Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005)
"Ti piace Hitchcock?" (original title)

A college film student, obsessed with the works of Alfred Hitchcock, investigates a murder committed in the apartment building across from his and suspects that his seductive neighbor hired a girlfriend to commit the deed.

Director:

Dario Argento

Writers:

Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini

Stars:

Elio Germano, Chiara Conti, Elisabetta Rocchetti

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Elio Germano	...	Giulio
Chiara Conti	...	Federica
Elisabetta Rocchetti	...	Sasha
Cristina Brondo	...	Arianna
Iván Morales	...	Andrea
Edoardo Stoppa	...	Inspector
Elena Maria Bellini	...	Giulio's Mother
Horacio José Grigaitis	...	Inspector
Giuseppe Lo Console	...	Federica's Boss (as Giuseppe Loconsole)
Milvia Marigliano	...	Sasha's Mother
Giampiero Perone	...	The Fiancee
Antonio Mazzara	...	Cleaning Man
Anna Varello	...	Doctor
Carla Gambino
Lorenzo Federici

Storyline

In 1990, as a boy, Giulio was chased through the woods by two women after spying on them practicing witchcraft. Now a young film student in Turin, he watches his neighbors in the flats across from his third floor apartment, especially Sasha when she's naked or arguing with her mother. Giulio's girlfriend is disgusted with his voyeurism, but, after a murder occurs, Giulio is convinced that two relative strangers, just as in Hitchcock and Highsmith's "Strangers in a Train," have agreed to murder each other's bête noir. He follows his suspects, ends up with an intruder and a broken foot, and may be in real danger. Is he more than a peeping Tom?

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Plot Keywords:

murder | film student | woods | turin | broken foot | 

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Genres:

Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

Italy Spain

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

1 July 2005 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

Do You Like Hitchcock?

Filming Locations:

Torino, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film Commission Torino-Piemonte, Genesis Motion Pictures, Institut del Cinema Català (ICC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

On the door to the video store hangs a poster for Argento's previous film, The Card Player. Next to it is taped up the sleeve from a copy of Scarlet Diva, a film written, directed by and starring Dario's daughter Asia Argento, and produced by Dario and his brother Claudio Argento. (The Scarlet Diva video is also displayed behind the counter).

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Connections

References Eraserhead (1977)

User Reviews

Dario finds his mojo again!

Surprisingly, Argento's Italian TV movie Do You Like Hitchcock? is a welcome return to form despite one of the worst DVD covers of all time and a pretty blah pretitle sequence that has no relevance to the film beyond padding out the running time and establishing the hero's voyeurism. Splicing Rear Window and Strangers On a Train, originality isn't on the menu (unless you count the killer wearing white gloves instead of the usual black ones that feature in Argento's previous films: who says he's afraid to try something new?) but along with a strong narrative, a good visual sense and an effective score from Pino Donaggio, you can really feel the playful enthusiasm with this one (somewhat borne out by some backstage footage of Argento getting caught up in the shoot).

The plot makes a virtue of its familiarity: after seeing one of his neighbours and a stranger bond in a DVD store – which only stocks old movies, mostly Hitchcock, German Expressionism and the odd Argento (Dario and Asia) – over a copy of Strangers On a Train, our typically Hitchcockian mother-dominated voyeur's curiosity turns to suspicion that they may have been using it as a blueprint when the mother of one gets murdered. Mind you, I'd regard Elio Germano's lead with some suspicion himself if only because no self-respecting film student would watch silent German Expressionist classics in widescreen. From there on you can tick off the references – yes, our hero does end up with a broken leg while his girlfriend searches the killer's apartment, and yes, there is a Hitchcock blonde – but it's executed with some panache and a sense of fun that never descends into outright comedy.

Unfortunately although, as usual for Argento, the film was shot in English and while at least a couple of the cast have more than passable in the language, for some reason the whole thing has been redubbed in London by what sounds like rejects from a Clearasil commercial: a couple in particular are so strikingly inept that they'll almost have you cursing the invention of talking pictures. They obviously couldn't get the rights to use the soundtrack of Strangers On a Train either, leading to one hysterically awful bit of dubbing when our hero watches the film with his girlfriend. Despite these and some casting quibbles, the film is strong enough to overcome. It's no all-time great but it is a surprisingly satisfying giallo – you won't be surprised, but you probably will be entertained. Suddenly the prospects for Argento's concluding part to his Three Mothers trilogy, The Mother of Tears, don't seem quite so bad…