. Vertigo (1958) - One of these days, I’m going to go to San Francisco and see some of the real locations that appeared in this film. (If you’ve been reading these Arch-a-thon posts, you’ll know that soon I’ll have another, more important reason to visit that area, too.) Vertigo is a haunting film about a woman tortured by ghosts from the past, and an ex-detective hired to track her to make sure no harm comes to her. The detective becomes obsessed with the woman when tragedy strikes. But after he recovers, his obsession is reignited when he sees someone who could be the spitting image of woman he had been hired to protect.

13. Rope (1948) - This could be one of Hitch’s least-known color pictures, and that’s likely because of the fact that its odd shooting style made the pacing drag throughout. For this movie, Hitch decided to shoot the film as if it were a stage play. The camera moves around the set, following the action, drifting from one conversation to another where appropriate, and films a complete reel at a time. One film reel was about nine or ten minutes long, so you end up with a movie full of ten-minute takes pieced together while the camera pans behind someone’s back: it’s the old reel on one side, and when the camera moves back out from the person’s back, you’ve started a new reel. The problem with this, of course, is that you see precisely what Hitch was trying to hide. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents complained about the casting of the movie, which was supposedly about two gay killers who kill a classmate just to experience the sensation of killing (borrowing from the real-life Leopold and Loeb case) was supposed to have, as some minor subplot, the fact that their teacher had previously had some relationship with one of them; teacher Jimmy Stewart isn’t believable as having had a torrid affair with anyone, and since the alleged “gay” subplot is never even mentioned, you’re left thinking that something isn’t quite right beyond the murder itself. The concept of what they do with the body during a dinner party makes for a suspenseful flick despite the slow points.

14. The Trouble With Harry (1955) - Leave it to Alfred Hitchcock to turn a murder into a black comedy about a corpse that won’t stay in the ground! The whole “whodunit” part is almost lost in the race to keep the victim from being discovered, which makes it all the more fun.

15. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - This is rumored to be one of Hitchcock’s personal favorites, his daughter has told interviewers, because he loved the idea of bringing menace to a small town. Uncle Charlie is that menace, and his namesake realizes during his visit to her comically-clueless family that all is not what it seems with everyone’s favorite relative.

16. Rear Window (1954) - While I like this movie, I don’t think I like it quite as much as most of Hitchcock fans seem to. I definitely like the concept, though, because if any of us found ourselves immobilized in our apartment which happened to overlook such an oddball collection of characters, we’d all sit there staring. But I think I’d at least be smart enough to make sure the lights were all off first! Raymond Burr plays a great heavy. (Pardon the pun.)

17. The Birds (1963) - Of all of Hitch’s films, this is probably the only one for which I could imagine a valid case for a remake. The technology of special effects back in the 1960s didn’t really do this thriller about birds suddenly turning on mankind justice. Then again, even with some effects that today look like effects, the acting and the suspense is still very enjoyable. A remake, though, could also help produce that ending Hitch wanted but wasn’t able to shoot because of budget constraints. The original ending — at least, the planned ending — had the human victims of the bird attack escaping their small town only to approach the Golden Gate Bridge and find it covered with birds. What an ending that would have been!

18. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - The crash of the cymbals is the cue to murder. And the journey to that cymbal crash takes a typical American family from Marrakech to London in a web of deceit and espionage. Doris Day surprised the makers of the film for her dramatic acting ability, and the song she performed, “Que Sera, Sera,” became a hit, even if it didn’t make a whole lot of sense in this particular story.

19. Strangers On a Train (1951) - I’ll kill yours…you kill mine. Criss-cross. That’s the proposal from a man who hates his father to a man who hates his wife. The trouble is, one of the men doesn’t take the proposal as seriously as the other. It’s great suspense with some clever moments, including a humorous crowd shot at a tennis match.

20. North by Northwest (1959) - Let me say it upfront: I’m not particularly a fan of Cary Grant. I don’t really know what it was about him, but something just annoys me about him. Still, the fun of watching an ordinary man find himself in the middle of a case of mistaken identity and espionage. There’s that famous scene of Grant being chased through a corn field by a crop duster, and the big chase scene at Mt. Rushmore. Then there’s that shot at the very end of the film, the ultimate of double entendres. But you probably already know about that one, right?

So that’s my top Hitchcock picks. There may be a few more Hitchcock movies somewhere in the list, but these are my favorites of his work. Be sure to check back during the Arch-a-thon because there’ll be plenty more of my 100 Movies appearing this weekend!