The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock
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Murder! (1930)
The Skin Game (1931)
Rich and Strange (1931)
Number Seventeen (1932)
Waltzes from Vienna (1934)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Secret Agent (1936)
Sabotage (1936)
Young and Innocent (1937)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Rebecca (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
Saboteur (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Lifeboat (1944)
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Rope (1948)
Under Capricorn (1949)
Stage Fright (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
I Confess (1953)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Wrong Man (1956)
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1966)
Topaz (1969)
Frenzy (1972)
Family Plot (1976)
Abbreviations
AH Alfred Hitchcock
AHC MHL Alfred Hitchcock Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
BFI British Film Institute
MHL Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Kirby Transcripts of interviews by Tim Kirby, Patrick McGilligan Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
DSP UCLA Donald Spoto Papers, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Library, University of California, Los Angeles
HGARC Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University
OHP Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Oral History Projects
PMC WHS Patrick McGilligan Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
SMU DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection
Notes
INTRODUCTION
xi It appears he . . . 1921: Patrick McGilligan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), loc. 1062 of 20272, Kindle.
xii According to Hitchcock . . . present: Andy Warhol, “Hitchcock,” Andy Warhol’s Interview, September 1974, 7.
xii “an economical way . . . cinema”: Paula Marantz Cohen, “Alfred Hitchcock: modest exhibitionist,” TLS (September 5, 2008), https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/alfred-hitchcock-modest-exhibitionist/.
xiv The economist David Galenson . . . either: David Galenson, Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006).
xvi “I’ve never known . . . should be”: Norman Lloyd, interview by Fletcher Markle, “A Talk with Hitchcock, Part Two,” Telescope, on the DVD A Talk with Hitchcock, 2000. Originally broadcast by CBC, 1964.
1: THE BOY WHO COULDN’T GROW UP
2 “This eerie and . . . scuttles”: “Our Captious Critic: ‘Mary Rose,’ at the Haymarket Theatre,” review of Mary Rose by J. M. Barrie, Haymarket Theatre, London, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, May 15, 1920.
2 “slice of a delightful cake”: “ ‘Mary Rose’ at the Haymarket,” review of Mary Rose by J. M. Barrie, Haymarket Theatre, London Common Cause, May 7, 1920.
2 It so influenced . . . inspiration: Herbert Coleman to Kay Selby, May 9, 1957, Paramount Pictures Production Records, MHL.
3 “the man is not different from the boy”: Charlotte Chandler, It’s Only a Movie—Alfred Hitchcock: A Personal Biography (London: Pocket Books, 2006), 34.
3 “A wonderful character . . . line”: Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell, in “Reputations,” Hitch: Alfred the Great, BBC Two, May 30, 1999.
5 “lamb without a spot”: François Truffaut, Hitchcock (London: Faber & Faber, 2017), 25.
5 Society of Jesus . . . God: For a useful narrative history of the Jesuits, see Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue, and Power—A History of the Jesuits (London: Doubleday, 2005).
5 “highly dramatic . . . going for execution”: John O’Riordan, “Interview with Alfred Hitchcock,” Ignatian, summer 1973, reprinted in Neil Hurley, Soul in Suspense: Hitchcock’s Fright and Delight (Metuchen, NJ, and London: Scarecrow Press, 1993), 290.
6 “spread it over . . . strokes”: Ibid.
6 He told some . . . work: Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (London: Collins, 1983), 28, citing an interview with Hitchcock in TV Guide, May 29, 1965.
6 “If you don’t . . . id”: Bill Mumy, interview by Archive of American Television, September 3, 2013, Television Academy Foundation, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/bill-mumy.
7 “I don’t remember ever having a playmate”: “The Elderly Cherub That Is Hitchcock,” TV Guide, May 29, 1965, 15.
7 schoolmates tended to . . . fish: McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 485 of 20272, Kindle.
7 “An alarm clock . . . inside”: Hedda Hopper, “Hitchcock: He Runs on Fear,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1958, part V, 1.
7 “It was amazing . . . screen”: Robert Boyle, OHP.
7 “a visual poet of anxiety and accident”: Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 9.
8 “I think he . . . nerve-wracking”: Chandler, It’s Only a Movie, 37.
8 “I must have . . . boys”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 25.
8 John Russell Taylor . . . events: John Russell Taylor, Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock (London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2013), loc. 147 of 5468, Kindle.
8 the journalist Oriana Fallci . . . eleven: Oriana Fallaci, “Mr. Chastity,” in The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews, trans. Pamela Swinglehurst (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1968), 249. The interview took place in May 1963. See also McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 137 of 20272, Kindle.
8 “I’m told I . . . thrills”: “Hitchcock in Sydney on PR Visit,” The Advertiser, May 5, 1960, AHC MHL.
9 “perhaps he was . . . about me”: Chandler, It’s Only a Movie, 31.
9 “There he was . . . time”: Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 340.
9 One time he . . . returned: Ibid., 18–19.
9 he explained that . . . “Boo!”: Hitchcock told the yarn to various interviewers, including Fletcher Markle and Dick Cavett. See Markle, “A Talk with Hitchcock, Part Two,” and The Dick Cavett Show, ABC, June 8, 1972.
10 “a clear horizon . . . plate”: AH, Markle, “A Talk with Hitchcock, Part Two.”
10 “a tidy mind”: AH, interview by George Angell, Time of My Life: Alfred Hitchcock, BBC Home Service, August 28, 1966.
10 “I believe it’s . . . pictures”: Chandler, It’s Only a Movie, 13.
10 “mind of an . . . abstractions”: Russell Maloney, “What Happens After That?” Profiles, New Yorker, September 10, 1938, 24.
11 “I was very . . . child”: Patrick McGilligan, Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 138.
11 “My wife says . . . child”: Hopper, “Hitchcock: He Runs on Fear,” 1.
11 “the sadness of . . . films”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Why I Am Afraid of the Dark,” in Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 1, ed. Sidney Gottlieb, trans. Claire Marrone (London: University of California Press, 1997), 143. Originally published as “Pourquoi J‘ai Peur la Nuit,” Arts: Lettres, Spectacles, no. 777 (June 1–7, 1960): 1, 7.
11 huge impact on Hitchcock: Alfred Hitchcock, “Columbus of the Screen,” Film Weekly, February 21, 1931, 9.
11 San Francisco Bay
Area Transit system: Hitchcock’s interest in working the Bay Area rail network into the script of Family Plot is evident in the transcript of his story conferences with the film’s screenwriter, Ernest Lehman. Ernest Lehman Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
11 the distance between . . . filmed: Discussion of these issues occurs in various letters and memos in the folder relating to The Short Night, AHC MHL.
13 “Your problem, Hitch . . . adult”: Herbert Coleman, The Man Who Knew Hitchcock: A Hollywood Memoir (Lanham, MD; Toronto; Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 220.
13 “I really don’t . . . arms?”: The Birds story conference, February 24, 1962, AHC MHL.
13 “pretty little fat . . . realistic”: Vicky Lebeau, Childhood and Cinema (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 37.
14 per the critic Michael Walker: Michael Walker, Hitchcock’s Motifs (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005), 98–110.
15 “I loved the . . . stuff”: Rex Reed, “Film Violence,” Calgary Herald, June 17, 1972, 65.
16 “The bomb is . . . wish?”: F. S. Jennings, “Master of Suspense,” The Era, December 9, 1936, 13.
16 “there is a . . . code”: James Chapman, Hitchcock and the Spy Film (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 102, citing Anthony Lejeune, ed., The C.A. Lejeune Film Reader (Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1991), 107.
17 “Had the audience . . . outraged”: Alfred Hitchcock, “The Enjoyment of Fear,” Good Housekeeping, February 1949, 243.
17 “The boy was . . . deliberately”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 109.
17 The director Gus Van Sant . . . heart: Gus Van Sant in discussion with the author, October 17, 2018.
18 From the television . . . filmography: Ibid.
18 “a 3 foot . . . neck”: Donald Du Pre to AH, undated, AHC MHL.
20 “Not too much . . . reasonable”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 259.
20 About a year . . . smash: Jay Presson Allen, interviewed by Tim Kirby for Reputations, BBC, PMC WHS.
20 “solid, unblurred images”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 51.
22 In an earlier . . . mother: notes on script, “MELANIE—FINAL SEQUENCE,” April 9, 1962, AHC MHL.
22 “I would go . . . before”: William Baer, Classic American Films: Conversations with the Screenwriters (Westport, CT; London: Praeger, 2008), 81.
22 “I said to Hitchcock . . . stopping him”: “Everyone’s Wicked Uncle,” BBC Radio 3, 1999.
23 “I think I . . . people”: Taylor, Hitch, loc. 199 of 5468, Kindle.
24 “Your father’s dead . . . dissociation”: Ibid., loc. 483 of 5468, Kindle.
24 Sixteen thousand Londoners . . . 1918: Mark Honigsbaum, Living with Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 (London: Macmillan, 2009), 105.
24 “Londoners almost without . . . everything”: Jerry White, Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War (London: Bodley Head, 2014), i.
25 “relentless disruption and . . . night”: Ibid., 215.
25 “did not impinge much on him”: Taylor, Hitch, loc. 488 of 5468, Kindle.
26 “inspired by a . . . look”: “Westcliff Cine Club Visits Mr Hitchcock in Hollywood,” https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-westcliff-cine-club-visits-mr-hitchcock-in-hollywood-1963-online
2: THE MURDERER
28 “passion for films . . . learn”: Michael Balcon, Michael Balcon Presents: A Lifetime of Films (London: Hutchinson, 1969), 19.
28 “I’m sure that . . . to do so”: Ibid.
28 “a twilight of . . . landscapes”: Lottie Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt (Davis: University of California Press, 2008), 8.
28 “know-it-all son of a bitch”: Chandler, It’s Only a Movie, 51.
28 “I can smile . . . ghastly”: Alfred Hitchcock, “My Screen Memories—I: I Begin with a Nightmare,” Film Weekly, May 2, 1936, 16.
30 “the suddenness of . . . blue”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 268.
30 “a rotting corpse . . . knifed”: Keith Brace, “The Trouble with Alfred,” Birmingham Daily Post, August 5, 1960, 3.
30 “reflect in any . . . mind”: Alfred Hitchcock and Frederic Wertham, “A Redbook Dialogue,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 1, 152. Originally published in Redbook 120 (April 1963): 71, 108, 110–12.
30 “sadism, perversion, bestiality . . . dangerous”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Why ‘Thrillers’ Thrive,” Picturegoer, January 18, 1936, 15.
30 Staff of his . . . pale: Peggy Robertson, OHP.
30 “I did what . . . home”: Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 311.
31 “people will immediately . . . corpse”: Fallaci, “Mr. Chastity,” in The Egotists, 243.
31 “I’ve spent so . . . hold of”: John Russell Taylor, “Surviving: Alfred Hitchcock,” Sight & Sound 46 (Summer 1977): 174.
31 “I would have . . . court”: Ivor Davis, “Alfred Hitchcock Abhors Violence, Prefers Suspense”: Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1969, 26.
32 “Many great English . . . English”: Hitchcock and Wertham, “A Redbook Dialogue,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 1, 152.
32 “crime mystique in . . . everyone”: R. Allen Leider, “Interview: Alfred Hitchcock,” in Sidney Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 260.
32 “Much perturbation appears . . . weeks”: “From the archive, 24 January 1920: Is there a crime wave in the country?” Guardian, January 24, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/jan/24/crime-wave-uk-1920. Originally published in the Manchester Guardian, January 24, 1920.
32 he claimed to . . . lessons: Taylor, Hitch, loc. 285 of 5468, Kindle.
34 “an ingrained racial sense of drama”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Murder–with English on It,” New York Times Magazine, March 3, 1957, 17.
34 American gangsters and . . . crimes: AH to Anita Colby, May 1, 1957, AHC MHL.
34 “it’s a matter . . . criminals don’t”: Leider, “Interview: Alfred Hitchcock,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2, 260.
34 “people get blasted . . . style”: Ibid.
35 “the evident trend . . . films”: Bosley Crowther to AH, December 1, 1960, AHC MHL.
36 “within living memory . . . crime”: George Orwell, “The English People,” I Have Tried to Tell the Truth: 1943–1944 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), 201.
36 “great period in . . . 1925”: George Orwell, “Decline of the English Murder,” in Decline of the English Murder (London: Penguin, 2009), 15.
37 “I am out . . . ‘shake-up’ ”: “Alfred Hitchcock Reveals His Methods,” Midland Daily Telegraph, July 14, 1936, 6.
37 “grow sluggish and . . . firsthand”: Hitchcock, “Why ‘Thrillers’ Thrive,” 15.
37 “To him, the . . . ovation”: Joseph Cotten, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere (London: Columbus Books, 1987), 64.
38 He said that . . . his dreams: Chandler, It’s Only a Movie, 19.
38 “those aspects of . . . at all”: Harold Hayes to AH, December 28, 1960, AHC MHL.
38 “for amusement, choose . . . Man”: Alfred Hitchcock, “The Sophistication of Violence,” Esquire, July 1961, 108.
39 David Thomson writes . . . footage: David Thomson, The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder (New York: Basic Books, 2009).
40 “first good film”: Leider, “Interview: Alfred Hitchcock,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2, 259.
40 “the first time . . . picture”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 44.
40 To Truffaut he . . . Paris: Ibid., 47.
41 “All murderers regard . . . mean”: “Alfred Hitchcock Murders a Blonde,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2, 87. Originally published in Weekend Magazine, Ottawa Citizen 8, no. 22 (May 31, 1958): 6, 7, 33, 44.
41 “another Hyde”: Simon Joyce, “Sexual Politics and the Aesthetics of Crime: Oscar Wilde in the ’90s,” ELH 69, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 5
01–23.
41 Such reporting promoted . . . Hyde: Ibid.
42 In 2002 and . . . Group: Before Cornwell’s second book was published, Patrick McGilligan noted the connection. See McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 12019 of 20272, Kindle. Cornwell’s books are Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed (New York: Little, Brown, 2002), and Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert (Seattle: Thomas & Mercer, 2017).
42 he bought one . . . wall: Inventory of Hitchcock’s art, AHC MHL.
45 “The program seems . . . for it”: Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock Presents Music to Be Murdered By, 1958.
45 “the master, Uncle Alfred”: @Eminem, Twitter, January 17, 2020, https://twitter.com/Eminem/status/1218044393736822786
46 “My parents were not political”: Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell and Laurent Bouzereau, Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man (New York: Berkley Books, 2003), 203.
46 “violent things . . . use them”: J. Danvers Williams, “The Censor Wouldn’t Pass It,” Film Weekly, November 5, 1938, 6.
46 “I was both . . . life”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 159.
47 according to one . . . conflict: Charles Barr and Alain Kerzoncuf, Hitchcock Lost and Found: The Forgotten Films (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 126.
47 Contrary to later. . . received: Ibid., 158.
47 “We realized that . . . conflicts”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 161.
48 Originally designed to . . . the Camps: Kay Gladstone, “Separate Intentions: The Allied Screening of Concentration Camp Documentaries in Defeated Germany in 1945–46: Death Mills and Memory of the Camps,” in Holocaust and the Moving Image: Representations in Film and Television since 1933, ed. Toby Haggith and Joanna Newman (London: Wallflower, 2005), 50–64.
48 Only in 2014 . . . Survey: The film is stored in the archives of the Imperial War Museum, but members of the public can view some of the footage that was in the cut of the documentary that Hitchcock worked on in the 2014 documentary, Night Will Fall, which tells the story of the making of the German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. The PBS Frontline documentary is also available online.
48 “thought he, a . . . he had”: Sidney Bernstein speaking in Night Will Fall, 2014.
48 “was very careful . . . any way”: Elizabeth Sussex, “The Fate of F3080,” Sight & Sound 53, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 92.