Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me

Sammy Davis Jr. at age 7 with Ethel Waters in Rufus Jones for President (1933)

 

The Will Mastin Trio

 

The Rat Pack

 

Sammy Davis Jr. with love interest Lola Falana

 

Sammy Davis Jr., 32, with his bride, Loray White, 23 in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 11, 1958

 

Sammy Davis Jr., 34, and Swedish movie actress May Britt, 24, pose in a London Hotel, on June 7, 1960

 

Sammy Davis Jr. and May Britt wedding November 13, 1960

 

Sammy Davis Jr. with Altovise Gore, married in 1970

 

Sammy Davis Jr., center, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., left and Ralph Abernathy, right, at a civil rights rally in Los Angeles, May 26, 1963

 

Sinatra and Sammy

 

SAMMY DAVIS JR.:  I’VE GOTTA BE ME              A-                                           

USA  (100 mi)  2017  d:  Sam D. Pollard      

Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am

—I’ve Gotta’ Be Me, music and lyrics by Walter Marks, from the Broadway musical Golden Rainbow, 1967, Sammy Davis Jr. - I Gotta Be Me - YouTube (3:11)

One of the more heartfelt films of the year, also chock full of outstanding footage, extremely well-edited and well-directed, showing surprising depth and insight into an American icon born in Harlem, who depite all his success and acclaim was never comfortable in his own skin, who always struggled with what it meant to be a black man in America, directed for the PBS American Masters series by Sam D. Pollard, an Academy Award nominated editor and producer working for Spike Lee, but also a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker who previously directed American Masters features on Marvin Gaye and playwright August Wilson.  More than a biograph of the legendary singer, dancer, actor, and comedian, starring in seven Broadway shows, 23 films, dozens of TV performances and record albums, nicknamed Mr. Show Business, though he stood at a mere 5’6” and weighed only 120 pounds, yet he spent 60-years in show business, where this film shines the spotlight on his personal life and career as he navigated his way through the Depression, WWII, Sinatra and the Vegas Rat Pack days, the changing times of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, up until his death in 1990.   Perhaps the most controversial moment was a cringe-worthy photo captured when Davis hugged Republican President Richard Nixon at the Republican Convention in 1972, which happened on live TV, campaigning for him during the election, with Nixon inviting him to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House, which led to a fall-out from the black community who saw the move as a sell-out, as if he went overboard seeking white approval.  Perhaps lost on Americans, and not mentioned in the film, is baseball icon Jackie Robinson supported Nixon as well when he ran against John Kennedy a decade earlier in 1960, as Kennedy prominently sat arch-segregationist Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus on stage with him at the Convention, with Robinson walking out in disgust, becoming a lifelong Republican because the Democratic Party’s segregationist Dixiecrat wing ran his family out of Georgia.  Robinson, perhaps unsurprisingly, was also called an “Uncle Tom.”  Having been an active supporter of Martin Luther King, attending the infamous march on Washington, it was a surprising turning point in Davis’s career and something that affected him deeply, showing how out of touch he was with black activist movements, with many black audiences shunning him afterwards.  Davis was forced to apologize afterwards, giving a highly personalized speech (shown in the film), where the singing of the entitled song helped regain his reputation.  But for Davis, this was incomprehensible, as his life was synonymous with black entertainers in show business, coming from parents who were themselves vaudeville dancers, having gotten his start in the movies at the age of 7, already an established tap star, singing and dancing with Ethel Waters in RUFUS JONES FOR PRESIDENT (1933).  Even earlier, his extraordinary talent was evident at the age of three when he made his first appearance onstage as a pint-sized performer in a top hat who sang and tap danced, learning from the likes of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a tap master who began in minstrel shows but developed sophisticated routines in Hollywood, becoming one of the first black performers to perform without blackface, famous for dancing up and down a staircase with complex tap rhythms on each step, where this early artform, associated with Davis throughout his career, mirrors jazz when it comes to freedom of expression and spontaneous improvisation in rhythm. 

Davis learned to dance from his father and designated uncle, Will Mastin, joining the act as a child to become the Will Mastin Trio, a name that continued even as Davis was jettisoned into the lead role, where one of the more thrilling scenes pits Davis against the other two dance stand-outs in a tap-off.  Touring the country as a child star, Davis never spent a single day in school, something he regretted later in life, as he never learned proper writing skills.  Despite his ambitious talent, reaching the pinnacle of success in his career, he never thought it was enough, plagued by insecurity and self-doubts, with questions about his identity, never feeling comfortable being alone, something he avoided throughout his life, constantly needing reassurance from others that he was a success, suggesting he paid a heavy price for breaking down the racist walls of the industry.  With contributions from Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Jerry Lewis, Quincy Jones, Norman Lear, and Kim Novak, among others that worked with him, though Paula Wayne, who shared the lead with Davis in the Broadway production of Golden Boy in the mid 60’s, literally steals the show as one of his most ardent supporters, as they all share anecdotes and personal experiences, where it was impossible not to be impressed by his amazing talent, much of which is pulled out of the vault for viewers to enjoy.  Among the worst times of his life was when he joined one of the first integrated army units during WW II, where he was subjected to constant racial abuse from white soldiers, many of them from the South, including beatings and being painted white, where he got into numerous fights, knocking one man down and breaking his nose, but the man’s response afterwards, “Well, you won the fight, but you’re still a nigger,” something they never let him forget.  Davis nearly died from an automobile accident in the early 50’s driving back to LA from Vegas on Route 66, where he lost an eye, requiring extensive rehab afterwards to regain his balance and equilibrium, especially important for a dancer with his skills.  Jerry Lewis hired a plane and flew to his bedside, remaining their throughout his recovery, and Sinatra paid all the medical bills, with Davis wearing a patch for the first few months, eventually fitted for a glass eye, which he wore for the rest of his life.  His return to the stage two months afterwards was one of the most anticipated events of the year, but he was spectacular, as dazzling as ever.  When he got booked into Las Vegas nightclubs during the early 50’s, he had to ride in the designated “colored car” on trains, and was not able to go in the front door of certain clubs, as there were no dressing rooms for black performers, so they had to wait outside between acts.  He wasn’t allowed to stay inside the casinos or hotels where he worked, or gamble, or be served a drink or meal, and had to find housing in black sections outside of town.  Even more galling, when someone complained they saw him using the pool, the water was completely drained before white patrons would use the pool again, which made his acceptance into Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack all the more significant, seemingly integrated, appearing on stage and making movies together, usually at the Copa Room at the Sands, selling out nearly all their appearances, though he was the butt of many of the jokes by Sinatra and Dean Martin, with Martin lifting him in his arms, proclaiming “I’d like to thank the N.A.A.C.P. for this wonderful trophy,” where not only his diminutive size but his race was pilloried, subjecting him to a kind of personal humiliation, giving the appearance of acceptance, but many had their doubts.  His career soared during that period, however, with Sinatra opening plenty of doors for him, helping to turn his talent into superstardom.    

After the car accident, Davis spoke to legendary vaudeville performer Eddie Cantor in the hospital about converting to Judaism, explaining the similarities between blacks and Jews, where he was particularly struck by the endurance of the Jewish people, as they had been persecuted and oppressed for three thousand years, making the choice to convert in 1954, though after a period of study, he quietly underwent a formal conversion under the tutelage of Rabbi Harry Sherer in Las Vegas in 1961, arguably the most famous convert to Judaism of his era and a generous donor to Jewish causes, yet his affiliation caused him great personal anguish, as he was never fully accepted by Jews, while also ostracized by many blacks.  Davis is remembered for being among the first black comedians to do impressions of white stars, something he was warned against by family and friends, as that was considered taboo at the time, yet his hilarious impersonations of Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Edward G. Robinson, and James Cagney won him accolades, with Bogart pulling him into his dressing room to offer personal tips, learning the source of many of his infamous mannerisms and gestures.  One of the real eye-openers of the film was his complex relationships with white women, including a love affair with Kim Novak, the beautiful star of Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).  But the year before, she was under contract with Columbia Pictures, where the dictatorial Harry Cohn, president of the studio, ordered Davis to stop seeing Novak, as the racial dynamic would affect his business, actually having him kidnapped for a few hours, threatening him with the loss of his other eye if he didn’t marry a black woman within two days.  Like Buster Keaton in SEVEN CHANCES (1925), Davis desperately married black dancer Loray White in 1958, offering her $10,000 for a fake marriage, but Davis became so inebriated at the wedding that he had to be carried off to bed and the marriage was never consummated.  Two years later, however, he married white Swedish actress May Britt, who converted to Judaism before the marriage, where there were bomb threats where he performed and picketing by the American Nazi party, with both receiving plenty of hate mail years later when he starred in the Broadway production of Golden Boy, (receiving a Tony nomination for Best Actor), where in 1964 the onstage kiss between Davis and co-star Paula Wayne, at the height of the Civil Rights era, was the first between a white woman and a black man on the Broadway stage.  At the time of his appearance, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in 31 states, eventually ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1967.  The couple divorced in 1968 when Davis admitted having an affair with fellow cast member Lola Falana, subsequently marrying Altovise Gore, one of the dancers in Golden Boy, in 1970, remaining together until his death from throat cancer in 1990.  Davis was particularly offended when he was not invited to JFK’s 1961 Presidential nomination, shunned by the President though all the other Rat Pack members attended, with Sinatra in particular heavily involved with Kennedy’s election campaign, but he never spoke up for him.  While his support of Nixon might have had something to do with it, it was his interracial marriage that was used as a reason why many Southerners would be offended.  Davis became active in the Civil Rights movement during the run of Golden Boy, which was seen by Martin Luther King, who particularly liked the song “No More,” No More - YouTube (6:32), with its poignant lyrics, “I ain’t bowin’ down, no more.”  Though he had an aversion to going to the South, believing his life would be in danger, he was talked into attending the Selma march in Alabama when Harry Belafonte bought out the house, allowing him to participate during the production.  In a television tribute celebrating his 60 years in show business, with Sammy performing a tap number, Michael Jackson performed, showing a visibly moved Sammy Davis Jr. when he notes, “Thanks to you, there’s a door we all walk through.”  Despite paying the ultimate price, one of the saddest and most profound aspects of the film is understanding that the racial history in America that Davis struggled so hard to overcome never goes away, that these hard-earned lessons are somehow never really learned.

Vertigo

VERTIGO                   A                    

USA  (128 mi)  1958   restored version in 1996 (129 mi)

Man does not yield himself to the angels, nor to death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.

—“Ligeia,” epigraph, by Edgar Allen Poe, 1838

Do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can take possession of a living being?      —Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore)

VERTIGO is the midway point of the Hitchcock voyeur trilogy, beginning with REAR WINDOW (1954) and concluding with Psycho (1960), all films that deal with heightened personal obsessions that lead from being a curious snoop and a neighborhood nuisance to sheer madness.  As films that reveal the most insight into the director himself, these movies are invaluable, becoming case studies of the man behind the camera.  What makes the film so unique is how deeply personal it is, yet simplistic, mainly consisting of only three characters, where for the first time in a man’s life he’s fallen deeply in love, but it turns into a Surrealist, nightmarish obsession.  Despite its elevated status, voted by critics in the latest 2012 BFI Sight & Sound once-a-decade poll Sight & Sound 2012 Polls | BFI | British Film Institute as the #1 film of all time, finally overtaking CITIZEN CANE (1941), the first time since 1962, VERTIGO is not nearly as entertaining as the other two films in the trilogy and is one of the more downbeat and slowly developing of all Hitchcock films.  Coming directly after The Wrong Man (1956), it would be hard to find two back-to-back commercial films from any major American director that end on such a grim note, and it was not a box office or critical success upon release, but its reputation has only grown.  VERTIGO is a sophisticated suspense thriller, a thinking man’s movie, the kind Hitchcock built his reputation upon and the kind critic’s admire.  At heart a ghost story, the story concerns a woman who is inhabited by the ghost of an ancestor, who wanders the streets and can’t remember where she’s been, who may be a danger to herself as the ghost committed suicide at the same age.  It doesn’t hurt that the lady is easy on the eyes, Madeleine (an icy blond Kim Novak), the wife of an old college friend of Scottie (James Stewart), an ex policeman recently retired from the force, where we learn why just after the exquisite Saul Bass opening credit sequence.  Chasing an escaping criminal across the barely lit rooftops of San Francisco, Scottie clings to a gutter, otherwise dangling from a high rise building, while his partner falls to his death trying to help him.  Like a cliffhanger sequence shown in weekly serials, Hitchcock never explains how he managed to get down safely, but the scene moves effortlessly back to normality in the next scene.  Scottie feels the man’s death is his fault and suffers vertigo symptoms ever since.  His recovery under the tutelage of friend and confidante Midge (screenwriter Samuel Taylor’s invention, as she was not in the novel), a comforting and bespectacled Barbara Bel Geddes, an artist who still carries the torch for him but is too shy to show it, couldn’t be more banal, as Scottie is obviously bored stiff, too caught up in his own self-pity, where he can barely keep his mind on the conversation.  His friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) asks Scottie to tail his wife, believing some harm could come to her, as she doesn’t seem herself these days.  Scottie initially has little interest, but once he sees Madeleine, showcased by Hitchcock in a stunning entrance, he’s hooked. 

Hitchcock uses his experience from Silent era films, as a good opening portion of the movie is almost entirely wordless, where Scottie passively tails Madeleine, always seen as remote and distant, cast in an air of mystery, yet alluringly beautiful, using fog filters for a dreamlike effect, seen as a walking ghost as she visits various sights around San Francisco, Ernie’s restaurant, Podesta’s flowershop, Mission Dolores, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Palace of Fine Arts, Coit Tower, and Fort Point with dazzling views of the Golden Gate Bridge, becoming a veritable travelogue of one of America’s most photogenic cities, shown in glorious Technicolor on perfectly sunny days where there’s not a cloud in the sky.  Shot by Robert Burks, the clarity of colors is unusually clean, especially with recently restored prints, including 70 mm screenings.  For decades, VERTIGO was impossible to see, one of The Five Lost Hitchcocks where their rights were bought back by the director and willed to his daughter, kept out of circulation for more than 25 years.  Unfortunately, as they were stored privately in less than ideal storage facilities, these films required extensive restoration work by film historians Robert Harris and James Katz, but except for a few smudged moments, the prints are pristine.  This is also one of Bernard Hermann’s most gorgeous musical works, a hypnotic, intensely romantic score using classical Wagnerian themes reminiscent of Tristan und Isolde, a bold, widely expansive, dreamlike love that is induced by a love potion in the opera, creating the magical illusion of love, especially the Liebestod, which has ominous love-death implications, where Madeleine similarly appears to be sleepwalking her way through her various wanderings, as if in a dream, especially since she can’t recall where she’s been.  When she throws herself into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay, she becomes George Bailey, the James Stewart role in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), while Stewart himself takes on the role of Clarence, her guardian angel, gallantly rescuing her and warming her up afterwards by the fire in his nearby apartment.  This casual acquaintance suddenly turns into something more, becoming lovers despite knowing she’s married to one of his best friends, but Scottie can’t resist, wanting to be with her all the time, obsessed by the illusion of love where women are an unattainable ideal, existing only in the form of wish fulfillment, where they take trips together into the nearby old growth forests of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz, or the panoramic vista of Cypress Point at Pebble Beach, where their first kiss is accentuated by thunderous crashing of waves, or head south down the coast to the Mission of San Juan Batista (where there is no tower, it was painted into the scene), which plays such a prominent role in the film, as it’s a place she describes to him in her dreams.  But when he brings her there, thinking everything will magically blossom into love, hoping to make the illusion come real, she fatalistically throws herself off the bell tower to her death, where Scottie is mortified, helpless to save her from his vertigo which prevents him from reaching the top of the tower.  This comes as a shock to the audience, as she’s been the focus of nearly the entire opening half of the movie, where there’s likely been a growing connection established, and suddenly she’s gone.   

Adapted from the French novel D’Entre les morts (From Among the Dead), written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the same duo that wrote Diabolique (Les Diaboliques), where Hitchcock had expressed an interest in obtaining the rights to the book, so the writers for all practical purposes had Hitchcock in mind when they wrote the book.  Storywise, VERTIGO harkens back to Fritz Lang’s 1921 film DESTINY (Der Müde Tod), an expressionist fairytale where a woman whose lover has died enters the Kingdom of Death to plead for his life, only to relive her loss in three successive reincarnations.  Madeleine’s death, replicating the suicide of the ghost that haunted her, is only the first half of the film, where Scottie’s name is cleared from being implicated in her murder, but the coroner (Henry Jones) lays it on pretty thick about how outrageously convenient it is that he suffers from vertigo, as had he not had this condition Madeleine would likely still be alive today.  This sends Scottie into a catatonic state, suffering from his own nightmares, blaming himself for her death, reliving the experience over and over again, where nothing seems to clear his head from this horrendous nightmare.  Following the experience of intently watching a mysterious woman, the film shifts its focus of attention onto Scottie himself, where its his interior world that seems to matter.  At some point later, he’s back on his feet, where he sees visions of Madeleine everywhere, as if the ghosts are calling out for him, returning to all the familiar places, but he’s only frustrated, until by chance, he sees someone walking down the street who bears a strange resemblance, following her to her hotel where he attempts to meet her.  Though she’s a brunette and talks differently, Kim Novak also plays Judy Barton, much more forward, more carnal, proudly wearing no brassiere, supposedly a working class girl from Kansas.  But all Scottie sees is Madeleine, becoming infatuated with every detail of Judy’s life, again wanting to spend every waking minute with her.  At first reluctant, finding his advances somewhat clumsy and old school, she eventually capitulates, where in flashback we realize the truth, a daring device revealed only to the audience, shown very matter of factly, but she keeps it from Scottie as their relationship progresses.  Instead of the love she hoped for, Scottie grows impatiently overcontrolling, obsessively convinced she’d look better if dressed the way he insists, or wore her hair the same as Madeleine, demanding that she transform herself into the dead woman he still loves and dreams about.  The fanaticism displayed by Stewart is discomfiting, a startling demeanor from a guy perceived as predictably comfortable and safe, a kind of normal everyman, now veering towards the panicked anxiety of Norman Bates in Psycho.  This obsessive compulsion, however, perfectly describes the Hitchcock blonde, the inclination of the director to transform all his leading ladies into cool and sophisticated, icy blonds, such as Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Tippi Hedron, and a dozen more, perhaps going all the way back to Anny Ondra in Blackmail (1929), (Hitchcock's earliest blonde: Anny Ondra « Feminéma).  What’s especially creepy is seeing how Scottie’s compulsion to mold a woman into what he wants is so prevalent in the movie industry and our consumer oriented society, where magazine covers, music videos, and scantily clad female performers all sell some pre-conceived idea of what men supposedly want to see, such as the most recent Super Bowl halftime show Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Style With Destiny’s Child: Total Touchdown.    

What Hitchcock does with shifting camera angles and expressionist color schemes in the second half of the film is near delirious, especially his use of the color green from the neon sign outside Judy’s hotel window, never more sensuous and seductive, but also deadly, even going animated, perhaps second only to Henri-Georges Clouzot’s INFERNO (L’Enfer) (2009), recently reconstructed by directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea from 13 hours of unfinished footage shot by Clouzot in 1964, showing manic hysteria through kinetic energy with lights pulsating on and off continually altering the experimental 60’s look of the screen.  Hitchcock’s vertigo shots are also tantalizingly risqué, where stairways in Scottie’s eyes have an additional form of constant movement, where looking down he only sees instability, with stairs advancing and receding at once, creating a shape-shifting state of imbalance.  What’s also interesting is the exaggerated state of dark humor used by Hitchcock, where Scottie goes so far off the rails that an audience is amused by the razor-sharp focus of detail.  After an afternoon shopping in an exclusively upscale women’s store in an attempt to replicate the exact outfits of Madeleine, Judy has grown exasperated, literally pleading with Scottie, “Couldn't you like me, just me, the way I am?”  Rather than an embrace of reciprocated love, Scottie instead remains transfixed at what’s missing in this complete transformation, “The color of your hair!”  Scottie then leaps at the opportunity, completely oblivious of how it makes her feel, blind to the degrading humiliation, and completes the conversion from a lowly brunette sales clerk to a sensuous ice goddess, where in a Hitchcock film sexuality exists only as an obsession, one that degrades women and deranges the minds of men.  Stewart develops a mania by the end of the picture that rivals his state of frenzy in Anthony Mann westerns, like Winchester '73 (1950), the first time anyone had seen this maniacal side to the otherwise calm and gentlemanly nature of his character.  In VERTIGO, the relentless obsession only grows more feverish, where it would be hard for anyone not to break under such intense scrutiny.  A film of intense personal devastation and lost love, existing in what amounts to a state of illusion, where Scottie desperately tries to remake Judy in Madeleine’s image while Judy just as desperately hopes Scottie will fall in love with her for who she is, and not some dead ghost from the past.  In Hitchcock films, the darker side always wins out, where the dead rise from their graves and wreak havoc on the living. 

It should be pointed out that film essayist Chris Marker explores this film in greater detail in his own work Sans Soleil (1983), a film that questions the role of time and memory in shaping our ideas of history and the past.  He includes striking footage from the film, perhaps drawn to the material because, very much like his own observant work, it’s a film about watching, where seen from Scottie’s viewpoint, the audience is also drawn into the developing fixation on unraveling the mysteries of the film.  According to Marker, “the vertigo the film deals with isn’t to do with space and falling; it is a clear, understandable and spectacular metaphor for yet another kind of vertigo, much more difficult to represent—the vertigo of time.”  Madeleine’s character unleashes a flood of memories and suppressed emotion, where both Scottie and Madeleine are already haunted by ghosts of the past before they meet, becoming more combustible when they grow close, as if combining their haunted pasts provides an incendiary effect, where memory has a way of resurrecting itself.  Sans Soleil is a film about the impossibility of memory to be truly accurate, conjuring up excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s poem Ash Wednesday Poetry X » Poetry Archives » T. S. Eliot » "Ash Wednesday":

Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

Eliot’s poem is a struggle between the worlds of time and that of the eternal, as moments take place in a singular space, never to be repeated.  Similarly, time will never be recreated, where like the dizzying effects of vertigo, the closer one seemingly gets to it, the farther it moves away in a pulley-like push-pull effect.  Marker is particularly fascinated by the San Francisco travelogue aspect of VERTIGO, as he uses a similar technique in Sans Soleil, where the mysteries explored are contrasting cultures and images through excerpts of documentary footage, or fragments of the past.  Marker draws upon history much like film characters rely upon their own memories.  For example, Marker revisits many of the locations used by Hitchcock in the film, splicing in the actual VERTIGO footage with his own pilgrimage, offering his own observations of both the present and how he remembers the past, recalling his experiences of initially viewing the film in a theater, while the audience will bring their own recollections of the film to Marker’s comments, producing an echo effect, where film is used to create a unique blending of memory.  A perfect example Hitchcock creates is the moment when Judy walks into the bathroom but comes out as Madeleine, as if resurrecting a ghost, yet this is the woman Scottie yearns for, where past and present, illusion and reality, finally merge.  Time and again Hitchcock shows us images reflected by mirrors, suggesting only one is real, while the other is a reflected illusion, an idealized substitute, suggesting memories are interior mirrors that have a life of their own, where illusion and reality are often indistinguishable, altering and reshaping themselves as we grow, producing reverberating emotions even as we try to understand their powerful effects upon us.  It should also be pointed out that the opening shot is a close up of the human face, seen as a mask that one wears, and as the eyes dart back and forth, it is suggestive that one never knows what goes on inside the mind of a person, where the title actually comes swirling out of a close-up of an eyeball, suggesting we are all uniquely different, as the subjective nature of the film then goes on to prove, where Hitchcock is concerned with our deepest impulses, with what defines us as human, providing a window into a darkly disturbing vision of the world.    

Note – Hitchcock’s personal appearance comes at about the 11-minute mark walking across the foreground at the shipping yards as Scottie is about to meet with Elster.