Which Hitch Do You Prefer?

Recently, both of the upcoming films about Alfred Hitchcock – “The Girl,” starring Toby Jones, and “Hitchcock,” starring Anthony Hopkins – have released images of their respective stars made up and outfitted as The Master of Suspense. Here they are…so now the question is which one looks more macabre to you?

Toby Jones (with Sienna Miller) in "The Girl"

Anthony Hopkins in "Hitchcock"

Of course, neither of them looks quite right in these shots, although they do look very good. Our Hitch was an unusual looking person, and finding a double for him would be nigh on impossible. Still, both of these actors have a knack for impersonation: Hopkins made a convincing Richard Nixon in “Nixon,” and Jones channeled Truman Capote in “Infamous.”

I first raised some questions about casting on these movies in this post – but now that we’re seeing images from the movies, I’ll ask again: What do you think of this casting, and who would you like to see playing Sir Alfred?

Hitchcock’s One and Only Authorized Biography

In 1978, film critic John Russell Taylor published the one and only authorized biography of Alfred Hitchcock in “Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock.” At the time, books on Hitchcock were few and far between; among them were Francois Truffaut’s “Hitchcock,” Robin Wood’s “Hitchcock’s Films” and Donald Spoto’s “The Art of Alfred Hitchcock.” Taylor, given unprecedented access to Hitchcock, his family and associates, created a book that is full of colorful detail yet oddly distant.

That distance is down to one unlikely decision on Taylor’s part: Despite having spoken to Michael Balcon, Charles Bennett, Ingrid Bergman, Bernard Herrmann, Norman Lloyd, Ivor Montagu and dozens more of Hitchcock’s collaborators, the book has virtually no direct quotes. Everything is couched in well-written, very British prose. Taylor may be the only person ever to interview Hitchcock’s older sister, Nellie, but by eschewing quotes, he keeps the reader at arm’s length. It’s too bad, because she provides one of the book’s most fascinating details when she corroborates Hitchcock’s story of being briefly incarcerated at the age of seven at the behest of his father. The story had been told so many times by Hitchcock himself that many considered it apocryphal, if not an outright tall tale. Having someone who knew the truth behind it – Nellie was seven years older than Hitchcock – but not quoting her borders on the criminal.

The book is at its best when describing Hitchcock’s school days, his entrance into the business after a brief period in advertising illustration, and his speedy rise up the ladder at Famous Players-Lasky and then at Gainsborough through a combination of willingness to do anything and ability to cover up for his supervisor, the director Graham Cutts. It was in this period, while learning the ropes as a title designer, writer and more, that Hitchcock grew close to Alma Reville, who colluded with him to facilitate Cutts’s philandering.

Taylor does paint a vivid picture of young Hitchcock, who did not drink, smoke or swear, and who (like his future wife, Reville) lived at home with his family until he married. Hitchcock’s worldliness grew by leaps and bounds, as did his expertise in the film business, and by the late 1930s Hitchcock was anxious to move to Hollywood, where he could leave behind the difficulties of the British film business, with its small talent pool, small budgets, and small-minded executives. Of course, as Hitchcock was to learn, Hollywood had its own challenges in micromanager producers like David O. Selznick, elusive film stars and the difficulty of finding material.

The final chapter of the book is a profile of the making of “Family Plot.” Taylor sat in on numerous meetings and visited the set, allowing him to provide an insider’s look at the development and filming. There is a sad irony in Hitchcock’s certainty that he will go on to make another film; his next planned project, “The Short Night,” made it to script form and no further.

As an authorized biographer, Taylor takes his cues from Hitchcock in weighing the merits of his movies, although there are times when Taylor defends movies that even Hitchcock dismisses. Still, Taylor recognizes what is for Hitchcock an inability to look past the flaws in works that are, admittedly, flawed.

“Hitch” is out of print but is worth hunting down for serious students of Hitchcock. It’s been superceded by deeper biographies, but still has merits unequalled elsewhere.

Alfred Hitchcock Auction at New York’s Swann Galleries

On April 4, Swann Galleries in New York City will auction “Property from the Estate of Filmmaker Gary Winick.” Winick, a producer and director who died in 2011, left behind a substantial collection of photographs, books, posters and other items, including more than 30 posters from films by Alfred Hitchcock.

I had the opportunity to talk with George Lowry, Chairman of Swann Galleries, on March 23 about the collection. We focused on the Hitchcock portion of it, naturally, but I encourage you to check out the online catalogue or visit the gallery in the coming days and see this collection, which includes photographs by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Eadward Muybridge, Alfred Eisnestaedt and Cindy Sherman; illustrations by Andy Warhol and Garth Williams; animation art from Disney cartoons, “Fantasia” and “Yellow Submarine,” and, besides the Hitchcock material, movie posters from “All About Eve,” “The 400 Blows,” “Some Like It Hot,” “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and more.

Adam Philips: Tell me a little about Mr. Winick and his collection.

George Lowry: Gary Winick became a very prominent movie producer and director at an early age. He died at the age of 49, he was a lifelong New Yorker, and he began his career with digital films, basically small films with a handheld digital camera. He ended up becoming a reasonably well known Hollywood producer/direct, and one of his last films before he died was “Charlotte’s Web,” which got pretty good reviews. He died of a brain tumor, I believe, and he had become a serious but small collector in the short time he had money and the time to collect, and he collected photographs, important photographs by important photographers, miscellaneous works on paper meaning things done by artists, including a very nice Warhol drawing. Some of this is quite valuable. He collected books and memorabilia including Hitchcock posters. As far as your readers are concerned I think the most interesting thing is the lot of about Hitchcock posters, which represent every movie Hitchcock made since 1940, I think excepting only “Rebecca.”

AP: There are probably some movies that have two, even three posters in this collection. And these are all first-run movie posters, right?

GL: From the little bit of research we were able to do, because we’re not experts on movie posters, not yet anyway, we believe that these are all first edition posters. We’re not guaranteeing them, but all the posters are illustrated in our catalogue, our printed catalogue, and they’re illustrated in our online catalogue. We’re available to answer questions, so that if there’s a particular issue point on a poster that you’re curious about, all you have to do is call us and we’ve got people who provide that kind of information. If there’s a particular catch or mark in the lower right hand corner, we’ll take a digital picture and email it to you.

AP: And can you tell me about the overall condition of the collection?

GL: We have graded these posters on the basis of how we would grade product posters from the turn of the century. For example, we have “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Paramount Pictures, published in 1956. We say, condition B+, folds and pinholes in corners. That’s a paper poster. If you take that to a restorer, for a hundred or a hundred-twenty dollars, they will mount it on linen and those pinholes and the folds will disappear. And I would say that generally, all the posters are in that sense in excellent condition. There are some posters that are mounted on linen which have some problems with them, so they’re not all perfect, but the ones that are on paper, if you spend a hundred dollars on them, they’d come out looking like new.

AP: Modern movie posters are printed on two sides, so they can take advantage of the lights behind them. Is that the case with some of these?

GL: First, there are a few posters that are not Hitchcock posters. There’s a French poster for “All About Eve,” there’s “Au Revoir Les Enfants,” there’s “The 400 Blows,” there’s a Marilyn Monroe poster for “The Misfits,” but these are all printed on one side. Because don’t forget, the latest posters would have been from the 1960s, into the 1970s. Those are all one-sided posters.

AP: I’m looking at the website as we speak…do you know if there are lobby cards as well?

GL: There are window cards, but most of them are regular posters. There are a couple of three-sheets, and “Foreign Correspondent,” for example, is a half-sheet poster. There are a couple of half-sheets and a few three-sheets, but most of them are one-sheets. Lot 95, which is “Rear Window,” is an insert, which is a tall skinny poster.

AP: How did you get involved in this particular sale, since, as you said, you don’t usually handle movie posters?

GL: We were called in because his collection included watches, prints and paintings, books, movie posters and memorabilia. And none of it was of extraordinary value. It’s good, middle-range valued material. There aren’t too many auction houses that handle across the board. We don’t handle furniture, we don’t handle watches and clocks, but we made a proposal and said, ‘listen, the things that we specialize in and that we’re known for are photographs and books and prints and posters, and I guess we made a good case for it. They sent the furniture someplace, they sent the jewelry someplace, they sent a couple of very, very important primitive paintings someplace, and the rest of it came to us. There’s no mystery about it: Auction houses compete for material.

It’s an amazing collection. If you look at number 45, which is an Andy Warhol shoe design, estimated at $15-20,000. And there’s a photograph in here, number 6, which is a major, major photograph (by William Eggleston), estimated at $30-40,000. In a sense, the movie posters may be the most interesting for you and the most interesting for me, but they’re not the most valuable items for sale. I’d be surprised if any one of the posters brought more than maybe $5,000 or $6,000.

AP: I wouldn’t mind having a few of those myself, of course.

GL: Listen, you’re welcome to bid, you know that.

AP: Thanks, I appreciate that.

GL: To me, the biggest curiosity is number 99. This is a 24-sheet horizontal poster which, if it were opened up, would be almost twenty feet long and nine feet high. It’s called a 24-sheet, and it’s also called a billboard. It may sell for a lot of money, and it may not sell, because nobody has the space to display it, except that it’s a curiosity piece. And we’ve never opened it because – I believe it’s never been opened – because it’s very brittle. We opened it just enough to see what it was. Anybody who gets it probably would have to professionally have it opened, and you do that by putting it in a damp atmosphere so the paper softens, so it doesn’t crack when it gets opened. It’s a spectacular poster.

It’s also possible that as a result of this sale, we’ll be getting into more material of this kind. Look at number 100, which is for the Polish release of “Spellbound.” It’s very interesting. For me, I’ve been with Swann’s since before 1970, and it’s very sad to see a young man who apparently had great promise in the movie business die so young. In fact, he was mentioned at the Academy Awards as an important figure who died during the year. So, here’s a guy who really was very talented and had a great sense of aesthetics judging from what he collected. You can make that my final statement. (laughs)

GL: Thanks, I appreciate your time today.

A New Perspective on “Vertigo”

Authors Wendy Powers and Robin McLeod provide a new perspective on Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Vertigo” with their novel “The Testament of Judith Barton.” Where the events of “Vertigo” (which I wrote about here) are seen through the eyes of its hero, John “Scottie” Ferguson, this novel looks at one of the most remote women in the Hitchcock canon: Judith Barton, who portrayed Madeleine Elster, whose actions helped drive Ferguson to the brink of insanity, before falling victim to forces greater than herself.

Powers and McLeod ask the questions that Hitchcock ignored: Who is Judith Barton, and how did she become involved with Gavin Elster and, ultimately, with John Ferguson? The novel lays out a rich background for Barton as she grows up in Kansas, in the shadow of her older sister, worshipping her jewelry-repairman father and getting reluctantly drawn into the theater. But after her father’s death, the two sisters decide to strike out for California, with Judy heading for San Francisco, where she studies theater and struggles to make ends meet. A chance meeting with Gavin Elster at a jewelry shop sets brings her story into sync with “Vertigo” as Elster hires her to portray his wife to throw off the man who he claims is following her.

That man, of course, is Ferguson, and while Judy never gets a clear picture of Elster’s true plan – to use Ferguson as a puppet in a scheme to murder his wife – she falls in love with the former police detective. Anyone who has seen the movie knows that there is only one possible outcome for Judy, though, and it’s not a good one. But you may find yourself rooting for Judy to find a way to escape her fate in “The Testament of Judith Barton,” as I did. You can order the book from Amazon here.

Who Will Star in the New “Rebecca”?

As Daily Variety reports here, Dreamworks and Working Title Pictures are looking to create a new adaptation of “Rebecca.” When I wrote about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film adaptation here, I called it “a gothic romance that drips foreboding and suspense,” and while Hitchcock himself was not entirely pleased with the film, it was the only one of his films to win the Academy Award for “Best Picture” – an award that producer David O. Selznick brought home. While it’s possible that Hitchcock’s contentious relationship with Selznick soured his memory of “Rebecca” – and you can read about that relationship in my review of Leonard J. Leff’s book “Hitchcock and Selznick” here – the film stands as a masterpiece. It was an important stepping stone for Hitchcock: His first American film, his first with Selznick, his first taste of Hollywood glamour…

The new “Rebecca” is being scripted by Stephen Knight (“Eastern Promises”), who will go back to the original novel by Daphne Du Maurier as the source for his adaptation. While Hitchcock remained faithful to the novel in his film, a Selznick’s insistence, there were some differences between the two, the primary one of which was that the film significantly toned down the lesbian overtones of Mrs. Danvers’ devotion to the first Mrs. De Winter. It’s easy to imagine that this as the first story element the filmmakers will reinstate, but beyond that, it’s hard to say.

Of course, the big question is who will play the second Mrs. De Winter. Selznick did his best to make the search for the right actress an event similar to his earlier quest for the silver screen’s Scarlet O’Hara, and as the unnamed star of “Rebecca,” Joan Fontaine was naive and tremulous as Mrs. Danvers undermined her confidence. So, who do YOU think should play the second Mrs. De Winter? I could see Michelle Williams or Jessica Brown Findley from “Downton Abbey,” but there are so many terrific young actresses out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts. And who could fill the shoes of Laurence Olivier as the charming but imperious Maxim De Winter, or  Judith Anderson as the obsessive Mrs. Danvers?

An Affectionate Portrait of Alma Reville Hitchcock

Film critic and historian Charles Champlin once wrote, “The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma’s.” In “Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man,” Pat Hitchcock O’Connell and Laurent Bouzereau create an affectionate portray of the woman who inspired so much of Alfred Hitchcock’s work, Alma Lucy Reville Hitchcock.

Born in 1899, just one day after her future husband, Alma joined England’s nascent film industry before Hitchcock, having grown up around the corner from Twickenham Studios. Film seems to have been her destiny; her father worked at Twickenham, and Alma was fascinated by movies. She broke into the business while still in her teens, doing odd jobs, learning how to edit films, and even appearing before the camera in a few films.

All this would lead to a partnership with young Alfred Hitchcock that would develop into both collaboration and marriage. O’Connell paints a vivid picture of these early days, providing details and photography that few have seen before. The pictures reveal young Alma as a tiny dancer and actress, with long dark hair and a twinkle in her eye. After the missteps of the early Hitchcock films “The Pleasure Garden” and “The Mountain Eagle,” the newly married couple experienced their first success with “The Lodger.” While describing those early days, O’Connell makes the reader feel at home at the Hitchcocks’ Shamley Green home, recalling in great detail the transition to Hollywood and her parents’ high and low points. And when O’Connell began her own acting career, Alma was there for her daughter, offering support without getting too involved.

“Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man” is a sweet, anecdotal book crammed with photos and details that enhance our understanding of both Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock. Bouzereau’s hand in bringing O’Connell’s stories to life is evident without being overwhelming. (You can read my post on his recent book “Hitchcock Piece by Piece” here.)

If you aren’t already intrigued by “Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man,” O’Connell ices the cake by dedicating the last 50 pages of the book to her mother’s recipes, giving us new insight into the Master of Suspense’s tastes and shedding light on those legendary dinners at chez Hitchcock. Alma was an accomplished cook, and Hitchcock was happy to do the cleaning up afterward. A 1963 dinner for Sean Connery, for example, began with caviar, vodka and cheese rolls, moved on to mushroom soup, continued with lamb and mint sauce, peas, potatoes, gravy, followed by brie cheese and crackers, and finished with raspberry ice cream with pineapple, coffee and liquors. It’s enough to whet anyone’s appetite.

Hitchcock from Book to Screen: “Scripting Hitchcock”

In the movies “Psycho,” “The Birds” and “Marnie,” Alfred Hitchcock presented tales with increasingly complex psychological underpinnings. The new book “Scripting Hitchcock” puts these films under the microscope, examining the process by which the Master of Suspense reshaped the source material for each into three of his most debated films. Using interviews with screenwriters Joseph Stefano (“Psycho”), Evan Hunter (“The Birds”) and Jay Presson Allen (“Marnie”), writers Walter Raubichek and Walter Srebnick reveal Hitchcock’s process of adaptation from the original stories.

The writers are both professors of English at Pace University, and they take a scholarly approach to the subject, with an appropriately scholarly tone. They dissect the underlying themes of the stories, which are largely Freudian, and Hitchcock’s desire to wrap these challenging themes in exciting stories that would hit audiences on a visceral level. The book looks at each screenwriter’s background and experiences in working with Hitchcock, the development of the story treatment as each compares to the source material, and how characterization, dialogue and camera work would bring the stories to life.

Like Steven DeRosa’s “Writing with Hitchcock,” “Scripting Hitchcock” looks at a rich vein in the Hitchcock oeuvre. Raubichek and Srebnick do an admirable job in explicating Hitchcock’s aims with these movies. This is no mean task, as two of the films had their themes candy-coated by fast-paced action, while the third failed to connect with audiences. With so much going on in each film, from the sensational publicity campaign of “Psycho” to the introduction of Tippi Hedren in “The Birds” and the lack of success of “Marnie,” which could be attributed to so many factors, it would be easy to examine so many aspects of these fascinating movies. Raubichek and Srebnick stick to their guns, however, and remain focused on the writing behind the films. Anyone who enjoyed “Writing with Hitchcock” would do well to order a copy of “Scripting Hitchcock,” which you can do here.