Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover

If you happen to know the process of how films get made, no doubt you know that just about every movie that gets made is due to the work of many different people in many different roles. While the success (or failure) of a movie certainly could be put on more than one person, generally how much a movie succeeds in its various attempts falls on the director's shoulders. One such thing that many film lovers like to see in a movie is an attempt by the director to put some sort of personal stamp on a movie. While there has been great talk about the auteur theory, I personally believe that for the most part you won't find such a thing in most directors' films. For example, take the case of Richard Fleischer, a movie director I have covered here on this web site several times (Million Dollar Mystery, The Last Run, and The Spikes Gang). During his over forty years of directing feature length movies, Fleischer directed an amazing number of different kinds of movies. He directed comedies, westerns, horror films, true life crime sagas, war movies, sword and sorcery films, musicals, family films, historical dramas, whodunnits, actioners, science fiction movies, and biographical dramas. As you can see from that list, Fleischer certainly had a lot of opportunities to put some kind of auteur stamp in his movies. However, after watching a lot of his movies, I am hard pressed to find any kind of personal touch in them. Fleischer's movies instead come across as if anyone could have directed them, even the movies of his that happen to be really good. I guess it could be argued that since Fleischer switched from genre to genre with every movie, he didn't have the opportunity to bring up over and over basic themes or familiar touches.

But there have certainly been some directors who manage in their careers to put some kind of personal stamp or stamps in their movies. John Ford was certainly one director where a number of certain themes kept popping up in his movies, from anti-war opinions to examinations of racial prejudice. Another director whose work supports the auteur theory is Alfred Hitchcock. Now, I have to confess that I am not an expert on Hitchcock, though I have seen about twenty of his films to date. But even though I have not sampled all of his movies, I have all the same seen that some certain themes keep popping up in these movies. One of the most obvious is the theme of an innocent person getting thrust into a dangerous situation where there is little to no help available to the innocent party. Cary Grant's character went through that in North By Northwest, Jimmy Stewart found himself getting into trouble in Rear Window, and the central characters in The Birds eventually found themselves dealing with a dangerous situation that was far from their control. If you are wondering why this theme was so popular with Hitchcock, it's probably due to the fact that when Hitchcock was a young boy, his parents sent him to the local jail to be locked up for a few hours to teach him a lesson after being "bad". The incident ended up haunting Hitchcock for the rest of his life. But there are other themes that can be found in multiple Hitchcock movies. They range from the use of extended scenes in trains to mothers who are depicted as being bossy and firmly in control of a situation. Why those two particular subjects interested Hitchcock so much, I cannot say.

Of course, I have just scratched the surface when it comes to looking at Hitchcock. Hitchcock is certainly a director whose work has greatly interested me over the years. So much so, that on occasion I have thought of reviewing one of his movies for this web site. There is an immediate problem with that, of course - this site is called The Unknown Movies, and it seems that all of Hitchcock's movies have been endlessly viewed and analyzed by millions of people. But recently, something occurred to me: Why not instead review a movie that was a tribute to Hitchcock and his memorable direction? While there are not a great deal many such movies, they do exist, and some are indeed obscure to the general public. So after a little research, I decided to look at Last Embrace, which interested me not just because it was a tribute to Hitchcock, but because of its cast and its director. Roy Scheider (Executive Target) plays the central character in the movie, a secret American government agent named Harry Hannan. Harry experiences a nervous breakdown after his wife gets killed while he is tangling with shady individuals while on assignment in Mexico. Released from the hospital after several months of treatment, Harry soon discovers that his superiors at the CIA not only don't seem interested in Harry resuming his job, but that they seem to be spying on him for some reason, despite Harry's CIA buddy Eckart (Christopher Walken, The Maiden Heist) assuring him nothing is wrong. At the same time, Harry finds a woman named Ellie (Janet Margolin, Your Three Minutes Are Up) living in his apartment when he finally returns home. But before Harry can throw Ellie out, he concludes that there will soon be a serious attempt on his life, and Ellie could be caught in the crossfire. But Ellie proves to be supportive and helpful, so Harry allows her to assist him in finding out just what is going on.

Alfred Hitchcock passed away in 1980, a year after Last Embrace was released to theaters. Given that Hitchcock was still alive when the movie was made, one has to wonder if Hitchcock was at one point offered this property to direct. I don't know the answer to that question, and I also don't know if Hitchcock ever took a look at Last Embrace when it was in theaters. But I have a feeling that if Hitchcock did see the movie before his death, he probably would have approved of the movie, at least for the most part. For starters, the screenplay has a number of touches that could have come from an actual Hitchcock movie. There are certainly some minor touches here and there, such as a couple of sequences taking place in or around trains, as well as a few moments involving staircases - both settings which can be found in a number of Hitchcock movies. But one of the most obvious Hitchcock themes in the movie is the theme of an ordinary person thrust into an extreme and possibly deadly situation. Though Harry is a government agent, his agency suddenly doesn't want anything to do with him; he is on his own. And while he does get some help from Ellie and a trouble shooter (Sam Levene, God Told Me To), it's really very minor assistance - he has to get out of his predicament essentially by himself, which is another Hitchcock theme. Later in the movie, Harry finds himself stalked or finding himself dodging bullets in places (a graveyard, a bell tower) that would be considered safe areas by most people. And the movie's climax - taking place at Niagara Falls - is an iconic location akin to how Hitchcock set some of his climaxes in iconic locations (The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, etc.)

So as you can see, the screenplay for Last Embrace certainly has a number of Hitchcock touches. The question, however, is if director Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia) manages to execute this material in front of the camera in a way that the Master of Suspense would approve of. For the most part, he does at least a competent job. He is in part assisted by the music from Miklos Rozsa (Ben Hur), which does often sound like Hitchcock's composer of choice Bernard Hermann. But quite often there is no music playing in scenes of suspense, or it's low key, such as when Harry is stalked by his brother-in-law (Charles Napier, Indio 2: The Revolt) in Central Park while a man nearby gently plays his ukulele. Most importantly, Demme depicts the central protagonist's situation as one where it's not clear that he will be able to come out alive. The trauma of Harry losing his wife has physically and mentally been extremely taxing, and we are reminded of this throughout. Situations like when Harry gets into a shoot-out in a bell tower clearly show Harry struggling to keep in control. It all sounds very serious, but Demme also occasionally adds some low key Hitchcock-like humor, like when Harry on a train looks behind him to see if anyone is watching him... and sees that a number of people have their newspapers held up in front of their faces. (There is also an amusing tribute to Psycho at one point.) The only real bit where Demme fails to stand up to Hitchcock is with the Niagara Falls climax. Hitchcock would have taken this prolonged sequence and made it fast-paced and nail-biting at every second. But for some reason, Demme directs this lengthy sequence in a manner that often feels kind of slow and surprisingly casual.

There was also another problem I had with Last Embrace, though it wasn't really Demme's fault. There is a subplot about Harry's agency deciding that Harry should be eliminated. Exactly why the agency felt this way is never really made clear, and when Harry eliminates his would-be assassin, this subplot is suddenly dropped and never brought up again. (Wouldn't the agency simply then send more people to get Harry?) It also seems strange that the movie would hire Christopher Walken as Harry's CIA contact, but only give him two very brief scenes. More Walken would have been nice, but fortunately Roy Scheider in the lead does give a performance that is quite good. As I mentioned before, the character of Harry is one that is strained physically and mentally, and Scheider shows these weakness very well. Harry is no Superman, and that is what makes him a compelling hero. Certainly, he's not perfect. When, for example, he thinks that someone at a train station tried to push him in front of a train, he immediately grabs a person near to him, and lashes out in a fury. Then when Harry discovers the person couldn't have done what he thought, we see embarrassment and regret in Harry's face. It feels natural, and that's one reason we can sympathize with him, even if he does often come across as cold and resigned; he is still a human being with a number of weaknesses, just like us. Hitchcock himself would have approved of this character. Despite what I just said, I wouldn't say that Last Embrace is a Hitchcock tribute that stands up to the Master's best films - its level of suspense, for one thing, isn't nearly as intense. But it's one of the better Hitchcock tributes, and if you have seen all the Master's movies and are craving for more, it will manage to reasonably satisfy.

(Posted September 21, 2022)