Tag: Cubs

Welcome back to BCB After Dark the grooviest gathering of night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and warm up. We can check your coat for you. There’s no cover charge this evening. There are still a few tables available. 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 week I asked you who you thought would lead the Cubs in stolen bases in 2025. Honestly, I thought that Nico Hoerner or Kyle Tucker would get some vote, but 95 percent of you believe that Pete Crow-Armstrong will lead the team in steals. So it wasn’t even close.

Here’s the part where we listen to music and discuss movies as our BCB Winter Hitchcock Classic continues. But you’re free to skip ahead to the baseball talk. You won’t hurt my feelings.

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I guess we’re done with Christmas jazz for another 11 months. Tonight we have a true All-Star team of jazz in Copenhagen in 1971. Sonny Stitt plays “Everything Happens to Me” on saxophone, backed by Thelonious Monk on piano, Art Blakey on drums, Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Al McKibben on bass and Kai Winding on trombone.

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Christmas is now over and my left hand has healed to the point where I can type with two hands again. That means it’s time for us to resume our BCB Winter Hitchcock Classic.

Last week, the vote was between The 39 Steps and Dial M for Murder. Believe it or not, the final vote ended in a dead-even tie. Considering that these were the 16 and 17 seeds, a tie seems more than justified, but one film has to move on to the next round. In case of a tie, I have to make the tie-breaking vote (I don’t normally vote otherwise) and I voted for The 39 Steps. So if you’re angry that Dial M for Murder didn’t advance, you can blame me.

So after the first round, the Sweet Sixteen bracket looks like this.

Tonight, Foreign Correspondent (1940), which knocked off Rebecca in the first round, faces off against the second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Starring James Stewart and Doris Day.

“Que Sera, Sera. Whatever will be, will be.” I’m guessing that Doris Day belting out those words are the first thing that comes into your mind when you think of the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The song was written for the film by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and won the Academy Award for Best Song. It also became Doris Day’s signature song.

But there’s a lot more to like about The Man Who Knew Too Much than a Doris Day hit song. It’s Hitchcock going back to the well of an ordinary man getting caught up in a espionage plot, but in this case it’s a husband and wife team and no one actually suspects the couple of being the assassins. The authorities do think Ben (Stewart) and Jo McKenna (Day) are withholding information—which they are because the spies have kidnapped their son to ensure their silence.

The 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much is a loose remake of Hitchcock’s 1934 film of the same name, which was his first film to cross over and become a hit on this side of the Atlantic. But Hitchcock didn’t want to just make the same film again and actually forbid screenwriter John Michael Hayes from watching the original before writing the screenplay. Instead, Hitchcock sat him down and orally told him the story—leaving him with a bare-bones outline that forced him to fill in the blanks. So we still have an ordinary couple who witness a murder and become aware of an assassination plot while on vacation. As in the original, their child is kidnapped to keep them quiet and then they try to foil the assassination themselves, which they know is scheduled to take place during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The first film definitely has its charms—primarily Peter Lorre as the main villain—but the second one is the superior version for several reasons. Hitchcock famously told François Truffaut that the first version was “the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.” Truffaut agreed.

The thing that stands out the most between the first and second versions is the superior cast in the second version, Peter Lorre notwithstanding. James Stewart made four films with Alfred Hitchcock and all four of them are among our top eight seeds in this tournament. When Hitchcock wanted someone to play a normal, everyday American, he reached for Stewart time and again. In Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock said he used Stewart as an earnest and quiet man, something that Cary Grant, Hitchcock’s other great leading man, couldn’t really pull off. Stewart could, and does.

Doris Day has never really gotten the credit she deserves for her acting chops, primarily because she mostly did light comedies and musicals and actors in those roles always get overlooked. But she’s far superior to Edna Best in the first version, who was all too calm and collected for a woman whose child had been kidnapped. Day brings Jo to the brink of hysteria and then manages to believably collect herself when it comes time for her and her husband to return to London to rescue their son. There’s also a subplot that Jo has given up a famous singing career to be the wife of an Indiana doctor, and Day manages to stick a twinge of regret in her eyes when she has to sing.

Music plays a huge role in The Man Who Knew Too Much beyond Day belting “Que Sera Sera” through the climax. (Although it is the only Hitchcock film to feature a song.) For both films, the planned assassination takes place at the Royal Albert Hall during a performance of Storm Clouds Cantata by Australia composer Arthur Benjamin. That piece of music was specifically written for the first film and Hitchcock gave Bernard Hermann the option of writing a new piece of music for the scene. Hermann declined, saying the original piece was perfect for the film, although he did make his own arrangement. Hermann did get to make an on-screen appearance as himself conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, the only time Hitchcock’s famous musical collaborator appeared on-screen.

When discussing The Lodger, I argued that you can’t understand Hitchcock without being familiar with his silent period. That point gets illustrated clearly in The Man Who Knew Too Much. No, the assassination scene isn’t silent—there’s a loud orchestra playing—but the scene is carried out as a silent picture would be. We can’t hear any dialog over the music, so the entire thing is a masterfully orchestrated to the music. The scene goes on wordless for 12 minutes until Doris Day lets out her scream to break the silence. The scene is similar to the one in the first movie, except this one is bigger and better executed. As Hitchcock said, it was the work of a professional.

I’ve been re-watching all these films before I write them up and so far, The Man Who Knew Too Much is the one that has risen in my opinion the most on the current re-watch. Yes, there are a few problems with the movie that aren’t really worth going into here. (OK, one. The kidnapped kid is annoying.) But the film is a lot more than just Doris Day singing “Que Sera, Sera.” It’s got action, emotion, humor (a diversion to a taxidermist) and drama. There’s even a little travelog to Morocco at the beginning of the movie. It’s definitely a film worth re-watching if you haven’t seen it in a while.

The trailer for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

Foreign Correspondent (1940). Starring Joel McCrea, Laraine Day and Herbert Marshall.

As we’ve reviewed the Hitchcock canon, the plot of an ordinary man getting caught up in an espionage plot that he must unravel comes up again and again. The 39 Steps, Sabotage and North By Northwest are the three that are most similar to each other to the point where they can be considered rewrites of the same film. Foreign Correspondent and the two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much are similar, but have some significant differences.

What binds Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur together, unlike the other films, is that both of them are calls for unity among the democracies against the threat of fascism. Although Foreign Correspondent takes place in the weeks before World War II breaks out, the film is clearly a reaction to the world situation—the United Kingdom standing alone against Hitler while the United States wonders what to do.

Here’s most of what I wrote about Foreign Correspondent last time.

If Rebecca isn’t a real “Hitchcock film,” Alfred Hitchcock’s second American picture, Foreign Correspondent (1940), has everything that we expect out of a film by the master of suspense. There’s a story of a ordinary man getting caught up in an espionage plot. There’s a silly MacGuffin that the characters care intensely about but is, in actuality, meaningless. There’s a case of misdirection and body doubles. There are chases and other action sequences, including a thrilling plane crash on the water. There are also jokes. Foreign Correspondent really only suffers because Hitchcock made several better versions of the same movie later in his career. (North by Northwest immediately comes to mind.)

Joel McCrea stars as John Jones, a crime reporter for the New York Morning Globe. This is a stock character of movies of the time—the gritty, cynical city reporter who doesn’t follow the rules yet who is nonetheless terrific at his job. His editor decides to make him a foreign correspondent because he is unhappy with the pro forma reports he is getting out of Europe as war approaches. (Did I mention that it’s late-August, 1939?) His editor feels “John Jones” is a bad name for a foreign correspondent, so he gives him the pen name “Huntley Haverstock,” a name Jones hates but accepts because it comes with a big expense account. That’s one of the running jokes in the film.

Jones/Haverstock heads to London with instructions to interview a Dutch diplomat named “Van Meer,” (Albert Bassermann) who is involved with the Universal Peace Party, a group of pacifists who are trying to avoid World War II. He meets Van Meer in a taxi cab on the way to a UPP meeting where Van Meer is supposed to be the speaker. Upon arriving at the event, he becomes infatuated with Carol (Laraine Day) who won’t give him the time of day after Jones mocks the Peace Party.

For some reason, Van Meer doesn’t show up at the meeting. Instead, Carol speaks, as Jones discovers she’s a peace activist and the daughter of the head of the UPP, Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall).

Jones finds out that Van Meer is scheduled to speak at another UPP conference in the Netherlands, so he heads off to Amsterdam to meet him. On the continent, Van Meer doesn’t recognize the man he shared a cab with. He is then seemingly assassinated on the steps of outside the conference building. I say “seemingly” because when Jones chases the fleeing assassins, he discovers Van Meer very much alive in a windmill that is serving as a spy hideout. But when he brings the police, Van Meer and the spies are naturally all gone.

The rest of the film is Jones trying to prove that Van Meer is still alive and that Carol’s father is the head of a German spy ring. He’s also on the run from the German spies who are trying to kill him to keep their secret. Oh, and he and Carol fall in love, of course. There are lots of chases and, in a Hitchcock staple, a visit to a famous landmark. In this case, the landmark is Westminster Cathedral. Robert Benchley, who co-wrote the screenplay, appears as comic relief as a cynical but jovial fellow foreign correspondent. George Sanders, who was the lesser villain in Rebecca, comes back as the heroic ally Stephen ffolliott, and yes, that last name is spelled correctly and the films makes a point of the correct spelling with no capitalization. Again, one of those little aside jokes from Hitchcock.

There’s also a famous airplane crash on water scene that may not seem like a lot to us today, but was very, very difficult to shoot under the technology of the time.

So whereas Rebecca was a film out of time and place, Foreign Correspondent is definitely a comment on the recent outbreak of World War II and the foolishness of the “peace advocates” in the face of Nazi aggression. The film opened just as the Battle of Britain was underway, and Hitchcock replaced the original ending with Jones/Haverlock giving a radio report that was the fictional equivalent of Edward R. Murrow’s “This is London” reports that brought the war back home to American audiences.

Hitchcock was still under contract to David O. Selznick, but Selznick didn’t have anything for him to direct at the time so he lent him out to Walter Wagner Productions for Foreign Correspondent. Unfortunately, Selznick wouldn’t lend out Joan Fontaine, whom Hitchcock wanted to play Carol. Laraine Day isn’t terrible, but she certainly doesn’t do as good a job as Fontaine would have. Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper to play the lead, but as he explained in Hitchcock/Truffaut, Foreign Correspondent was a “thriller” and under the conventions of the time, thrillers were “B-movies” and Cooper was an “A-list” star. Hitchcock said that Cooper came to him later and told him he should have taken the part. McCrea is good and he was a quality actor, but his vibe was completely different than Cooper. Hitchcock said that McCrea was good but “too easy-going” for a spy thriller like this. Modern audiences, however, that are used to action stars that combine the action with a wink and a smile are not likely to find McCrea lacking. . .

Foreign Correspondent is a good, solid thriller about an ordinary man who gets caught up in an elaborate plot that he doesn’t really understand. If that sounds familiar, it’s only because Hitchcock would do it many more times more successfully. . .

The trailer for Foreign Correspondent.

So now it’s time to vote:

Unfortunately, the second The Man Who Knew Too Much is only available for rent. Or you can buy the 4K UHD Blu-rays like I did. Foreign Correspondent is on Max and Criterion, as well as the Roku Channel with ads.

You have until Wednesday to vote. Up next is Rope and To Catch a Thief.

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Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

So this came out today.

Curious. Let’s acknowledge that the Cubs’ front office under Jed Hoyer is notoriously tight-lipped and that agents use that to float rumors of the Cubs interest in their clients. So there may be nothing here to this story other than an agent trying to drum up interest in their client.

However, as that post notes, Josh Rojas is a solid player. No, he’s not a star or even the kind of player that a playoff team would want as an everyday player. And at 30 years old, he’s not likely to develop into one. But he’s a terrific defensive player at third or second base and a solid corner outfielder. He can even play shortstop, although he’s a touch below average there.

Offensively, Rojas is nothing special, but at least he’s not terrible. He only hit .225 last year, but he can take a walk, which gave him a .304 on-base percentage. Rojas hit eight home runs and had a .336 slugging percentage. His numbers in 2023, which were split between Arizona and Seattle, were pretty similar. His best season was 2022, when he posted a 110 OPS+ and a 3.1 bWAR for the Diamondbacks.

It makes sense that the Cubs would want a left-handed hitting bench player who could play multiple positions. If the Cubs are determined to make Matt Shaw a third baseman, it also makes sense that they would get someone who could hold down third base for a while if Shaw still needs more time in the minors—or if Nico Hoerner is going to be out for a while at second base.

But it’s curious because that’s exactly what Vidal Bruján’s role is projected out to be, and the Cubs just traded for him yesterday. Now to be clear, Rojas is a better player than Bruján, but Bruján is younger and cheaper. He also was a much higher-regarded prospect once upon a time, so I’d guess there’s a lot more upside on Bruján, although there’s a lot more “he stinks” potential on Bruján as well.

Over at Bleacher Nation, Brett Taylor is a fan of signing Rojas and like me, sees Rojas as simply a better version of Bruján. Taylor speculates that the trade for Bruján was just insurance against not signing Rojas and perhaps as a way to gain leverage in negotiations. (“We don’t have to sign you, Josh. We have Bruján.”) I dunno. Maybe. That’s a little too three-dimensional chess for me. All I know is that I think Rojas is an upgrade on Bruján and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to trade for Bruján if you were about to sign Rojas.

Rojas is a free agent because the Mariners decided to non-tender him rather than pay him a projected $4 million in arbitration. So Rojas is probably looking at a one-year deal for around $3 to $4 million. In any case, signing Rojas is not going to preclude signing anyone else.

So should the Cubs sign Josh Rojas? And for the comments, what would you do with Bruján if they did?

Thank you for stopping by. If you checked your coat, let us get that for you. Please stay warm out there. Get home safely. Recycle and cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night to ring in the new year at BCB After Dark.