#family plot

[swforester]

Two souls, buried inside the fence.

Granville MA 10/30/24

[lobbycards]

Family Plot, French lobby card. 1976

[gotankgo]

1976 - Philadelphia

[thealmightyemprex]

Alfred Hitchcock August Family Plot

This Month I am planning to film in some of my Hitchcock gaps ,starting with his final film

In this 1976 film,psychic Blanche (Barbra Harris ) has been hired to find the long lost nephew of the wealthy Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbit ),unaware said nephew is a kidnapper named Arthur Adamson(William Devane) who thinks Blanche and boyfriend George (Bruce Dern ) have stumbled upon his criminal activities

So I always heard this was a lesser Hitchcock film,only notable for being his final film ....I disagree this was a ton of fun,I really enjoyed this .I honestly think the reason why its not more loved is cause it is Hitchcocks final film,people expect an amazing finale to his career and might be disappointed it is a fairly light film,but that didnt bother me

The film is a dark comedy/thriller ,and I'll adimit as a comedy its not that funny but it is definately fun and as a thriller its really suspenceful.There is a rather entertaining car chase

The supporting cast ,especially Cathleen Nesbitt as an elderly rich woman and Ed Lauter as a murderous associate of Adamson are really good

What I like is the film centers on two couples ,one down on their luck basically con artists,and the other two sucessful kidnappers,and its interesting to see the diffrence between the two relationships

Karan Black is verygoood as the sort of reluctant villain ,very hesitant to get her hands dirty .I think she is good but wish there was more of her

William Devane is excellent as the main villain.A greedy jewler not afraid to kidnap or murder to get what he wants .I had recently seen Marathon Man with him in it,and with these two roles he impresses me as an actor

Barbra Harris in this as the psychic is fun,she does have great moments but in some scenes she can over do it a little

The best performance for me is Bruce Dern in a rare heroic role ,and this is my favorite Bruce Dern movie .I love the scenes of him investigating and I adore his and Harris's relationship

Overall Family Plot is a fun watch,not a masterpiece but a hoot ,reccomended

@ariel-seagull-wings @filmcityworld1 @the-blue-fairie @angelixgutz @scarletblumburtonofeastlondon @amalthea9 @princesssarisa @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @marquisedemasque @themousefromfantasyland

[thefrankshow]

They bought an old house in the country, complete with a family plot. Some say the house was haunted.

[homocinematicus]

Family Plot 1976 Alfred Hitchcock

[avplaysitself]

The Ring (2002): VHS video lending library

[dweemeister]

March 6, 2024

By Chris Willman

(Variety) — Harrison Ford can’t escape the two-and-a-half-minute fanfare that John Williams composed for his most famous cinematic hero, Indiana Jones. “As I often remind John, his music follows me everywhere I go — literally,” Ford says. “When I had my last colonoscopy, they were playing it on the operating room speakers.”

Creating those big, bold, brassy musical moments has become Williams’ trademark over his seven-decade career. Without his symphonic genius, some of the most indelible images in movie history — from E.T.’s flight across the moon to the ravenous shark zeroing in on an unsuspecting swimmer — would have lacked their singular power.    

This year, Williams is resetting the record books again with his Academy Award nomination for best original score for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” It’s his 54th nomination, which is the most ever for someone not named Walt Disney, and thus the biggest tally for any living person — and any nonproducer, period.  

“People ask about a legacy,” Williams says as he sits in the Amblin screening room on the Universal lot, adjacent to his bungalow office. “If I could be remembered as someone who did his job well and remembered as a good solid musician, I would rest very happily.” 

... Over the decades, he was aware of how the great film composers before him had a reputation for being cranky at best or tortured at worst. “Alex North, David Raksin, Jerry Goldsmith and others — brilliant, beautiful talents. All unhappy.” Most had barely suppressed ambitions to write concert music or symphonies instead of scoring movies. They believed that they were, in a sense, slumming it and laboring for directors who they described as “imperious and obstructive.” 

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not a complaint that I want to have to live with.’ So I went about it not to try to compete with Igor Stravinsky or the great classical composers, but to learn from the process of doing — the best school of all.”  

Williams also notes that times have changed. Today, orchestras are happy to play film music. “If you went to the New York Philharmonic 40 years ago, they would be condescending about playing anything from Hollywood,” he says. “So I’m lucky that I’m living in a different period.” 

Maybe luck has something to do with it, but there’s a case to be made that Williams created the era in which concert treatments of film music and live-to-screen presentations are beloved hallmarks of symphony seasons. He did that by writing themes the whole world wants to hear. He also did it by being a friendly ambassador for orchestras, fronting the Boston Pops or the L.A. Phil. Those who know Williams well say the audiences who have greeted him as America’s Composer are not mistaken in their impressions of him as a genial genius.

***

Imo, perhaps the most underreported part of John Williams' legacy? Helping classic film scores that he and his predecessors composed earn their place in the classical music canon (it helps immensely that Williams commands the deepest respect from professional musicians, soloists and rank-and-file orchestra members alike, around the world).

[horrororman]

Released April 9, 1976(US).

#FamilyPlot

#AlfredHitchcock

#thriller #mystery #comedy

[haverwood]

Family Plot Alfred Hitchcock USA, 1976 ★★★ Who you winkin' at

[nomallmovieschicago]

20 March 2023

Film: FAMILY PLOT (d. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976, USA)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center Format: 35mm

Observations: So delighted to watch a favorite film, Hitchcock's final feature, projected brightly in 35mm (the print had been through the wars, but still had immeasurably greater resolution than a DCP file). On screen, one can see even clearer the craft and care that went into one of the Master's warmest and most optimistic titles (on the small screen, it simply looks too much like television). One may also see a wide range of Hollywood teeth, bigger than life up on the screen. About 35 in attendance.

[byneddiedingo]

Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern in Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Cast: Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane, Ed Lauter, Cathleen Nesbitt, Katherine Helmond, Warren J. Kemmerling, Edith Atwater, William Prince. Screenplay: Ernest Lehman, based on a novel by Victor Canning. Cinematography: Leonard J. South. Production design: Henry Bumstead. Film editing: J. Terry Williams. Music: John Williams. 

Barbara Harris, as the "spiritualist" Blanche Tyler, is the best thing about Alfred Hitchcock's last movie. According to Stephen Whitty's  The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia, Hitchcock wanted Harris for the role, but he met resistance from the studio, which wanted a bigger name, so he cast Karen Black in the slightly lesser role of Fran to please the higher-ups, who gave Black higher billing than Harris. Which brings up an old question: Why did Harris never become a major star? She made an impressive movie debut in A Thousand Clowns (Fred Coe, 1965), was a standout in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), and received an Oscar nomination for Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (Ulu Grosbard, 1971), but is pretty much forgotten today. She may just be a case of the right talent having been born at the wrong time: Harris had just turned 40 when she made Family Plot. If she had been born a decade later, she might have given Goldie Hawn or, even later, Meg Ryan competition for the romantic comedy roles they became famous for. Family Plot is feather-light lesser Hitchcock, though on the whole it's a return to form for the director after the rather grim Frenzy (1972) and the late misfires Topaz (1969) and Torn Curtain (1967). There are some touches of the master director to be seen in it. The film makes us think that its main story is that of Blanche and her boyfriend George Lumley (Bruce Dern) as they try to track down the missing heir to a fortune, but as Blanche and George are riding in his cab arguing, he suddenly slams on the brakes to avoid hitting a woman crossing the street. The camera takes a sharp left turn and follows the woman instead, taking us into a plot about jewel thieves. The setup is in Ernest Lehman's screenplay, but Hitchcock is classically artful in the way he keeps both plots dangling until we can see how they intersect. There's another glimpse of the master at work in the way he films George trying to meet up with a woman he's trying to question. The scene takes place in a cemetery, and Hitchcock films it with an overhead camera so that we can see the crossing paths among the graves as George maneuvers his way toward the woman. I doubt that Hitchcock ever played one, but the sequence reminds me of a video game maze. Harris, Black, and Dern are all good in their roles, and William Devane is a fine villain. (Though have there ever been toothier leading men than Dern and Devane?) John Williams adds a touch of Bernard Herrmann in some parts of his score, the only one he did for Hitchcock.

[lobbycards]

Family Plot, French lobby card. 1976

[toongrrl-blog]

To all the anti-heroines, I have loved

[lazylittledragon]

enrichment for the baby rogue

[sssm68]