Hepburn was never one of Hitchcock’s leading ladies, though he worked with several other fashionable actresses. Style is obviously not the focus of pop-up legend Kees Moerbeek’s Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense. Each of the seven spreads in this appropriately bizarre tribute highlights a different movie with scenes rendered in 3-D, an overview of the plot and details about casting and filming. Though one might question the omission of North by Northwest (think of the pop-up possibilities the crop duster, Mount Rushmore) or The Man Who Knew Too Much (oh, well, que ser‡, ser‡), there’s no denying that Moerbeek captures the essence of Vertigo with an impressive re-creation of the tower and the falling man of the opening credits. He evokes the terror of The Birds with menacing black specimens and a window onto the gas station fire, while the Psycho pages are appropriately in all black-and-white (almost). Curiously missing in Alfred Hitchcock are the A-listers who appeared in the films, but that does leave the focus all on Hitch. As in the films, his cameos, interpreted as mini pop-ups, are not-to-be missed treats.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
