Body Double (1984)

A down-on-his-luck horror film actor scores free accommodation in a plush pad with a revolving bed and views of a sexy neighbour's nightly stripshow, in Brian de Palma's sleazy thriller, an unabashed exercise in emulating Hitchcock replete with voyeuristic hero (Rear Window) with a debilitating psychological condition that gets in the way of his uncovering the truth of a mystery involving body doubles (Vertigo), double-crosses, and murder.

★★★★☆

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The Paradine Case (1947)

Director Hitchcock and Producer Selznick's third collaboration, the rather conventional courtroom thriller The Paradine Case, based on a Robert H Hitchens book, may not soar to the heights that Rebecca and Spellbound did (their previous works together) but it is a grand and engrossing melodrama, so well-acted, directed, and staged that you can revel in it despite the ludicrousness of the central court case and despite the fact climactic scenes of Gregory Peck's lawyer's reckoning don't quite hit the nail on the head.

★★★★☆

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