Alfred Hitchcock (148 page)

Jean-Luc Godard,
Godard on Godard

The Wrong Man

As director and producer.
Sc: Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail. Story: Maxwell Anderson, based on a true case of mistaken identity. Ph: Robert Burks. Art Dir: Paul Sylbert. Ed: George Tomasini. Asst Dir: Daniel J. McCauley. Sound: Earl Crain Sr. Set Dec: William L. Kuehl. Makeup: Gordon Bau. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Technical Advisers: Frank D. O’Connor, George Groves. Associate Prod: Herbert Coleman.

Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, Charles Cooper, John Heldabrand, Esther Minciotti, Doreen Lang, Laurinda Barrett, Norma Connolly, Nehemiah Persoff, Lola D’Annunzio, Kippy Campbell, Robert Essen, Richard Robbins, Dayton Lummis, Peggy Webber, and Alfred Hitchcock (narrating the prologue).

(B & W, Hitchcock for Warner Bros., 105 mins.)

“First part of the picture, in which Fonda is arrested outside his home, questioned, fingerprinted, paraded in front of witnesses, and tossed into jail, is masterfully directed with a sense of precision that’s even above Hitchcock’s usual standards. It perfectly illustrates Hitchcock’s lifelong terror of being arrested for a crime he knew nothing about. This Kafkaesque sequence is so frightening that everything that comes afterward seems anti-climatic. … I think this picture is of special significance because Fonda represents the most extreme example of the initially dull Hitchcockian hero whose every minute is planned out and whose life doesn’t vary at all from day to day—he is the one hero without any sense of humor.”

Danny Peary,
Guide for the Film Fanatic

1958

Vertigo

As director and producer.
Sc: Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, based upon the novel
D’Entre les Morts
by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Ph: Robert Burks. Art Dir: Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead. Technicolor Consultant: Richard Mueller. Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton. Process Photography: Farciot Edouart, Wallace Kelley. Set Dec: Sam Comer, Frank McKelvy. Title Design: Saul Bass. Ed: George Tomasini. Asst Dir: Daniel J. McCauley. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Hairstyle Supervision: Nellie Manley.
Sound: Harold Lewis, Winston Leverett. Costumes: Edith Head. Special Sequence: John Ferren. Music: Bernard Herrmann, conducted by Muir Mathieson. Prod Mgr: C. O. (Doc) Ericksen. Associate Prod: Herbert Coleman.

Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones, Raymond Bailey, Ellen Corby, Konstantin Shayne, Lee Patrick, and Alfred Hitchcock (walking past shipyard).

(Color, Hitchcock for Paramount, 128 mins.)

“Think seriously about
Vertigo
and
Psycho,
and you will find themes of profound and universal significance; think again, and you will find these themes expressed in the form and style of the film as much as in any extractable ‘content.’ The subject matter of Hitchcock’s
Vertigo
(as distinct from Boileau and Narcejac’s) is no longer a matter of mere mystery thriller trickery: it has close affinities with, on the one hand, Mizoguchi’s
Ugetsu Monogatari,
and on the other, Keats’s
‘Lamia.’
To adduce these generally accepted works is not to try to render
Vertigo
respectable by means of them—there is no sleight-of-hand involved of the ‘A is like B so A is as good as B’ variety.
Vertigo
needs no such dishonest apologia, having nothing to fear from comparison with either work.”

Robin Wood,
Hitchcock’s Films
, Introduction to 1965 edition

1959

North by Northwest

As director and producer.
Sc: Ernest Lehman. Ph: Robert Burks. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Prod Design: Robert Boyle. Art Dir: William A. Horning, Merrill Pye. Set Dec: Henry Grace, Frank McKelvy. Special Effects: A. Arnold Gillespie, Lee LeBlanc. Title Design: Saul Bass. Ed: George Tomasini. Color Consultant: Charles K. Hagedorn. Recording Supervisor: Franklin Milton. Hairstyles: Sydney Guilaroff. Makeup: William Tuttle. Asst Dir: Robert Saunders. Associate Prod: Herbert Coleman.

Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Josephine Hutchinson, Philip Ober, Martin Landau, Adam Williams, Edward Platt, Robert Ellenstein, Les Tremayne, Philip Coolidge, Patrick McVey, Edward Binns, Ken Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock (missing bus during opening titles).

(Color, Hitchcock for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 136 mins.)

“Taken seriously, the plot makes no sense whatsoever. This is fortunate, because, taken seriously, its implications about the heroine’s morals, the methods of American intelligence agencies and sundry other matters are alarming to say the least. It is amazing, nevertheless, how entertaining the picture is as it unreels.”

Moira Walsh,
America
, August 22, 1959

1960

Psycho

As director and producer.
Sc: Joseph Stefano, from the novel by Robert Bloch.
Ph:
John L. Russell.
Art Dir:
Joseph Hurley, Robert Clatworthy. Set Dec: George Milo. Unit Manager: Lew Leary. Title Design: Saul Bass. Ed: George Tomasini. Costume Supervisor: Helen Colvig. Wardrobe: Rita Riggs. Makeup: Jack Barron, Robert Dawn. Hairstylist: Florence Bush. Special Effects: Clarence Champagne. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, William Russell. Asst Dir: Hilton A. Green. Pictorial Consultant: Saul Bass. Music: Bernard Herrmann.

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, Simon Oakland, Frank Albertson, Patricia Hitchcock, Vaughn Taylor, Lurene Tuttle, John Anderson, Mort Mills, Janet Leigh, and Alfred Hitchcock (man in cowboy hat outside realtor’s office).

(B & W, Hitchcock for Paramount-Shamley Productions, 109 mins.)

After confessing that he was one of “four lonely souls” who ranked
Psycho
among the all-time ‘Top Ten’ for
Sight and Sound’
s poll of eighty-nine critics, in 1972, Richard Corliss recalls the roots of his affection for the film. “From the first time I saw
Psycho,
at age sixteen in the Avalon Theatre on the South Jersey coast, the film admirably fulfilled its Saturday-matinee horror-movie function: it scared the shit out of me. And it still does. Whatever academic pleasure I might have derived from analyzing
Psycho
‘s shower sequence on a movieola for this essay was overwhelmed by a purely physical discomfort at reliving an experience that still sets my stomach seismograph aquiver every time I step into a strange shower stall.”

Richard Corliss,
“Psycho
Therapy,”
Favorite Movies: Critics’ Choices

1963

The Birds

As director and producer.
Sc: Evan Hunter, from the story by Daphne du Maurier. Ph: Robert Burks. Prod Design: Robert Boyle. Ed: George Tomasini. Miss Hedren’s Costumes: Edith Head. Prod Mgr: Norman Deming. Special Photographic Adviser: Ub Iwerks. Special Effects: Lawrence A. Hampton. Pictorial Designs: Albert Whitlock. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, William Russell. Makeup: Howard Smit. Hairstylist: Virginia Darcy. Asst to Mr. Hitchcock: Peggy Robertson. Asst Dir: James H. Brown. Set Dec: George Milo. Script Supervisor: Lois Thurman. Wardrobe Supervisor: Rita Riggs. Trainer of the Birds: Ray Berwick. Titles: James S. Pollak. Electronic Sound Production and Composition: Remi Gassmann, Oskar Sala. Sound Consultant: Bernard Herrmann.

Cast: Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt, Lonny Chapman,
Joe Mantell, Doodles Weaver, Malcolm Atterbury, John McGovern, Karl Swenson, Richard Deacon, Elizabeth Wilson, William Quinn, Doreen Lang, and Alfred Hitchcock (leaving the pet store with his own dogs, Geoffrey and Stanley, on a leash).

(Color, Hitchcock for Universal, 120 mins.)

“The apocalyptic overtones of The
Birds,
which most critics at the time saw as a startling departure from Hitchcock’s usual register, were only an intensification of the disruptive tendency at work in all his films. Tumultuously chaotic conditions have always been a specialty of his. Hitchcock loves engineering cataclysmic clashes, precipitating people and things into abysses or engulfing elements. Shipwrecks, derailments, plane crashes, car accidents punctuate his work. Vehicles are bombed, blown up, sunk, hurled into one another, airplanes splash into the ocean, automobiles are swallowed up into mines and swamps, or hurtle along brakeless or with drunken drivers at the wheel. Everything that moves seems destined for destruction, as though motion itself were a hazard. For Hitchcock, nothing is safe, because nothing is stable.”

Jean-Pierre Coursodon,
American Directors

1964

Marnie

As director and producer.
Sc: Jay Presson Allen, from the novel by Winston Graham. Ph: Robert Burks. Prod Design: Robert Boyle. Asst Dir: James H. Brown. Unit Mgr: Hilton A. Green. Miss Hedren’s and Miss Baker’s Costumes: Edith Head. Miss Hedren’s Hairstyles: Alexandre of Paris. Ed: George Tomasini. Pictorial Design: Albert Whitlock. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, William Russell. Makeup: Jack Barron, Howard Smit, Robert Dawn. Hairstylist: Virginia Darcy. Asst to Mr. Hitchcock: Peggy Robertson. Set Dec: George Milo. Script Supervisor: Lois Thurman. Camera Operator: Leonard South. Costume Supervisor: Vincent Dee. Women’s Costumes: Rita Riggs. Men’s Costumes: James Linn. Music: Bernard Herrmann.

Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham, Bob Sweeney, Milton Selzer, Mariette Hartley, Alan Napier, Bruce Dern, Henry Beckman, S. John Launer, Edith Evanson, Meg Wyllie, and Alfred Hitchcock (furtive man in hotel corridor).

(Color, Hitchcock for Universal, 129 mins.)

“I find that
Marnie
grows in stature with repeated viewings. … In ways, it is a lesser achievement—cinematically, philosophically, mythically—than
The Birds,
which itself grows more impressive over the years. Yet just as clearly, it forms a late-period diptych with
The Birds,
not least because of Tippi Hedren’s presence in both as the embodiment of some of Hitchcock’s most melancholic thoughts on femininity and its place in the world.”

David Sterritt,
The Films of Alfred Hitchcock

1966

Torn Curtain

As director and producer.
Sc: Brian Moore. Ph: John F. Warren. Prod Design: Hein Heckroth. Art Dir: Frank Arrigo. Prod Mgr: Jack Corrick. Pictorial Designs: Albert Whitlock. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, William Russell. Ed: Bud Hoffman. Asst Dir: Donald Baer. Set Dec: George Milo. Makeup: Jack Barron. Costumes: Grady Hunt. Asst to Mr. Hitchcock: Peggy Robertson. Camera Operator: Leonard South. Script Supervisor: Lois Thurman. Miss Andrews’ Hairstylist: Hal Saunders. Hair Stylist: Lorraine Roberson. Miss Andrews’ Costumes: Edith Head. Music: John Addison.

Cast: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjörg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova, Wolfgang Kieling, Ludwig Donath, Günter Strack, David Opatoshu, Gisela Fischer, Mort Mills, Carolyn Conwell, Arthur Gould-Porter, Gloria Gorvin, and Alfred Hitchcock (man holding baby in hotel lobby).

(Color, Hitchcock for Universal, 128 mins.)

“Arabesques without great consequences? No doubt the leaden skies of The
Birds
or the wan false hopes of
Marnie
troubled us in quite a different fashion. But is it really limitation of ambition or impoverishment of Hitchcock to want today to renew the bond, through his films, with the fantastic round trips and adventurous itineraries, no less authentic a vein of his work, from
The Lady Vanishes
to
The Man Who Knew Too Much
?”

Jean Narboni, “Defense of
Torn Curtain,” Cahiers du Cinéma in English
, no. 10 (1966)

1969

Topaz

As director and producer.
Sc: Samuel Taylor, from the novel by Leon Uris. Ph: Jack Hildyard. Prod Design: Henry Bumstead. Ed: William H. Ziegler. Photographic Consultant: Hal Mohr. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, Robert A. Bertrand. Prod Mgr: Wallace Worsley. Asst Dirs: Douglas Green, James Westman. Special Photographic Effects: Albert Whitlock. Set Dec: John Austin. Script Supervisor: Trudy Von Trotha. Makeup: Bud Westmore, Leonard Engelman. Hair Styles: Larry Germain, Nellie Manley. Asst to Mr. Hitchcock: Peggy Robertson. Camera Operator: William Dodds. Men’s Costumes: Peter Saldutti. Cuban Technical Adviser: J. P. Mathieu. French Technical Adviser: Odette Ferry. Costumes: Edith Head. Costumes (Paris): Pierre Balmain. Music: Maurice Jarre. Assoc Prod: Herbert Coleman.

Cast: Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, John Vernon, Karin Dor, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Claude Jade, Michel Subor, Per-Axel Arosenius, Roscoe Lee Browne, Edmon Ryan, Sonja Kolthoff, Tina Hedstrom, John Van Dreelen, Don Randolph, Roberto Contreras, Carlos Rivas, Roger Til, Lewis Charles, Sandor Szabo, Anna Navarro, Lew Brown, John Roper,
George Skaff, John Forsythe, and Alfred Hitchcock (man in wheelchair at airport).

(Color, Hitchcock for Universal, 127 mins.)

“The film is so free of contemporary cinematic cliches, so reassuring in its choice of familiar espionage gadgetry (remote control cameras, geiger counters), that it tends to look extremely conservative, politically.
Topaz,
however, is really above such things. It uses politics the way Hitchcock uses actors—for its own ends, without making any real commitments to them.
Topaz
is not only most entertaining. It is, like so many Hitchcock films, a cautionary fable by one of the most moral cynics of our time.”

Vincent Canby, “Alfred Hitchcock at His Best,”
New York Times
, December 20, 1969

1972

Frenzy

As director and producer.
Sc: Anthony Shaffer, from the novel
Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square
by Arthur La Bern. Ph: Gil Taylor. Prod Design: Syd Cain. Art Dir: Bob Laing. Prod Mgr: Brian Burgess. Camera Operator: Paul Wilson. Continuity: Angela Martelli. Sound Mixer: Peter Handford. Sound Recordist: Gordon K. McCallum. Sound Editor: Rusty Coppelman. Wardrobe Supervisor: Dulcie Midwinter. Asst to Mr. Hitchcock: Peggy Robertson. Casting: Sally Nicholl. Special Photographic Effects: Albert Whitlock. Makeup: Harry Frampton. Hairdresser: Pat McDermott. Set Dresser: Simon Wakefield. Asst Dir: Colin M. Brewer. Assoc Prod: William Hill. Ed: John Jympson. Music: Ron Goodwin.