Displaying items by tag: Alfred Hitchcock

Andy Warhol was a relentless chronicler of life and its encounters. Carrying a Polaroid camera from the late 1950s until his death in 1987, he amassed a huge collection of instant pictures of friends, lovers, patrons, the famous, the obscure, the scenic, the fashionable, and himself. Created in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, this book features hundreds of these instant photos, many of them never seen before.

Portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Yves Saint Laurent, Pelé, Debbie Harry are included alongside images of Warhol’s entourage and high life, landscapes, and still lifes from Cabbage Patch dolls to the iconic soup cans.

On Sunday, July 28, 2013, a gunman sneaked into the posh Carlton Intercontinental hotel in Cannes, France, held up a diamond show and made off on foot with $136 million worth of jewels. It was the biggest heist to take place in Cannes, a notorious hot spot for the rich and famous, in years.

Current investigations show that the suspect acted alone and wore a scarf, hat and gloves to disguise his identity. The thief entered through the hotel’s ground floor showroom, held up some of the show’s staff with a handgun, grabbed the valuables, and exited through a side door that led to a side street. The entire holdup took approximately sixty seconds and occurred while three security guards looked on.

The jewels were on display as part of a presentation highlighting the Leviev diamond house, which is owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. The show was slated to remain on view at the hotel through the end of August. The Carlton, a Cannes landmark, was famously featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. The hotel is celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year.

Investigations are still underway and French authorities are currently reviewing surveillance video footage.

On February 21, 2013 Lichtenstein: A Retrospective will open at the Tate Modern in London. Part of the show, which features 125 paintings and sculptures, is pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s (1923-1997) only film, a triptych titled Three Landscapes. This will be the first time the film will be viewed in Europe; since debuting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1971, the film has been exhibited once in the United States at the Whitney Museum in New York in 2011.  

The little-known film was made in 1971 during Lichtenstein’s residency at LACMA. The residency program he attended paired artists with high-tech companies in Southern California. Lichtenstein, who employed a cinematic quality in his works, was paired with Universal Film. During his time at Universal, Lichtenstein was treated to a studio tour, a visit to the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Topaz, and lessons in film techniques such as editing and special effects. Three Landscapes was the first and last time Lichtenstein experimented with film as a medium.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective will be on view through May 27, 2013. Three Landscapes will be shown in the Tate’s Tanks gallery from March 9-12 and 14-24.

Alfred Hitchcock is still surprising his fans.

Film preservationists said Wednesday they've found the first half of the earliest known surviving feature film on which Hitchcock has a credit: a silent melodrama called "The White Shadow."

The first three reels of the six-reel film, made in 1923, were discovered by the National Film Preservation Foundation at the New Zealand Film Archive.

"The White Shadow" was directed by Graham Cutts, and the 24-year-old Hitchcock was credited as writer, assistant director, editor and art director.

Hitchcock made his own directing debut two years later with the chorus-girl melodrama "The Pleasure Garden." He went on to direct such suspense classics as "Psycho," "The Birds," "Rear Window" and "Vertigo."

"The White Shadow" is a "missing link, one of those few productions where we are able to bridge that gap of Hitchcock, the young guy with all these ideas, and Hitchcock the filmmaker," said David Sterritt, author of "The Films of Alfred Hitchcock."

"Even though he didn't direct it, he was all over it."

Foundation Director Annette Melville said the three "White Shadow" reels – about 30 minutes – were found among films donated to the archive by the family of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh.

No other copy of "The White Shadow" is known to exist.

The film stars Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other "without a soul," according to Melville.

"At the time, people said the plot was improbable. I'm putting a polite spin on it. Many said it was ridiculous," Melville said. "It's a totally crazy, zany plot with soul migration back and forth and all these improbable meetings."