The Best Hollywood film mysteries--

Last week, CBS-TV aired the American Film Institute's list its top 10 lists in 10 film genres. I missed the show but thanks to the Associated Press story, I saw that there was (thankfully) a "Mystery" entry.

The number one mystery film is right at 50-years-old now, the eerie and dramatic Alfred Hitchcock classic "Vertigo" from 1958. [I count it as a fun treat that I did see the movie on the big screen years ago. I think most good films deserve a movie theatre viewing.] I didn't know until I looked it up in Patrick McGilligan's biography Alfred Hitchcock: a life in darkness and light that the movie plot evolved from screenwriters adaptation of a French novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The story was also set during World War II (unlike present-day San Francisco in the movie). I googled the original film poster which I think is a masterpiece in itself. It is a great choice for the category although the second selection "Chinatown" is my long-time personal favorite from 1974.

The list continues with "Rear Window" from 1954, "Laura" from 1944, "The Third Man" from 1949, "The Maltese Falcon" from 1941, "North by Northwest" from 1959, "Blue Velvet," from 1986, "Dial M for Murder" from 1954, and "The Usual Suspects" in 1995.

Thank goodness for DVDs and microwave popcorn!