It was forty-seven years ago today that Alfred Hitchcock's ghostwriter, James Allardice, died suddenly of a heart attack. For a little more than a decade, Allardice penned the introductions and closings that helped transform the British filmmaker into a household word in the US through his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and its hour-long incarnation, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Even more than these little vignettes that suited the public persona that Hitchcock wanted to portray, during that time, Allardice regularly wrote speeches, articles and other remarks for the director.
Allardice first made a name for himself as a playwright with the successful run of his comedy At War with the Army, which he wrote while at an Army training camp in Kentucky in 1944, and later revised while attending Yale School of Drama. The comedy hit Broadway in 1949 and a year later it was bought by Paramount Pictures to become the basis for one of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies not produced by Hal Wallis. Following that successful teaming, Allardice would go on to write the screenplays for three more Martin and Lewis comedies—Sailor Beware, Jumping Jacks, and Money From Home—each produced by Wallis.
Allardice really hit his stride, though, writing for television, winning an Emmy for Best Written Comedy Material in 1955 for writing The George Gobel Show. While writing the intros for Hitchcock's series, Allardice tried his hand at hour-long drama for such programs as Lux Video Theatre and Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. His true talent however was in comedy. Mention Hazel, Gomer Pyle: USMC, F Troop, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, My Three Sons, Hogan's Heroes and The Munsters, and it seems that Allardice wrote a handful of episodes for nearly every popular comedy series from the early to mid-1960s.
In many ways, Hitchcock's "ghost" has haunted Hitchcock ever since, as it's the public persona that Allardice helped create which is the impression of the director most familiar to the general public.* That caricature of the droll Hitchcock, spewing out bits of macabre humor, may have been clever branding that helped the director achieve and maintain a certain level of commercial success, but in another way, it may also have delayed what Hitchcock desired even longer—being taken seriously as an artist by the "establishment."
*It is also a myth is that Allardice's untimely death brought about the end to Hitchcock's venture in television, when in fact the series had ended its run more than nine months prior.
Showing posts with label Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2013
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Alfred Hitchcock's Favorite Crime: The Case of Dr. Crippen
A Christmas treat courtesy of hulu.com...the Alfred Hitchcock directed episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Back for Christmas, followed by a little background on Hitchcock's favorite crime. Enjoy!
That Alfred Hitchcock possessed one of the most complete collections of literature relating to true crime is a well-known fact. Frequently elements from the most notorious criminal cases found their way into Hitchcock’s films. The case of Jack-the-Ripper was the inspiration for The Lodger
; the Siege of Sidney Street made its way into The Man Who Knew Too Much
(1934); the trial of William Palmer influenced Suspicion; the manner in which Patrick Mahon disposed of his victim’s remains became part of Rear Window
; the crimes of Ed Gein inspired Psycho
. Perhaps the case which Hitchcock referred to most often for inspiration was the case of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
The facts of the case are simple enough: Dr. Crippen poisoned his wife, Cora, by giving her a lethal dose of hyoscin. He then cut up the corpse, burned and buried the remains in the basement of his home, and went about concealing his crime by writing several letters to his wife’s friends explaining that she had gone to America. During the next few months, Dr. Crippen pawned several pieces of his wife’s jewelry, and was frequently seen in the company of his mistress, Ethel Le Neve. When the police became suspicious, Crippen left his home, prompting a thorough search of the house, where human remains were discovered beneath the bricks of the coal cellar. Within days, Crippen and Le Neve, boarded the S.S. Montrose for America, disguised as father and son, but were quickly found out by the ship’s captain who sent a wireless message back to England, indicating that the fugitives were passengers on his ship. Detectives boarded another ship which intercepted the Montrose, and the pair were arrested at sea. After a trial which lasted five days, Crippen was found guilty and sentenced to death, and executed one month later.
Filson Young, who edited the volume The Trial of H. H. Crippen for the series Notable British Trials, noted that the case was extraordinary not so much from a legal point of view, but that its fascination came from its central figures. There are several theories as to why Crippen murdered his wife. The official theory of the prosecution was that Crippen murdered his wife so that he could be with Ethel Le Neve. Another theory had it that Dr. Crippen could not satisfy his wife’s sexual appetite, and sought to depress her sexual drive by giving her a dose of hydrobromide of hyoscin (which at the time was used to treat extreme cases of sexual addiction). Crippen administered 5 grains of hyoscin to his wife in a cup of coffee, and to his horror, she died. Fearing no one would accept his explanation, he cut up, burned, and disposed of his wife’s remains and went about explaining her disappearance as he did.
Young dismisses these theories however in light of the facts of the case. Young’s theory is that on several occasions Cora Crippen had threatened to leave her husband if he did not give up his association with Ethel Le Neve, and that she would take all her money (and jewelry) with her. It was this threat that sealed Cora Crippen’s fate.
Aspects of the case recur in Hitchcock’s work on both the big and small screen. The example cited most often by Hitchcock was in Rear Window, where the plot was constructed so that the chief piece of evidence incriminating the murderer, Lars Thorwald, was the jewelry left behind by his late wife, particularly her wedding ring. The incriminating jewelry idea was used again by Hitchcock in Vertigo
, as Judy Barton adorns the necklace that had once belonged to Carlotta Valdes which was inherited by the real Madeline Elster.
Hitchcock was not the only artist who saw the dramatic possibilities of the Crippen case. Francis Isles (pseudonym of Anthony Berkely Cox) based his 1931 novel Malice Aforethought
on the Crippen case. Hitchcock had filmed Isles’s Before the Fact
as Suspicion 
in 1941 for RKO, and later directed a radio production of Malice Aforethought in 1945. Hitchcock wanted to make a film out of Malice Aforethought, and even announced it as a possibility for his own production company Transatlantic Pictures in 1953. Alec Guinness was the director’s choice for the role of the murderous Dr. Bickleigh, but as the actor was unavailable and Hitchcock moved from Warner Brothers to Paramount later that year, the project was never seriously developed.
Another aspect of the case influenced Frederick Knott’s play Dial M for Murder
. In his statement to the police, Dr. Crippen explained that for a period of eight months he went to America on business, and his wife remained in England. During her husband’s absence, Cora Crippen had begun singing at smoking concerts, and was receiving attention from an American music hall artist named Bruce Miller. Crippen stated, “I never saw the man Bruce Miller, but he used to call when I was out, and used to take her out in the evenings ... I did not think anything of Bruce Miller’s visiting my wife at the time ... I have seen letters from Bruce to her, which ended ‘with love and kisses to Brown Eyes.’” At trial, Bruce Miller denied that he and Mrs. Crippen had ever been lovers, and stated that his letters were not ‘love letters’, but ‘affectionate letters.’ In Dial M for Murder, it is a love letter from Mark Halliday (Max in the play) to Margot Wendice which brings about Tony Wendice’s murderous intentions.
The closest Hitchcock came to making a film directly influenced by the Crippen case was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called Back for Christmas. In this episode, Herbert Carpenter, played by Hitchcock favorite John Williams (The Paradine Case
, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief
), kills his wife Hermione on the eve of their prolonged trip to America. Herbert buries his wife in the basement of their house, where he had been digging a hole for the installation of a wine cellar. He then goes to California alone, and is enjoying life as a bachelor. Early on, Hermione insisted to her friends (over her husband’s objections) that they’d be “back for Christmas.” To cover his tracks, Herbert writes letters to Hermione’s friends, just as Dr. Crippen did, indicating they have decided not to return to England. But Herbert’s undoing comes when he receives a bill from an excavation company engaged by his wife to complete the wine cellar during their absence, insisting that the work be completed before Christmas. It seems Hermione was right, after all.
That Alfred Hitchcock possessed one of the most complete collections of literature relating to true crime is a well-known fact. Frequently elements from the most notorious criminal cases found their way into Hitchcock’s films. The case of Jack-the-Ripper was the inspiration for The Lodger
; the Siege of Sidney Street made its way into The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); the trial of William Palmer influenced Suspicion; the manner in which Patrick Mahon disposed of his victim’s remains became part of Rear Window; the crimes of Ed Gein inspired Psycho. Perhaps the case which Hitchcock referred to most often for inspiration was the case of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. The facts of the case are simple enough: Dr. Crippen poisoned his wife, Cora, by giving her a lethal dose of hyoscin. He then cut up the corpse, burned and buried the remains in the basement of his home, and went about concealing his crime by writing several letters to his wife’s friends explaining that she had gone to America. During the next few months, Dr. Crippen pawned several pieces of his wife’s jewelry, and was frequently seen in the company of his mistress, Ethel Le Neve. When the police became suspicious, Crippen left his home, prompting a thorough search of the house, where human remains were discovered beneath the bricks of the coal cellar. Within days, Crippen and Le Neve, boarded the S.S. Montrose for America, disguised as father and son, but were quickly found out by the ship’s captain who sent a wireless message back to England, indicating that the fugitives were passengers on his ship. Detectives boarded another ship which intercepted the Montrose, and the pair were arrested at sea. After a trial which lasted five days, Crippen was found guilty and sentenced to death, and executed one month later.
Filson Young, who edited the volume The Trial of H. H. Crippen for the series Notable British Trials, noted that the case was extraordinary not so much from a legal point of view, but that its fascination came from its central figures. There are several theories as to why Crippen murdered his wife. The official theory of the prosecution was that Crippen murdered his wife so that he could be with Ethel Le Neve. Another theory had it that Dr. Crippen could not satisfy his wife’s sexual appetite, and sought to depress her sexual drive by giving her a dose of hydrobromide of hyoscin (which at the time was used to treat extreme cases of sexual addiction). Crippen administered 5 grains of hyoscin to his wife in a cup of coffee, and to his horror, she died. Fearing no one would accept his explanation, he cut up, burned, and disposed of his wife’s remains and went about explaining her disappearance as he did.
Young dismisses these theories however in light of the facts of the case. Young’s theory is that on several occasions Cora Crippen had threatened to leave her husband if he did not give up his association with Ethel Le Neve, and that she would take all her money (and jewelry) with her. It was this threat that sealed Cora Crippen’s fate.
Aspects of the case recur in Hitchcock’s work on both the big and small screen. The example cited most often by Hitchcock was in Rear Window
, where the plot was constructed so that the chief piece of evidence incriminating the murderer, Lars Thorwald, was the jewelry left behind by his late wife, particularly her wedding ring. The incriminating jewelry idea was used again by Hitchcock in Vertigo, as Judy Barton adorns the necklace that had once belonged to Carlotta Valdes which was inherited by the real Madeline Elster.Hitchcock was not the only artist who saw the dramatic possibilities of the Crippen case. Francis Isles (pseudonym of Anthony Berkely Cox) based his 1931 novel Malice Aforethought
on the Crippen case. Hitchcock had filmed Isles’s Before the Fact as Suspicion in 1941 for RKO, and later directed a radio production of Malice Aforethought in 1945. Hitchcock wanted to make a film out of Malice Aforethought, and even announced it as a possibility for his own production company Transatlantic Pictures in 1953. Alec Guinness was the director’s choice for the role of the murderous Dr. Bickleigh, but as the actor was unavailable and Hitchcock moved from Warner Brothers to Paramount later that year, the project was never seriously developed. Another aspect of the case influenced Frederick Knott’s play Dial M for Murder
. In his statement to the police, Dr. Crippen explained that for a period of eight months he went to America on business, and his wife remained in England. During her husband’s absence, Cora Crippen had begun singing at smoking concerts, and was receiving attention from an American music hall artist named Bruce Miller. Crippen stated, “I never saw the man Bruce Miller, but he used to call when I was out, and used to take her out in the evenings ... I did not think anything of Bruce Miller’s visiting my wife at the time ... I have seen letters from Bruce to her, which ended ‘with love and kisses to Brown Eyes.’” At trial, Bruce Miller denied that he and Mrs. Crippen had ever been lovers, and stated that his letters were not ‘love letters’, but ‘affectionate letters.’ In Dial M for Murder, it is a love letter from Mark Halliday (Max in the play) to Margot Wendice which brings about Tony Wendice’s murderous intentions.The closest Hitchcock came to making a film directly influenced by the Crippen case was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called Back for Christmas. In this episode, Herbert Carpenter, played by Hitchcock favorite John Williams (The Paradine Case
, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief), kills his wife Hermione on the eve of their prolonged trip to America. Herbert buries his wife in the basement of their house, where he had been digging a hole for the installation of a wine cellar. He then goes to California alone, and is enjoying life as a bachelor. Early on, Hermione insisted to her friends (over her husband’s objections) that they’d be “back for Christmas.” To cover his tracks, Herbert writes letters to Hermione’s friends, just as Dr. Crippen did, indicating they have decided not to return to England. But Herbert’s undoing comes when he receives a bill from an excavation company engaged by his wife to complete the wine cellar during their absence, insisting that the work be completed before Christmas. It seems Hermione was right, after all.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Buried ... with a nod to Alfred Hitchcock
I'm not one for divulging a movie's secrets in advance of its release, so you won't get any (or at least not much) of that here. That said, I found the hype surrounding the premise and execution of Rodrigo Cortés's forthcoming Buried so intriguing that I gave in to the tempation to read Chris Sparling's screenplay in advance of seeing the movie. It's a tight, tense thriller that manages to deliver both a social/politcal message, and some great nail biting moments of suspense, yes, worthy of Hitchcock. Not an easy thing to achieve in 80 pages including the title sheet, and Sparling pulls this off brilliantly!
The Hitchcock comparisons have been all over the map—some warranted, some off the mark. And wisely, the ads for Buried use the comparisons to every advantage. The Hitchcock name appears prominently in the advertising and even one of the posters is more than strikingly similar to Saul Bass's ad designs for Vertigo
.
That Hitchcock on more than one occasion set the bar for making a film in a confined space is well known. Lifeboat
confined its action to, well, a lifeboat; Rope
to an upper-East Side Manhattan apartment, but with the added confinement of taking place in real-time; and Rear Window, which limits its action to a Greenwich Village courtyard, confines its hero to a wheelchair. We can actually lump the 2002 film Phone Booth
into the mix, as it was an idea that screenwriter Larry Cohen initially dreamed up for Hitchcock in the 1960s.
Yet, these features aside, Chris Sparling's screenplay—which sets a new bar for confined spaces and takes places in real-time—actually reminded me more of what was initially intended as the premiere episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, Breakdown, which was directed by Hitchcock and starred Joseph Cotten. In Breakdown, Cotten plays a businessman untouched by the outward display of emotion when he dismisses one his employees. Later when the businessman is paralyzed in a car accident, he is mistaken for dead and all his efforts to communicate with those around him—so that he isn't buried alive—are useless. What Buried shares with Breakdown is the growing sense of the protagonist coming to terms with his own mortality. Each is trapped, one in a coffin somewhere in Iraq, the other inside his own paralyzed body.
Now what Hitchcock pulled off in 22 minutes, Buried succeeds into stretching to 90 by having its protagonist (played by Ryan Reynolds), who has been placed in the coffin for ransom, deal with a series of frustrating phone calls—a 911 operator, the company he works for, the FBI, his wife's voicemail, his Alzheimer's stricken mother, and of course, his kidnapper. With each successive phone call, with each build up of hope for his rescue, with each disappointment, and each cutaway to the draining cell phone battery, the sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia increases to the point it becomes unbearable. There are other things that happen inside the coffin, which I won't dilvulge. But from what I've read, it will definitely be a good ride.
.
That Hitchcock on more than one occasion set the bar for making a film in a confined space is well known. Lifeboat
confined its action to, well, a lifeboat; Rope to an upper-East Side Manhattan apartment, but with the added confinement of taking place in real-time; and Rear Window, which limits its action to a Greenwich Village courtyard, confines its hero to a wheelchair. We can actually lump the 2002 film Phone Booth into the mix, as it was an idea that screenwriter Larry Cohen initially dreamed up for Hitchcock in the 1960s.
Yet, these features aside, Chris Sparling's screenplay—which sets a new bar for confined spaces and takes places in real-time—actually reminded me more of what was initially intended as the premiere episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, Breakdown, which was directed by Hitchcock and starred Joseph Cotten. In Breakdown, Cotten plays a businessman untouched by the outward display of emotion when he dismisses one his employees. Later when the businessman is paralyzed in a car accident, he is mistaken for dead and all his efforts to communicate with those around him—so that he isn't buried alive—are useless. What Buried shares with Breakdown is the growing sense of the protagonist coming to terms with his own mortality. Each is trapped, one in a coffin somewhere in Iraq, the other inside his own paralyzed body.
Now what Hitchcock pulled off in 22 minutes, Buried succeeds into stretching to 90 by having its protagonist (played by Ryan Reynolds), who has been placed in the coffin for ransom, deal with a series of frustrating phone calls—a 911 operator, the company he works for, the FBI, his wife's voicemail, his Alzheimer's stricken mother, and of course, his kidnapper. With each successive phone call, with each build up of hope for his rescue, with each disappointment, and each cutaway to the draining cell phone battery, the sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia increases to the point it becomes unbearable. There are other things that happen inside the coffin, which I won't dilvulge. But from what I've read, it will definitely be a good ride.
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