Alfred Hitchcock (120 page)

To add to the bad timing, Prince Rainier was currently locked in a dispute with France, which regarded Monaco’s tax-free luring of French corporations as a violation of the treaty between the two nations. “Grace was going back to the movies, speculated newspapers from Nice to New Mexico,
to snub General de Gaulle, to prove Monaco’s independence—and to raise much-needed money for her beleaguered husband,” according to another Kelly biographer.
^*

Further complicating matters, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer then stirred from its slumber and took notice of Kelly’s announced comeback. The Princess of Monaco still had unfulfilled commitments on her MGM contract, and the current management wasn’t going to stand idly by if the actress came out of retirement for another studio.

The unexpected entanglements and controversy took an emotional toll on Princess Grace, and by early June, according to Rainier’s close aide Georges Lukamoski, she was “shocked beyond all measure,” sequestered in her room in the palace, and “in grave danger of breaking down.”

Soon it was clear that there was only one solution: Princess Grace had to withdraw from her commitment to
Marnie.
“It was heartbreaking for me,” the Princess wrote to Hitchcock, explaining her decision. With impressive tact, he wrote back, “Yes, it was sad, wasn’t it? … Without a doubt, I think you made not only the best decision, but the only decision, to put the project aside at this time. After all, it was only a movie.”

His letter included “a small tape recording” that Hitchcock made especially for Prince Rainier, which he advised playing “privately. It is not for all ears.” Its contents have never been divulged, but he told François Truffaut that Rainier “likes risqué stories so I sent him one on tape.”

Whatever public face Hitchcock put on this setback, privately he was miserable. Kelly was lost to him, and Hollywood, forever.
Marnie
was the last film he would ever write for a real or imaginary “HSH.” Evan Hunter was sent back to New York while Hitchcock pondered his next move. And
Marnie
was tabled, at least until the fall.

The same week that Grace Kelly resigned from
Marnie
, a letter arrived from François Truffaut, proposing to conduct a lengthy tape-recorded interview with Hitchcock, covering his entire career—the transcript of which would be published as a book, simultaneously in France and the United States. Although by now Hitchcock had been interviewed prolifically in newspapers and magazines, this was the first such comprehensive approach from a serious critic.

Truffaut’s book project had its immediate impetus in an April 1962 trip to New York, where he attended a luncheon with Bosley Crowther, still the first-string reviewer of the
New York Times
, and Herman Weinberg,
an associate in the film department of the Museum of Modern Art. In conversation with these and other well-placed New Yorkers, Truffaut was “astounded by the American critics’ deep disregard of Hitchcock’s work,” according to Truffaut biographers Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana. “For them, he was merely a good technician, a cynical and clever ‘master of suspense,’ a ‘moneymaker.’ ”

With Helen Scott, the press director of the French Film Office in New York, Truffaut developed the goal, as he stated in his book proposal, of changing “the idea Americans have of Hitchcock.” His own notion was that Hitchcock deliberately disguised his art and genius with a self-deprecating public image, intended to ingratiate himself with audiences and the studios. In his book proposal, Truffaut suggested that Hitchcock was probably the “biggest liar in the world”—a Hitchcockian character haunted by his secret fears of being revealed.

“The man who excels at filming fear is himself a very fearful person,” Truffaut theorized at the outset of the eventual book, “and I suspect that this trait of his personality has a direct bearing on his success. Throughout his entire career he has felt the need to protect himself from the actors, producers and technicians who, insofar as their slightest lapse or whim may jeopardize the integrity of his work, all represent as many hazards to a director. How better to defend oneself than to become the director no actor will question, to become one’s own producer, and to know more about technique than technicians?”

His June 2, 1963, letter to Hitchcock was more diplomatic. Truffaut reminded his subject of their previous encounters, and of the fact that he himself was now a filmmaker whose
Les Quatre Cents Coups, Tirez sur le Pianiste
, and
Jules et Jim
had been “fairly well-received” by critics. Truffaut said his contacts with the foreign press and “particularly in New York” had taught him “that on the whole there is too often a superficial approach to your achievements. On the other hand, the propaganda we initiated in the
Cahiers du Cinéma
, while effective in France, carried no weight in America, because the arguments were over-intellectual. …

“Moreover,” the letter continued, “now that I am a filmmaker, my admiration has, if anything, increased, strengthened by additional bases for appreciation. I’ve seen each of your pictures five or six times, now observing them primarily from the angle of construction.”

Truffaut explained that he wanted to examine Hitchcock’s life and career in detail, chronicling every period of activity, the cause and circumstances surrounding “the birth of each film, the development and construction of the scenario, problems of direction in respect to each picture, the situation of a film within the body of your work” and “your own evaluation of a film’s artistic and commercial results, in relation to your intentions.”

The edited manuscript would then be submitted to Hitchcock for his
approval and changes, and the final text prefaced by an introduction penned by Truffaut, “the essence of which can be summed up as follows: If cinema was to be deprived of sound overnight, and were once again to become a silent art, many directors would be doomed to unemployment. But among the survivors, the towering figure would be Alfred Hitchcock, who would inevitably be acknowledged as the best director in the world.”

The amount of time Hitchcock would need to set aside was seven to ten days, Truffaut estimated; he hoped to arrange the sessions before September 15, when he was slated to embark on his next production, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451.

At the apogee of his fame and success, Hitchcock nonetheless had fresh cause to feel underappreciated and buffeted about by the exigencies of the film business, and on the heels of Princess Grace’s defection from
Marnie
, he was all the more profoundly touched and flattered by Truffaut’s overture. Inside of a week, he sent a night cable to Paris, declaring, “Your letter made me cry and how grateful I am to receive such a tribute from you.” Hitchcock told Truffaut he needed to wait until he was through with the effects work for
The Birds
, but thought they might be able to get together at the end of August.

As he launched postproduction of
The Birds
in July, Hitchcock also devoted himself to preparing and shooting the one-hour “I Saw the Whole Thing”—the last television show he would ever direct, and the only one he made for the new
Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

“I Saw the Whole Thing” was adapted from a story by Henry Cecil, the author of
No Bail for the Judge.
John Forsythe played an attorney defending himself against a felony hit-and-run charge. In the opening sequence, five different witnesses observe a car braking after hitting a motorcyclist, and each person’s reaction to the incident is reconstructed in a short-story flashback. Forsythe’s baffling decision to represent himself in court, while refusing to testify on his own behalf, is explained by a twist ending: he has been sheltering his wife, the actual driver, who was on her way to the hospital, pregnant with their child. “Although well-constructed,” wrote J. L. Kuhns in his authoritative article on Hitchcock’s TV work, the episode “lacks stylistic interest. The director was undoubtedly putting all his effort into
The Birds.
”

Not quite:
The Birds
had already been turned over to the special-effects wizards. What was preoccupying Hitchcock was
Marnie.
With a partial continuity under his belt and studio money already invested in the project, he was loath to quit. But who could ever replace Grace Kelly?

One candidate was Claire Griswold, who received special billing for her small role in “I Saw the Whole Thing.” The character she played—a divorcée
distraught over having to give up her child for adoption—had psychological frailties reminiscent of Marnie’s. Certainly “I Saw the Whole Thing” was a kind of tryout for Griswold: August was full of hair and costume appointments for the young actress, like Tippi Hedren under personal contract to Hitchcock. She looked more like Vera Miles than like Grace Kelly, so the director concentrated on reshaping her look.

Hitchcock also met with Miles, another possible Marnie, and mused about putting her in the part. And of course he saw Hedren nearly every day, having lunch with the actress between stints of dubbing and looping
The Birds.
But he couldn’t make up his mind, and he didn’t want to resume the script until he had decided on his lead.

François Truffaut and Helen Scott arrived in Hollywood on Sunday, August 12, 1962. Hitchcock, had arranged for them to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel, though Truffaut later insisted on paying all his own bills, including the expensive lodgings—all except the limousine service that Hitchcock himself arranged. On Monday they plunged into work. In the morning, Truffaut and Scott watched the first rough cut of
The Birds
(still missing many of the optical effects, and with sound effects in place for only the final reel, the attack on the Brenner house). In the afternoon they turned on the tape recorder for the first time, then celebrated the Hitch-cocks’ sixty-third birthdays in the evening at Perrino’s.

The Frenchman had prepared exhaustively, spending three days at the Royal Cinémathèque in Brussels watching all of Hitchcock’s English films—including the rare silents, with which he “was ill acquainted,” according to his biographers, “and liked only moderately.” In spite of his winning smile and elfin looks (Scott dubbed him “Hitchcoquin,” a pun meaning “little rascal”), Truffaut was a tough customer who took to heart his role of critical investigator. If necessary, he would extract the interview like a bad tooth.

Scott’s excellent English made her involvement essential, for Truffaut’s was only passable—like Hitchcock’s command of French. Besides, Scott was feminine and charming, and Truffaut rightly anticipated that she would help put Hitchcock at ease. Scott often understood Hitchcock’s anecdotes and bawdy jokes when Truffaut did not, but her diligent efforts to interpret and bridge the dialogue led to rushed or awkward translations during the conversations, some of which would survive into the book.

Truffaut had expected Hitchcock to be an elusive liar, an artist guarding precious secrets, a man as furtive and mysterious as his films. Yet the Frenchman learned what the working press already knew: Hitchcock was an articulate, conscious creator (the
New Yorker
“had the ridiculous effrontery,” he scoffed at one point, “to say a picture like
North by North-west
was unconsciously funny”), fundamentally open and truthful about his craft. “Everything happened as Truffaut and Scott had hoped,” wrote de Baecque and Toubiana. “Hitchcock was specific, voluble, spirited, and delved willingly into the technical or interpretative details suggested by his interlocutors. He even discussed aspects of his childhood and adolescence, and his ambivalent relationships with actresses.”

In spite of his suspicious nature, Truffaut was completely won over. Hitchcock was reaffirmed as his idol—and all hints of the grand, secretive liar disappeared from his introduction.

On August 18 Hitchcock left Los Angeles for London, where he conferred with Bernard Herrmann on the sound track-in-progress for
The Birds.
While overseas he also made an excursion to Paris, where Truffaut arranged a dinner with other Nouvelle Vague filmmakers. He didn’t return to Los Angeles until September 11. But the interview talks with Truffaut and the three weeks of travel had reinvigorated him, and now, as he put the finishing touches on
The Birds
and began advance publicity for the film (including the famous portrait sessions with Philippe Halsman for
Life
), Hitchcock was ready to face
Marnie.

Claire Griswold was still a long-shot contender for his leading lady, and in the fall of 1962 Hitchcock ordered that her hair be redone by experts, her wardrobe reorganized by Edith Head, her skin and makeup refined by beauticians. The actress ate lunch after lunch with the director, who rehearsed her in Grace Kelly’s scenes from
Rear Window
and
To Catch a Thief
, first at Bellagio Road and then, at great expense, camera-testing her at the studio. Again and again she was tested, and the Hitchcocks and the production staff pored over the tests.

By November, Hitchcock was still unsure. The director took a day off to travel to Kansas City to attend to cattle shares he owned, while Mrs. Hitchcock traveled with Griswold to Bergdorf Goodman in New York for fresh fittings. The day before Thanksgiving, Hitchcock directed his last tests of Griswold—and by the following Monday he knew, painfully, that she would not be his Marnie.

All along, Tippi Hedren had been waltzing in and out of the office, keeping extremely busy with postproduction and prepublicity chores—and everyone who had seen the partial and advance screenings of
The Birds
, including Mrs. Hitchcock and Lew Wasserman, thought the first-time actress had shown tremendous poise, that she had given a remarkable performance. Everyone liked her personally—and, like Griswold, she was under contract.

Marnie was not so different from Melanie, who also bore a hint of frigidity and an emotionally scarred relationship with a callous mother.
Hitchcock himself had written the scene where Melanie articulates her psychological wounds, and that dialogue could have been written for either of the two films on his mind at the time,
The Birds
and
Marnie.
Hedren had substituted for Princess Grace once before; surely she could do so again. Less ceremoniously than before, Hitchcock told Hedren she would be Marnie—and gave her a hundred-dollar-weekly raise. When she voiced doubts over whether she could “play a part of this size, of this caliber,” in her words, “once again Hitch gave me the assurance and never, ever, let me think that I couldn’t do it.”