I have to thank or curse fellow blogger Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., for drawing my attention to an item I want to spend money on while I’m on a self-imposed austerity period after attending multiple film festivals and adding to my film book collection. Ivan runs the fun blog Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, where he writes about classic film and television and old time radio. My temptation is a forthcoming release from Funko, a producer of pop culture-related toys.
I was completely unaware that Funko had within its POP! Vinyl line a newer series focusing on film directors. If you’re not familiar with the line, it features vinyl figurines of entertainment personalities and characters simplified into cartoon-like figures with large heads and eyes that are sometimes mouthless. Among the first directors to be immortalized in one of their vinyl creations were Paul Feig and Guillermo del Toro.
So far I have resisted buying anything from the line. I was and am tempted by their limited edition Twin Peaks Black Lodge set featuring Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer. It was released in 2017 to time with the summer convention circuit while fans were excited about the then current TWIN PEAKS revival. There’s one source left to score that set from with no exploitative collector’s mark-up, so I may break and buy it from them before they sell out.
This version of Hitch carries a slate for PSYCHO (1960), and he looks like he stepped out of a famous, on-set picture of him. At the same time, I can’t help but think of his once weekly appearances in black and white as the host of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. Both that series and his film were made by a crew associated more with Revue Studios‘ TV productions than film sets.
As I learned from my summer classic film reading, PSYCHO was an experiment. Hitchcock wanted to make a lower budget movie. He had a deal with Paramount to earn money on his movie’s box office gross. In using the crew he did, he not only saved money, but also achieved a grittier style that contrasted with the luxurious visuals of his previous movies. He departed from an onscreen style he was feeling pigeon-holed into. A public used to watching TV turned out for a movie with its aesthetics. The result was a box office smash that turned into an evergreen and his best remembered film.
The little man stands forever caught in a moment before he realized exactly what he wrought.
If you’d like to buy Hitchcock and support Spellbound at the same time, click this Amazon affiliate link, where you can pre-order him. He will be released on September 26, 2018. I’m going to be good and not order him–I’m asking my husband to get him as a gift for me!
