The late-night/early-morning stop for Cubs fans asks your opinion of the Cubs’ newest utility player.
It’s Wednesday night here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Please come in out of the cold. We’re so glad you decided to stop by. Your name is on the guest list. We have a table waiting for you. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
Last night I asked you if you thought Cole Hamels belonged in the Hall of Fame. Many of you expressed affection for the former Cub, but 70 percent of you gave the question a firm “no.”
Here’s the part where we listen to music and talk movies. Our number-one seed in the BCB Winter Hitchcock Classic enters the tournament tonight. But if you want to skip ahead, be my guest. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Tonight we’re featuring a performance from pianist Cyrus Chestnut from January of 2023. Chestnut is joined by Eric Wheeler on bass and Chris Beck on drums. This is “Nardis.”
You voted in the BCB Winter Hitchcock Classic and you went with the horror classic Psycho over the suave and sophisticated To Catch a Thief. Psycho will now take on Spellbound, thanks to my screw-up in the seeding.
Tonight we have our top seed, the psychological crime drama Vertigo, taking on the spy-thriller The 39 Steps.
In honor of the passing of the great director David Lynch, it should be mentioned that several of his works were inspired by Vertigo. After all, what is Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson but Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton?
Vertigo (1958). Starring James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes.
When Vertigo was released in 1958, it was met with mixed reviews and a tepid box office, at least for a Hitchcock movie. Nowadays, it is not only considered by many to be Hitchcock’s best film, many people think it’s the greatest of all time. In 2012, it was ranked as the greatest film ever made in the BFI Sight and Sound critics poll, ending Citizen Kane’s fifty-year reign atop that most prestigious of movie polls. (Vertigo fell to second place in the most recent poll in 2022.)
I had a similar experience with Vertigo. The first time I saw it, many years ago, I liked it, but I wouldn’t have ranked it anywhere near Psycho, Rear Window or North by Northwest as my favorite Hitchcock movies. But every time I re-watch it, my appreciation for Vertigo grows. It’s a bewitching film that takes a while to take possession of your soul.
Vertigo was based on the French novel D’entre les morts by the mystery writing team of Boileau-Narcejac, who specifically wrote a novel that they hoped Hitchcock would want to turn into a movie after his rumored interest in their previous novel that was turned into Les Diaboliques by director Henri-Georges Clouzot. (And Diabolique is one of the great “Hitchcockian films not directed by Hitchcock” if you’re interested.) Hitchcock told François Truffaut that he was attracted by what he called the “necrophilia” of the whole thing. A man falls in love with a dead woman and becomes obsessed with her to the point of madness. He then turns a living woman into the dead woman so that he can be with the dead woman again. Of course, he’s oblivious to the fact that the dead woman never existed and that the living woman and the dead woman are one in the same.
Vertigo was intended as a star vehicle for Vera Miles, who had starred in several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and had played Henry Fonda’s troubled wife in Hitchcock’s previous film The Wrong Man. But the start of filming was delayed for months after Hitchcock underwent gallbladder surgery and in the meantime, Miles got pregnant. (Truffaut believed Hitchcock never really forgave Miles for that.) So a deal was made with Columbia to lend Kim Novak to Hitchcock in exchange for James Stewart agreeing to star in Columbia’s Bell, Book and Candle. So if you’re wondering why Stewart and Novak co-starred in two different films in 1958, that’s why. Bell, Book and Candle was the bigger hit that year, both critically and at the box office. It’s a fun movie (and the inspiration for the TV show Bewitched), but it’s no Vertigo.
I completely believe that Miles would have been terrific in Vertigo. That said, she wouldn’t have been as good as Novak is. As Madeleine, she’s a mysterious and haunted china doll but as Judy, she adds a carnal, animal-like character to her performance. Stewart ends up breaking her like you would a wild horse. Judy is also arguably Hitchcock’s most fully-developed “icy blonde.” She’s in love with Stewart’s retired police detective Scottie and wants to please him. But she also realizes that he’s not in love with her, he’s in love with a ghost and she lives in constant fear of him discovering the truth about the deceased Madeleine.
In fact, in the book, the big reveal at the end was that Madeleine and Judy are the same woman. Hitchcock dispenses with that pretense early and makes the suspense about what will Scottie do when he finds out?
Scottie is the protagonist, the victim and the villain in Vertigo. Stewart started playing darker, but still heroic, characters in the Anthony Mann-directed Westerns earlier in the decade, but Scottie is his darkest character yet. He’s a man completely broken by guilt and a fear of heights. The “death” of Madeleine drives him utterly mad and eventually abusive. More than one critic has noted the parallels between Scottie and Hitchcock himself in their need to mold, shape and control women, especially blondes. Whether he meant it or not (and honestly, we don’t know), Vertigo is a powerful statement on the way men abuse women and try to deny them any individual agency. Stewart’s performance here is just as strong as Novak’s.
Vertigo is also Hitchcock’s most beautiful film. Shot in and around San Francisco and the Mission San Juan Bautista, Hitchcock gives the entire film a hazy, dreamlike feel. Recent restorations make the colors pop like Hitchcock intended. He also thematically uses the color green again and again to represent Scottie’s obsessions and madness.
There’s also the incredible camera work that Hitchcock uses to create the sense of vertigo that Scottie is feeling. In fact, much of Vertigo is the crowning achievement to Hitchcock’s years of manipulating the camera. This isn’t a film that you can have running in the background while you look at your phone. You need to watch Vertigo. There’s also lots of symbolism throughout Vertigo that becomes clearer with repeated viewings. There are double images and mirrors are strategically placed to reflect a second look.
The Bernard Herrmann musical score isn’t as in-your-face as Psycho or as majestic as The Man Who Knew Too Much. But it’s achingly melancholic. It’s a lot more subtle that some of Herrmann’s other works, but it still packs a punch.
I wrote in the comments on a previous day that I could sum up my essay on Vertigo with “If you know, you know.” That’s really true. It’s the kind of film that sticks with you after you’ve seen it. It’s tough to get out of your head. You don’t want to watch it again, you need to watch it again because it has left you broken. That’s why so many film experts consider it among the greatest films ever made.
Here’s Martin Scorsese talking about Vertigo. (Video) I wrote the piece before watching his comments, but I was shocked to see that the great Scorsese agreed with me. Vertigo sticks with you in ways you can’t always fully understand.
The original trailer for Vertigo.
The 39 Steps (1935). Starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll.
Here’s most of what I wrote last time on The 39 Steps.
The 39 Steps is the template for so many Hitchcock films to come. Saboteur and North by Northwest share with it basically the same plot—a common man gets caught up in a spy ring and has to travel the country to clear his name—and Foreign Correspondent and the second The Man Who Knew Too Much aren’t far off. It also has one of Hitchcock’s all-time great MacGuffins or at least, it’s great because it’s one of the most bonkers. It also features Madeleine Carroll as the first of Hitchcock’s many “icy thin blondes” in the female lead.
Robert Donat plays Richard Hannay, a Canadian in London on business. After a fight breaks out (and shots are fired) at a stage show he was attending, Richard is approached by a beautiful and mysterious woman named Annabella (Lucie Mannheim) who asks if she can go home with him.
Annabella reveals to Richard that she’s a spy who created the diversion to escape from some assassins. She’s hanging around with Richard for her own safety. Annabella tells Richard a spy ring has stolen some vital British intelligence and she’s trying to stop it from getting out of the country. She also mentions “The 39 Steps” but doesn’t explain it.
Of course, Richard doesn’t really believe this woman and left unstated is why is Annabella blurting out all of this secret spy stuff to some random guy she met at a Vaudeville performance. But Richard comes to believe all of this is true when Annabella turns up later that evening dead with a knife in her back.
Richard is immediately in danger from the spies who killed Annabella and eventually from the police, who want to arrest Richard for Annabella’s murder. Annabella had a map of Scotland with some particular places strategically circled, so he heads to Scotland to discover the secret of The 39 Steps and to clear his name.
What follows are a series of scenarios where Richard keeps getting in and out of trouble. A few are important enough to mention. One is when he tries to avoid capture on the train by pretending to make out with a random blonde—Pamela (Carroll). Pamela immediately turns Richard in to the constables. He’s arrested, but of course he escapes and he and Pamela are reunited later in the film. They are actually reunited literally as they are handcuffed together during their journey, a gag that Hitchcock would use again with Bob Cummings and Priscilla Lane in Saboteur.
Another important scene is when Richard tries to hide out at a poor elderly farmer’s house with his young and restless bride Margaret. Margaret was the second film role and breakout role for Peggy Ashcroft, fifty years before she would win an Academy Award for A Passage to India. Margaret figures out Richard is the wanted man on the run and he helps him escape when the police come calling.
There’s also an episode where Richard eludes his pursuers after getting roped into making a speech for a politician, a comedic episode that is echoed by Cary Grant at the auction in North by Northwest.
We have to acknowledge that Hitchcock had a type of actress that that he loved—the icy cold blonde. Ingrid Bergman, Ann Todd, Grace Kelly, Vera Miles, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint and finally Tippi Hedren. You could even shoehorn Lane and Doris Day into that category. Of all those female leads in Hitchcock films, Madeleine Carroll was the first in that mold. Carroll may not be remembered as much today, but she was a big star in the late-30s and early-40s and The 39 Steps was the role that catapulted her into that level. Both she and Donat do a fine job as a bickering couple who eventually learn that they have to work together if they want to stay alive. And of course, a romance eventually develops between the two once Pamela comes to realize that Richard is innocent.
Hitchcock defined the “MacGuffin” as something of great importance to the characters but actually of no importance at all. It’s a device designed to trap the characters into the plot. I don’t want to reveal the ultimate MacGuffin other than it’s the secret plans, but it’s a doozy. It ties the ending of the film back to the start as well.
The 39 Steps was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic and, along with the original The Man Who Knew Too Much from the year before, it was a major reason that Hitchcock became one of the most famous directors of the English-speaking world.
If The 39 Steps seems familiar, it’s because Hitchcock used the template created here again and again. But while you can say that Hitchcock did the same plot again with a bigger budget and bigger stars, it’s hard to say that they were actually better than The 39 Steps. Mystery, thrills, romance and comedy all well done. That’s pretty much all we want out of a Hitchcock film and The 39 Steps delivers that and more.
The original trailer for The 39 Steps.
Now it’s time to vote.
You have until Monday to vote.
Next up we officially kick off the third round as North by Northwest takes on Strangers on a Train. That’s the toughest matchup yet in my eyes.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
The Cubs made a move tonight to shore up their infield as they signed free agent Jon Berti to a one-year, $2 million deal with up to another $1.3 million in incentives. Berti turns 35 today, so it’s a happy birthday for him.
Obviously a deal for that little money is unlikely to be a game-changer for the Cubs, but Berti really addresses a need the Cubs have for more bench depth. He’s a good defender who has played every position on the diamond except pitcher and catcher. You actually have to count the playoffs to include first base, but Berti famously made his career debut at first base in the American League Division Series. In his first-ever game at first, he just made this unassisted double play (VIDEO)
Berti made his major league debut with the Blue Jays in 2018, but they let him go and he latched on with the Marlins in 2019. In five years with the Marlins, he was a productive ball player, in the field, at the plate and on the bases. He became a regular (albeit not at any one position) for the Marlins in 2022 and 2023 and put up a bWAR score of 2.4 each season while playing all over. He also led the National League in steals in 2022 with 41.
Berti would only steal 16 bases in 133 games in 2023, but he had his best season ever at the plate, hitting .294/.344/.405 with a 98 OPS+.
Berti was traded to the Yankees at the end of Spring Training last season and proceeded to spend most of the year on the injured list with a groin strain. Berti only managed 25 games in the regular season in 2024, but he hit a respectable .273/.342/.318 with five steals. He also played six games in the playoffs for the Yankees including that memorable turn at first base.
So the Cubs doubtlessly wanted Berti for his good glove, baserunning skills and decent (but somewhat power-starved) bat. That’s pretty much exactly what the Cubs were looking for to round out their bench and provide some backup for Matt Shaw and Nico Hoerner. But another reason the Cubs may have wanted to sign Berti is that he absolutely destroys the Cubs. In 15 games against the Northsiders, Berti has hit .319/.389/.532 with three home runs. That doesn’t even include the .500 OBP over two games that Berti had against the Cubs in the 2020 playoffs. The only team he hits better against is the White Sox. Sweet home Chicago indeed. If you can’t get him out, just don’t pitch to him. With Berti on the Cubs roster, they won’t have to.
So tell us what you think of the Jon Berti signing?
Thanks for stopping by tonight and all week. We hope we made your life a little better. Please get home safely. Stay warm out there. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join Sara Sanchez tomorrow night for more BCB After Dark.