Alfred Hitchcock (159 page)

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Authors: Patrick McGilligan

BOOK: Alfred Hitchcock
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Other articles and books: Jackson J. Benson,
The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer
(Viking Press, 1984); Dennis Brian,
Tallulah, Darling
(Macmillan, 1980); MacDonald Carey,
The Days of My Life
(St. Martin’s Press, 1991); Martin Grams Jr.,
Suspense: Twenty Years of Thrills and Chills
(Morris Publishing, 1993); Robert E. Morseberger, “Adrift in Steinbeck’s
Lifeboat,” Literature/Film Quarterly
(fall 1976); Roy Simmonds,
John Steinbeck: The War Years, 1939-1945
(Bucknell University Press, 1996); George Turner,
“Saboteur:
Hitchcock Set Free,”
American Cinematographer
(Nov.-Dec. 1993); George Turner, “Hitchcock’s Mastery Is Beyond Doubt in
Shadow,” American Cinematographer
(May 1993); Bret Wood, “Foreign Correspondence: The Rediscovered War Films of Alfred Hitchcock,”
Film Comment
(July-Aug. 1993).

TEN: 1944-1947

Alan Osbiston’s anecdote about Hecht and Hitchcock playacting Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman comes from the unpublished version of
All Is Grist.
I have relied upon “The Unknown Hitchcock:
Watchtower over Tomorrow”
by Sidney Gottlieb from the
Hitchcock Annual
(1996-97), but augmented Gottlieb’s research with my delvings into the Edward R. Stettinius Papers. Ben Hecht is quoted from his papers and from
A Child of the Century
(Simon
& Schuster, 1954). Hitchcock refers to “a fascinating day at California Institute of Technology trying to get data on the atomic bomb” in “A Liberated Hitchcock Dreams Gaudy Dreams of Technicolor” by Thornton Delehanty,
New York Herald Tribune
(April 22, 1945). Frank Nugent mentions the visit to Dr. Millikan in “Assignment in Hollywood,”
Good Housekeeping
(Nov. 1945).

Ingrid Bergman is quoted from
My Story
(Delacorte Press, 1980) and Laurence Leamer’s
As Time Goes By
(Harper & Row, 1986). Gregory Peck is quoted from
Hollywood Royalty
, and the Krohn, Spoto, and Taylor books, but I also drew on his Southern Methodist University oral history. Salvador Dalí is quoted from Meredith Etherington-Smith’s
The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dalí
(Random House, 1992). James Bigwood’s definitive “Solving a
Spellbound
Puzzle,” re-creating the Hitchcock-Salvador Dalí collaboration, appeared in
American Cinematographer
(June 1991).

Edith Head is quoted from
Edith Head’s Hollywood
with Paddy Calistro (E. P. Dutton, 1983) and
The Dress Doctor
with Jane Kesner Ardmore (Little, Brown, 1959).

I have drawn extensively from the Sidney Bernstein Papers at the War Museum (which contains material relating to all the wartime information films) as well as Bernstein’s holdings at the BFI (relating to Transatlantic and other projects). I have consulted the extensive Warner Bros. Collection in the USC archives. These archives yielded background, information, financial details, publicity material, and memoranda and correspondence between Bernstein and Hitchcock, and others associated with their mutual endeavors. I have also cited Caroline Moorehead’s excellent
Sidney Bernstein
(Jonathan Cape, 1984).

The making of “F3080,” or “Memories of the Camp,” is recounted in “Out of the Archives: The Horror Film that Hitchcock Couldn’t Bear to Watch” by Norman Lebrecht in the
Sunday Times
(Feb. 17, 1984).

Bess Taffel is quoted from my interview with her in
Tender Comrades
(St. Martin’s Press, 1997).

“I even knew what lens I would use …” is from “Hitchcockney from Hollywood” by John Barber,
Leader Magazine
(May 25, 1946).

Hitchcock is quoted on the subject of
Under Capricorn
in
Hollywood Talks Turkey.
Jack Cardiff is quoted from my interview with him and from
Magic Hour
(Faber, 1996). Ann Todd is quoted from
The Eighth Veil
(William Kimber, 1980).

Other articles and books: Jack Cardiff, “The Problems of Lighting and Photographing
Under Capricorn,” American Cinematographer
(Oct. 1949); Doug Fetherling,
The Five Lives of Ben Hecht
(Lester and Orpen, 1977); Leonard Leff, “Cutting
Notorious,” Film Comment
(Mar-Apr. 1999); Herb A. Lightman, “Cameraman’s Director,”
American Cinematographer
(April 1947); William MacAdams,
Ben Hecht: The Man Behind the Legend
(Scribner’s,
1990); Ronald Mavor,
Dr. Mavor and Mr. Bridie
(Canongate and the National Library of Scotland, 1988).

ELEVEN: 1947-1950

Arthur Laurents is quoted from
Original Story By
(Knopf, 2000). Laurents declined to be interviewed for this book, but I consulted other interviews with him, including my own from
Backstory 2
(University of California Press, 1991). Laurents answered a handful of questions by E-mail. Farley Granger is quoted from his BBC transcript, “Out into the World” by Gordon Gow in
Films and Filming
(Oct. 1973), and “Granger on a Train,” Jessie Lilley’s interview in
Scarlet Street
(winter 1996).

I consulted numerous interviews and articles about James “Jimmy” Stewart. These include “The Many Splendored Actor: An Interview With Jimmy Stewart” by Neil P. Hurley in the
New Orleans Review
(spring 1983), “James Stewart: It’s a Wonderful Life” by Ray Comiskey in
Cinema Papers
(Jan. 1986), David Denicolo’s interview in
Interview
(Apr. 1990), “Small-Town Guy” by Mike Wilmington in
Film Comment
(Mar.-Apr. 1990), and Gregory Solman’s interview in
Projections 5
(Faber, 1996). I also referred to the biography
Pieces of Time: The Life of James Stewart
by Gary Fishgall (Scribner’s, 1997).

Whitfield Cook is quoted from his journal, from his interview with me, and from his BBC transcript.

Michael Wilding is quoted from
The Wilding Way
(St. Martin’s Press, 1982). I have quoted correspondence from the Marlene Dietrich Papers in Berlin, and from the actress’s autobiography,
Marlene
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989), Steven Bach’s biography
Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend
(Morrow, 1992), and her daughter Maria Riva’s
Marlene Dietrich
(Knopf, 1993). “The heroine’s mother was like mother …” is from
Films in Review
(Apr. 1950).

Other books: Sean French,
Patrick Hamilton: A Life
(Faber, 1993); Bruce Hamilton,
The Light Went Out: The Life of Patrick Hamilton
(Constable, 1972); Margaret Case Harriman,
Take Them Up Tenderly
(Knopf, 1944); Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein,
Jane Wyman
(Delacorte Press, 1985); Graham Payn and Sheridan Morley,
The Noel Coward Diaries
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982); Dimitri Tiomkin and Prosper Buranelli,
Please Don’t Hate Me
(Doubleday, 1959); Virginia Yates,
“Rope
Sets a Precedent,”
American Cinematographer
(July 1948).

TWELVE: 1950-1953

Hitchcock’s February 20, 1974, letter rejecting Alma’s participation in a book about “The Women Who Wrote the Movies” is in the Hitchcock Collection. William K. Everson’s interview was one of the “Illustrated Hitchcock” episodes for
Camera Three.

To trace the collaboration between Hitchcock and Raymond Chandler, and the script evolution of
Strangers on a Train
, I have drawn on my interviews with Whitfield Cook and Czenzi Ormonde, and cited Chandler’s correspondence from
Raymond Chandler Speaking
, ed. Dorothy Gardiner and Kathrine Sorley Walker (Houghton Mifflin, 1970) and
Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler
, ed. Frank MacShane (Delta, 1987). Robert C. Carringer’s article about the political subtext of
Strangers on a Train
, “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” appeared in
PMLA
(Mar. 2001). I also referred to Al Clark’s
Raymond Chandler in Hollywood
(Proteus, 1983), Gene D. Phillips’s
Creatures of Darkness: Raymond Chandler, Detective Fiction and Film Noir
(University Press of Kentucky, 2000), and Jon Tuska’s
In Manors and Alleys: A Casebook on the American Detective Film
(Greenwood Press, 1988).

“Afraid of any brush …” is from Alma Reville’s notes in the publicity file of
Suspicion
in the Hitchcock Collection.

The Laura Elliott (a.k.a. Kasey Rogers) anecdote is from Tom Weaver’s interview with the actress in
Science Fiction Confidential: Interviews with Twenty-three Monster Stars and Filmmakers
(McFarland, 2002).

Brian Aherne is quoted from
A Proper Job
(Houghton Mifflin, 1969). Karl Malden is quoted from
When Do I Start?
(Simon & Schuster, 1997). Bill Krohn augmented my account of
I Confess
with background on “Paul Anthelme,” his own research from the USC files, and insights into the film.

The anecdote about Hitchcock at the Canadian premiere of
I Confess
comes from Giles Pelletier’s interview in
Le Soleil
(Quebec, Aug. 14, 1999), while other background comes from “Hitchcock’s Quebec Shoot” by Jean-Claude Marineau in
Cinéma Canada
(Mar. 1985).

Peter Bordanaro’s illuminating article about
Dial M for Murder
, “A Play by Frederick Knott/A Film by Alfred Hitchcock,” appeared in
Sight and Sound
(summer 1976).

Grace Kelly is quoted from the Taylor and Spoto books, as well as from several biographies about her, including Steven England,
Grace of Monaco
(Doubleday, 1984); Robert Lacey,
Grace
(G. P. Putnam’s, 1994); Joshua Logan,
Movie Stars, Real People and Me
(Delacorte Press, 1978); James Spada,
Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess
(Doubleday, 1987).

Other books: Patricia Bosworth,
Montgomery Clift
(Harcourt, 1978); Merv Griffin,
Merv: An Autobiography
(Simon & Schuster, 1980).

THIRTEEN: 1953-1955

“We can all be millionaires …” is from Hitchcock’s December 7, 1978, letter to Lawrence Read, in the Hitchcock Collection. Bill Krohn wrote about Hitchcock’s art collection in “Le musée secret de M. Hitchcock” in
Cahiers du Cinéma
, no. 559 (July-Aug. 2001).

My understanding of Hitchcock’s Paramount period was enhanced by Herbert
Coleman’s
The Hollywood I Knew, A Memoir: 1916-1988
(Scarecrow Press, 2003), portions of which I read in draft form. I also conducted several interviews with Coleman, and he answered brief queries by mail.
Variety
is quoted on Don Hartman and Y. Frank Freeman from Hartman’s obituary in the March 26, 1958, issue.

John Michael Hayes has been extensively interviewed, but I also interviewed him for this biography. Other Hayes interviews I have drawn upon include Susan Green’s in
Backstory;
“Setting the Record Straight” by Steve Cohen in
Columbia Film View
(winter/spring 1990); and “The Hayes Office” by Richard Valley in
Scarlet Street
, nos. 21 and 22 (winter 1996). Steven DeRosa’s
Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes
(Faber, 2001) focuses on the complicated relationship between the two men.

The making of
Rear Window
is well reported in
“Rear Window”
by Arthur E. Gavin in
American Cinematographer
(Feb. 1954) and “Hitchcock’s Techniques Tell
Rear Window
Story” by David Atkinson in
American Cinematographer
(Jan. 1990). I drew from
“Rear Window:
The Untold Story” by Steve Cohen in
Columbia Film View
(winter/spring 1990); Michael R. Dilberto’s “Looking Through
Rear Window:
A Review of the United States Supreme Court Decision in
Stewart vs. Abend”
in
Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal
12, no. 2 (1992); and John Belton’s
Alfred Hitchcock’s
Rear Window (Cambridge University Press, 2000)—especially Scott Curtis’s piece, “The Making of
Rear Window.
” Francis M. Nevins Jr.’s
Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die
(Mysterious Press, 1988) supplied vital background on Woolrich and astutely analyzed the adaptation of the novella into the film.

John M. Woodcock writes about the editing of
To Catch a Thief
in “The Name Dropper,”
American Cinemeditor
(summer 1990). Lynn Murray is quoted from
Musician: A Hollywood Journal
(Lyle Stuart, 1987).

“It’s important that filmmakers …” is from “Conversations with Hitchcock” by Catherine de la Roche,
Sight and Sound
(winter 1955).

Shirley MacLaine is quoted from
“Don’t Fall Off the Mountain”
(W W Norton, 1970).

My portrait of the relationship between Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann was greatly informed by
Bernard Herrmann: Film Music and Narrative
by Graham Bruce (UMI Research Press, 1985) and
A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann
by Steven C. Smith (University of California Press, 1991). I have cited “Herrmann, Hitchcock, and the Music of the Irrational” by Royal S. Brown,
Cinema Journal
(spring 1982) and “Herrmann and the Politics of Film Music” by Steven C. Smith in
Schwann Opus
(summer 1996). I also consulted Royal S. Brown’s interview with Herrmann in
High Fidelity
(Sept. 1976) and “The Colour of the Music,” Ted Gilling’s interview in
Sight and Sound
(winter 1971-72).

André Bazin writes about visiting the
To Catch a Thief
set in Nice in
“Hitchcocks versus Hitchcock” in
Cahiers du Cinéma
(Oct. 1954), which was translated and reprinted in the Bazin collection
The Cinema of Cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock
(Seaver Books, 1982).

Doris Day is quoted from
Doris Day, Her Own Story
by A. E. Hotchner (William Morrow, 1975) but I also consulted her Southern Methodist University oral history.

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