Alfred Hitchcock (158 page)

“He’s a master of well thought out effects …” is from Richard Overstreet’s interview in
George Cukor: Interviews
, ed. Robert Emmet Long (University Press of Mississippi, 2001).

Peggy Robertson is quoted here and elsewhere in the book from her oral history in the Margaret Herrick Library.

Datas is quoted from
Datas: The Memory Man
(Wright & Brown, 1932).

Stephen D. Youngkin’s
The Lost One: A Biography of Peter Lorre
(forthcoming, University of California Press) informed my chronicle of the making of
The Man Who Knew Too Much
and
Secret Agent.

I read Robert Donat’s correspondence with Hitchcock courtesy of the John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester, and quoted from Kenneth Barrow’s
Mr. Chips: The Life of Robert Donat
(Methuen, 1985). Sylvia Sidney is quoted from Gregory J. M. Catsos’s interview in
FILMFAX
(Nov. 1990) and Jeff Laffel’s interview in
Films in Review
(Sept.-Oct. 1994). Brian McFarlane’s excellent oral history
Sixty Voices
(BFI Publishing, 1992) was reissued in expanded form as
The Autobiography of British Cinema
(Methuen, 1997); I have particularly drawn from his interviews with Nova Pilbeam and Desmond Tester.

Other articles and books: John Belton, “Charles Bennett and the Typical Hitchcock Scenario,”
Film History
9, no. 3 (1998); T. E. B. Clarke,
This Is Where I Came In
(Michael Joseph, 1974); Jonathan Croall,
Gielgud: A Theatrical Life, 1902-2000
(Continuum, 2001); John Gielgud (with John Miller and John Powell),
An Actor and His Time
(Applause, 1979); Graham Greene,
The Pleasure Dome: The Collected Film Criticism, 1935–40
(Martin Secker & Warburg, 1972); Val Guest,
So You Want to Be in Pictures
(Reynolds & Hearn, 2001); James Hardin,
Emlyn Williams: A Life
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993); Ronald Hayman,
John Gielgud
(Heinemann, 1971); Louis Levy,
Music for the Movies
(Sampson Low, Marston, 1948); Sheridan Morley,
John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography
(Simon & Schuster, 2002); Garry O’Connor,
The Secret Woman: A Life of Peggy Ashcroft
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997); C. T.,
Penrose Tennyson
(A. S. Atkinson, 1943); J. C. Trewin,
Robert Donat: A Biography
(Heinemann, 1968); Emlyn Williams,
Emlyn: An Early Autobiography, 1927-1935
(Bodley Head, 1973).

Hitchcock’s article “Search for the Sun” appeared in the
New York Times
(Feb. 7, 1937), though it is actually a rewrite of “Why Britain’s Countryside Is Not Filmed,”
Film Pictorial
(Dec. 5, 1936). “The sky was always gray …” is from part 1 (“It’s Only a Movie …”) of a two-part BBC
Omnibus
documentary about Hitchcock (broadcast in 1986).

My account of Hitchcock’s first visit to America is culled from “Falstaff in Manhattan” in the
New York Times
(Sept. 5, 1937), “The Hitchcock Formula” in the
New York Times
(Feb. 13, 1938),
“39 Steps
Jolly Good, Hitchcock Discovers” by William Boehnel in the
New York World-Telegram
(Sept. 1, 1937), “Hitchcock Likes to Smash Cups” by H. Allen Smith in the
New York World-Telegram
(undated clipping), “Picture Parade” by Janet White (unsourced clipping, 1937), and “London Talk” in the
Hollywood Reporter
(Oct. 2, 1937).

Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder are quoted from
Launder and Gilliat
by Geoff Brown (BFI, 1977), but also from Gilliat’s unpublished memoirs (a portion of which was provided to the author by Charles Barr), Gilliat’s BECTU interview transcript, and “The Early Life of a Screenwriter II,” Kevin Macdonald’s extensive interview in
Projections 2
(Faber, 1997).

Michael Redgrave is quoted from
In My Mind’s I: An Actor’s Autobiography
(Viking, 1983). Margaret Lockwood is quoted from
Lucky Star
(Odhams Press, 1955).

My account of Hitchcock’s first trip to Hollywood is drawn largely from the Myron Selznick Collection, with other details collected from “Hitchcock for Hollywood and the Experience Will Probably Do Him Good” by Herbert Thompson in
Film Weekly
(July 16, 1938), “Alfred Hitchcock: England’s Best and Biggest Director Goes to Hollywood” by Geoffrey T. Hellman in
Life
(Nov. 29, 1940), “Picture Plays and Players: Alfred Hitchcock, English Director, to Take a Look at Hollywood” by Eileen Creelman in the
New York Sun
(June 15, 1938), and “What Happens After That,” Russell Maloney’s profile of the director in the
New Yorker
(Sept. 10, 1938). Hitchcock muses about American trains in “Hitchcock Steps Off Deadly Trains” by Art Buchwald in the
New York Herald Tribune
(Jan. 16, 1955). “A long-felt desire …” and “I once thought of opening a film …” are from the
New York Times
(Feb. 13, 1938).

“If I do go to Hollywood …” is from “The Censor and Sydney Street” by Leslie Perkoff,
World Film News
(March 1938). I am grateful to Charles Barr for his research and insights into “‘A Marvelously Dramatic Subject’: Hitchcock’s
Titanic
Project” from the
Hitchcock Annual
(2000-2001). The Charles Laughton anecdotes are from Andy Warhol’s interview with Hitchcock in
Interview
(Sept. 1974) and the director’s dialogue with Pia Lindstrom, one of two
Camera Three
episodes known as “The Illustrated Hitchcock” (broadcast in 1972).

Books: Simon Callow,
Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
(Methuen, 1987); Charles Higham,
Charles Laughton: An Intimate Biography
(W H. Allen, 1976); Paul Macnamara,
Those Were the Days, My Friend: My Life in Hollywood with David O. Selznick and Others
(Scarecrow Press, 1993); Leo Rosten,
Hollywood: The Movie Colony, the Movie Makers
(Harcourt, Brace, 1941); Kurt Singer,
The Laughton Story
(John C. Winston, 1954); Hilton
Tims,
Once a Wicked Lady: A Biography of Margaret Lockwood
(Virgin, 1989).

“My Ten Favorite Pictures” is from the
New York Sun
(March 15, 1939). “Naturally, Selznick dominated the scene …” is from “Hitchcock: In the Hall of Mogul Kings” in the
London Times
(June 23, 1969).

Joan Fontaine is quoted from
No Bed of Roses
(William Morrow, 1978), but also from her Southern Methodist University oral history and published interviews, including Brian McFarlane’s in
Cinema Papers
(Australia, June 1982), Robert Kendall’s in
Hollywood Studio Magazine
, no. 3 (1990), and Gregory Speck’s in
Interview
(Feb. 1987). Speck’s interview was recycled for
Hollywood Royalty: Hepburn, Davis, Stewart and Friends at the Dinner Party of the Century
(Birch Lane Press, 1992). “We all could see precisely …” is from the BBC documentary “It’s Only A Movie …”

H. Mark Glancy’s
When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood ‘British’ Film, 1939–45
(Manchester University Press, 1999) greatly enhanced my understanding of Hitchcock’s wartime filmmaking, and the author also corresponded with me, filling in gaps.

Matthew Bernstein’s
Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent
was my primary source on the film producer. I consulted George Turner’s well-researched
“Foreign Correspondent
—The Best Spy Thriller of All” from
American Cinematographer
(Aug. 1995). Joel McCrea is quoted on Hitchcock from my interview with him in
Film Crazy
(St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Michael Balcon’s attack on Hitchcock was published in the
London Sunday Dispatch
(Aug. 25, 1940), Hitchcock’s reply came in the
New York World-Telegram
(Aug. 27, 1940), and the British
anti-Foreign Correspondent
broadside appeared in the
Documentary News Letter
(Dec. 1940).

Hitchcock discusses the possibilities of color in “Cinema Matters” by Virginia Wright, an undated
Hollywood Citizen-News
article in the
Suspicion
microfiche at the Margaret Herrick Library.

Bill Krohn supplied me with his illuminating piece about
Suspicion
, “Ambivalence,” which appeared in French in
Trafic
(spring 2002), and in English in the
Hitchcock Annual
(2003-4).

Samson Raphaelson’s anecdote about the benzedrine dinner party comes from the
Spellbound
publicity file in the Margaret Herrick Library.

Cary Grant gave few substantive interviews in his career, but for this book I have drawn on “Notorious Gentleman” by Ruth Waterbury in
Photoplay
(Jan. 1947), “Cary Grant—Indestructible Pro” by Richard G. Hubler in
Coronet
(Aug. 1957), “The Riddle of Cary Grant” by Eleanor Harris in
McCall’s
(Sept. 1958), “What It Means to Be a Star” by Grant himself in
Films and Filming
(July 1961), and Kent Schuelke’s interview in
Interview
(Jan. 1987). I have also cited from Maureen Donaldson and William Royce,
An Affair to Remember:
My Life with Cary Grant
(G. K. Hall, 1990), Charles Higham and Roy Moseley,
Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart
(Harcourt Brace, 1989), and Nancy Nelson,
Evenings with Cary Grant
(William Morrow, 1991).

For details of the Santa Cruz residence, I have relied on two excellent articles: “Hitchcock Had Link to Santa Cruz” by Ross Eric Gibson in the
San Jose Mercury News
(Nov. 19, 1994) and Catherine Graham’s “Hitch’s Retreat” in the
Santa Cruz County Sentinel
(Aug. 13, 1999).

Hitchcock’s tribute to Ford is reprinted in Galyn Studlar and Matthew Bernstein, eds.,
John Ford Made Westerns: Filming the Legend in the Sound Era
(Indiana University Press, 2001).

My account of Hitchcock’s relationship with the Film Censor in England and the Production Code in Hollywood was aided by Gerald Gardner’s
The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office, 1934–1968
(Dodd, Mead., 1987); Raymond Moley’s
The Hays Office
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1945); Jeffrey Richards’s “The British Board of Film Censors and Content Control in the 1930s: Images of Britain,”
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
1, no. 2 (1981); Murray Schumach’s
The Face on the Cutting Room Floor
(William Morrow, 1964); Anthony Slide’s
‘Banned in the U.S.A.’: British Films in the United States and Their Censorship, 1933-1960
(I. B. Tauris, 1998); and Frank Walsh’s
Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry
(Yale University Press, 1996).

Other articles and books: Billy Altman,
Laughter’s Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley
(W W Norton, 1997); Osmond Borradaile (with Anita Borradaile Hadley),
Life Through a Lens: Memoirs of a Cinematographer
(McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001); Roland Flamini,
Scarlett, Rhett, and a Cast of Thousands: The Filming of Gone
With the Wind (Macmillan, 1975); Susan Lowndes, ed.,
Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947
(Chatto & Windus, 1971); Miklós Rózsa,
Double Life: The Autobiography of Miklos Rozsa
(Midas Books, 1982); Donald Spoto,
Laurence Olivier: A Biography
(HarperCollins, 1992); Donald Spoto,
Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman
(HarperCollins, 1997); Bob Thomas,
Selznick
(Doubleday, 1970).

John Houseman is quoted from
Unfinished Business: Memoirs, 1902-1988: Run-Through, Front and Center
, and
Final Dress
(Applause, 1989). The strawberries Romanoff anecdote is from “‘Hitch’ Tops, Flagg Says” by James Montgomery Flagg in the
Hollywood Citizen-News
(Nov. 6, 1941). Priscilla Lane is quoted from Doug McClelland’s
Forties Film Talk
(McFarland, 1992). Norman Lloyd is quoted from my interview with him, but also from
Stages of Life in Theatre, Film and Television
(Limelight, 1993), and from other published interviews, including “Norman Lloyd: Working with Hitch” by Tom Weaver in
Classic Images
(April 2000) and “The Man on the Statue of Liberty” by Ira Sandler in FILMFAX (April-May, 2003).

My account of the making of
Shadow of a Doubt
is drawn from the Universal Studio Collection and Jack Skirball’s Papers in the USC archives, and from Thornton Wilder’s Papers at Yale. I have cited
The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder
by Gilbert A. Harrison (Ticknor & Fields, 1983), and quoted Wilder from
The Letters of Alexander Woollcott
, eds. Beatrice Kaufman and Joseph Hennessey (Viking, 1944). Hitchcock recalls Wilder borrowing from Hemingway in “In Charge,”
New Yorker
(March 30, 1963). The Gordon McDonell background of the original story is related in
Hitchcock’s Notebooks.
Joseph Cotten is quoted from
Vanity Will Get You Somewhere
(Mercury House, 1987). Teresa Wright is quoted from “Teresa Wright on
Shadow of a Doubt”
in
Projections 7
(Faber, 1997).

All the treatments and drafts of
Lifeboat
, the studio memoranda, legal depositions, and court papers relating to the case of
Sidney Easton v. Twentieth Century–Fox Film Corp.
were furnished by Twentieth Century–Fox. Kenneth MacGowan’s Papers at the University of California at Los Angeles provided additional documentation.

Hume Cronyn is quoted from his correspondence with me, his papers at the Library of Congress, “Melodrama Maestro” by Cronyn in
Maclean’s
(Nov. 1, 1944), and
A Terrible Liar
(William Morrow, 1991). Walter Slezak is quoted from
What Time’s the Next Swan?
(Doubleday, 1962).

Philip Kemp wrote about
Aventure Malgache
and
Bon Voyage
in
Sight and Sound
(Nov. 1993).