Remembering Cary Grant on His 108th Birthday

On this day in 1904, Archibald Leach was born. He left an indelible mark on cinema and our culture as Cary Grant. He was, in the opinion of so many of his fans, the personification of elegance.

Screenwriter John Michael Hayes shared many memories of his experiences with Grant during the making of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, as well as another unproduced project that was intended for the actor. Here is one of Hayes’s memories of Cary Grant excepted from Writing with Hitchcock, and followed by an audio excerpt from one of the actor’s one man show appearances, A Conversation with Cary Grant. 

One of screenwriter John Michael Hayes's recollections of Cary Grant included the actor often arriving on the set in the morning with pages of script that he had gone over the night before, saying, “Hitch, I have an idea.”

“Do you,” the director would say. “Talk to John.”

Hayes was then given the task of stalling Grant until it was too late to work in his suggestions. “Well, that’s very interesting. Let me think about it,” the writer would say. Eventually the crew was ready with the next setup, and it was time to shoot the scene.

Later Grant would insist on running through a scene both ways to get Hitchcock’s approval. Hayes remembered the actor being unnaturally awkward when doing the scene as written, then doing his own version to perfection, saying, “What do you think? Which one is best?”

“We had to come up with a gimmick to forestall this,” said Hayes, “because Hitch planned every script very carefully, down to camera angles, way in advance and didn’t like to improvise too much on the set ... so the next time Cary did that, we had everybody on the set primed. When he did the scene as written, everyone, from the grips to the lighting boys, broke out into applause.”

“I guess it’s all right the way it is,” said Grant, who eventually caught on and enjoyed the joke.

The Real "Rear Window" Courtyard

To mark the 58th anniversary of John Michael Hayes beginning work on Rear Window I decided to visit the actual Greenwich Village courtyard that was used as the model for the spectacular set of that was built on Paramount's Stage 18. Here you will how the architectual details and the proximity to the neighborhood police precinct inspired the setting and were incorporated into the set sketches, the finished film, and how this location has inspired other filmmakers to use the spot as well. Of course, full details on the writing and production of Rear Window and the selection of this location are in Writing with Hitchcock.

Hitch-Collaborators I've Encountered, Part II — Or Why I Didn't Call This "The Man Who'd Spew Too Much"

Before deciding to make this a two-part entry and include a few words about screenwriter Joseph Stefano, I had intended this piece to be strictly about Hitchcock's assistant director and associate producer Herbert Coleman and was going to title it something along the lines of The Man Who'd Spew Too Much. But thinking twice, I know that Coleman was merely trying to salvage his own reputation, albeit at the expense of someone else's, namely John Michael Hayes.

Henry Bumstead, Doc Erickson, Hitchcock and Herbert Coleman during production of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

I have mixed feelings about my experience with Herbert Coleman. I think Doc Erickson said it best when he told me that, "Herbie was probably the greatest assistant director who ever lived." I believe that to be true. The extent to which Alfred Hitchcock and Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions relied upon Coleman during those six years from 1953 to 1959 is undeniable. The speed and the quality of Hitchcock's output during that period is due in no small part to the fact that Coleman was able to deliver Hitchcock what he wanted and needed in a timely and cost-effective manner. But speed and efficiency as an assistant does not make one a creative force or someone with a vision—at least not at Hitchcock's level. Herbert Coleman had a gift for assisting others achieve their vision and that gift meshed with Hitchcock best.

Coleman hoped to spread his wings as a director and felt he'd never get the chance if he continued with Hitchcock.

That said, it appears to me that Herb Coleman had long held the dream of becoming a producer-director in his own right. And after six faithful years as part of the Hitchcock troupe he felt that he deserved that chance. But the problem was he possessed a very different skill set than William Wyler or Hitchcock. A look at Posse From Hell and Battle at Bloody Beach, Coleman's two feature films as director, reveal a talent for B-pictures at best.

Before the publication of his own memiors, Herb Coleman told me that he felt a backlash from those closest to Hitchcock as a result of Donald Spoto's biography, The Dark Side of Genius. The statement to which he was referring most concerns his decision to not continue with Hitchcock through the production of Psycho: 

[Hitchcock] just couldn't understand me, and he wouldn't even talk to me for weeks afterward. I think he felt he owned me and my family for life. He felt this way about others, too. He just couldn't imagine that we'd want a change in our careers, or the chance to broaden our experience. I said I wanted to remain a friend, but for a while he made that difficult. I don't think Hitch ever really formed any lasting friendships. He was afraid that if he did, he would have to give of himself, and he simply didn't know how to do that in any way except in a movie. (The Dark Side of Genius, p. 417, Coleman to Donald Spoto interview conducted July 31, 1981)

There seems little wrong to me with what Coleman told Spoto. Nevertheless Coleman related to me during our interview, "That book caused me a lot of problems. I lost some friends in England. I lost some friends at Universal. People who read it, who didn't really know me very well, who were not friends, but were business friends, just couldn't believe that I would say such things about Hitch."

In later years Coleman sought to mend those fences by revising his story and trying to rewrite history and his own statements by seeking to get his memiors published. Coleman told me at the outset that he would be guarded in our interview so he wouldn't reveal any of the "bombshells" he was planning to include in his own book. Nevertheless he ended up tipping his hand to what I felt would be the most damaging outright fabrication in his then yet-to-be-published book, and this allowed me to obtain and include documented proof to refute his claims. This was one of the reasons I went into such detail on when and how and to whom John Michael Hayes delivered his completed treatment for Rear Window in Writing with Hitchcock. Yes, I was writing to refute something that hadn't even been published yet.

When I interviewed Coleman he claimed that one morning Hitchcock had told him to have a chair and a typewriter set up in his newly occupied office at Paramount. Coleman said he arranged for this and then when John Michael Hayes came in, Hitchcock began dictating what was to become the treatment for Rear Window. Coleman's claim for how and why he remembered this so clearly and so distinctly is that the treatment is dated September 12, 1953. Coleman went on to tell me that when he was deposed for the 1990 Rear Window lawsuit and asked if he remembered when the treatment was turned in, he said:

September the 12th at 5:30 in the afternoon. And they said, how in the world did you remember a thing like that? I said, "You know, all the years of our marriage, one thing I always insisted on was a party for my wife on her birthday." And I said, "September the 12th is her birthday, and the year before was the only time in all those years that I missed having a birthday party for her was when I was in Rome on Roman Holiday with Willy Wyler. That was in 1952. And I was determined that in 1953...so I arranged a big party for her that night, and here I was stuck in the studio. And I lived in Newport Beach which is sixty miles away. And I was fuming because I knew it was coming in and yet it wasn't coming so my assistant and I were sitting there waiting for it. And finally it came at 5:30. I don't know if it was exactly the minute, but about 5:30 in the afternoon, and I sent my assistant up to the mimeograph with that story right then." Those two lawyers, the ones that were suing, the story people, and the Hitchcock people, both of them sat there with their mouth open.  

That makes a great story. But there are a few holes in Coleman's tale. Ones which I couldn't dismiss as icebox talk. First of all, a simple look at the production correspondence showed that John Michael Hayes had actually turned in his completed treatment on September 11, 1953, a Friday. He turned it in to his and Hitchcock's agency at the time, MCA Artists. The agency then delivered the treatment to the story department at Paramount where the studio typing pool retyped it on September 12, hence the date on the "official" treatment.

Why all this handing off from writer to agency to departments at the studio? Quite simply, Hitchcock hadn't yet taken up residence on the Paramount lot. Hitchcock wasn't busy dicating the treatment to Hayes under the observation of Coleman as he was eleven and twelve days behind schedule at Warner Bros. filming Dial M for Murder.

Dial M for Murder Production Report for September 11, 1953

Dial M for Murder Production Report for September 12, 1953.

I finally did get a chance to read Coleman's memior The Hollywood I Knew, and as I suspected it's full of instances where Coleman paints himself as the hero. Wherever things went well, he credits himself with advising Hitchcock to take that course of action. When Hitchcock makes a mistake in casting or on a production matter, Coleman says Hitchcock had ignored his advice.

Funny thing, Coleman claims he wrote his book to undo damage to Hitchcock's reputation he felt had been done by Donald Spoto. Yet, to me, Coleman's memoir paints a portrait of Hitchcock far worse. Did he really expect the reader to come away wondering how Hitchcock was able to get as far as he did before meeting Coleman?!?

A Look Back at Some of Hitch's Collaborators I've Encountered

Thirty-one years go yesterday, Alfred Hitchcock passed away. I do not think he would be at all surprised to know that the mark he left on cinema and on pop culture continues and shows no signs of waning. Earlier this week I made a return appearance on The Radio Dan Show where regular guest Joel Gunz (you know him as Alfred Hitchcock Geek), host Dan Delgado, and the "super-hot" intern-extraordinaire (she likes me to call her that) Jessica Pac talk about all-things-Hitchcock in a segment of the show each Monday. You can listen in or view a video of the show here (the Hitchcock segment starts at about the 38 minute mark).

Joseph Stefano, screenwriter of Psycho and the first writer engaged to write Marnie.

This week I was going to talk about some of the Hitchcock collaborators and associates I've encountered in my work. I'd planned to talk about Ernie Lehman, Evan Hunter, Doc Erickson, Henry Bumstead, Joseph Stefano, Herbert Coleman, and others. But as usual the clock wound down far too quickly and I only got to speak about the last two. Both of which I feel made significant contributions to Writing with Hitchcock—one because it was just part of his generous nature, and the other in spite of himself, as he admitted to a reluctance to provide me with anything worthwhile, and possibly had an ulterior motive in providing what he did.

Of course the former is Joseph Stefano, the screenwriter of Psycho, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time at NYU's Hitchcock Centennial Conference in 1999. To re-cap the story I told on Dan's show, I first saw Joe at the panel discussion of Hitchcock's screenwriters, which also included Evan Hunter and Arthur Laurents (unavailable at the time of this session, Jay Presson Allen had a one-on-one later in the conference). I had tried to get John Michael Hayes to be a part of this panel, but his vision had made travel difficult and he declined, saying that he'd be well represented by my presence and presentation. The discussion was entertaining and informative, but for the most part did not break much new ground for me. What was apparent though was that Joe was the most enthusiastic and unpretentious of the bunch. He engaged with the audience and seemed genuinely interested in the others' experiences with Hitch. On a personal level, I was impressed. 

On another morning of the conference I was to present my work on Hayes's collaboration with Hitchcock. Right before the session began, way at the back I noticed Joseph Stefano and his wife Marilyn enter. I thought, "Wow, this is so cool of him. He's not just here to tell his own stories, toot his own horn, and revel in adulation." Joe was a true lover of film. He loved talking about it, doing it, engaging with new people who were also interested in it. Then when I saw he was making his way down to two empty seats right in the front row it occurred to me, here I was about to give a presentation of what it was like being a screenwriter for Hitchcock, when one of his screenwriters was sitting not more than ten feet from me!

Quickly while the moderator was busy with the introductions of my fellow panelists, I began sifting through my notes finding places to drop in Joe's name and some insightful, praiseworthy comments about his work on Psycho. At the end of the session Joe and Marilyn Stefano introduced themselves and congratulated me. Joe said I'd nailed it, that Hayes's experience felt very similar to his own, and that we should stay in touch. Of course we did, and he provided some great material for Writing with Hitchcock, not the least of which was his very kind endorsement after reading the galleys:

"With diamond clarity, Steven DeRosa defines the art, the joy, the rewards—and the hazards—of screenwriting for a cinematic genius like Alfred Hitchcock."

—Joseph Stefano, Screenwriter of Psycho

Part II tomorrow...Herbert Coleman.

To Catch a Thief comes to the radio in new adapation

In case you missed last Saturday's BBC 4 broadcast of To Catch a Thief(which will be online until 1/15/2011), here's my brief review.

Naturally, as I cover the writing and production of To Catch a Thief in great detail in Writing with Hitchcock (in addition to the novel's origins), I listened to the BBC 4 broadcast with a great familiarity to David Dodge’s novel and with a keen ear to pick up any references to the film or to see if the writer of this new adaptation, Jean Buchanan, opted to forget the film entirely.

Choosing the latter, Buchanan was fairly faithful to Dodge, judiciously pruning where necessary—eliminating, as Hitchcock and Hayes did, a second copy-cat thief—while keeping the subplot with Robie’s old friend Paul du Pré…which is oddly reminiscent of certain aspects of Vertigo, based on a French novel Hitchcock would purchase the rights to not long after To Catch a Thief was released.

As pointed out in Elisabeth Mahoney’s review on guardian.co.uk, the slivers of description for the characters highlighted the differences between this version and Hitchcock’s film. Can one imagine Cary Grant padding himself another ten or twenty pounds, shaving back his hairline so that he appears to be balding, and then having to make love to Grace Kelly? In Hitchcock’s cinema, that just wouldn’t fly.

As entertaining as Hitchcock’s film is, its main flaw is the villain. In all three the actual copy-cat thief is Danielle, but Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes opted to make Bellini (Bertani in the final film) the mastermind behind the jewel robberies. The only problem was Hitchcock cast French actor Charles Vanel in the role without knowing he did not speak English at all. Choosing to have Hayes rewrite and rewrite again, rather than recast, the role was severely watered down along with the suspense. In Dodge’s novel and this radio adaptation, Bellini seems to have his hand in every shady business along the Riviera, so one comes away with the sense that he’s somehow profiting from the robberies anyway. In that respect, Bellini (although not the villain) is more richly drawn here than by Hitchcock.

Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief has always been known best for its sophisticated dialogue and double entendres—penned by the radio-trained Hayes. So the one disappointment in this adaptation is that Buchanan stuck too closely to Dodge’s own dialogue, which fell somewhat flat—a shame since a radio drama relies heavily on dialogue. I’m not suggesting that “borrowing” from John Michael Hayes was necessary, but perhaps taking a bit of inspiration from him would have lifted the material and the performances at the same time.

Overall, very entertaining and a nice way to remind audiences that Hitchcock’s films were not solely the result of his creative genius.

Revisiting Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man

In mid-1955 while in production on the re-make of The Man Who Knew Too Much for Paramount Pictures, Alfred Hitchcock began planning a film that would be a dramatic departure from the up-beat Technicolor productions he made since leaving Warner Brothers two years earlier. Although Hitchcock had fulfilled his obligation under the terms of his original four-picture contract with Warner Bros., in February 1952 he agreed to produce and direct an additional film for the studio at no additional salary. (It is often stated that Hitchcock was to receive no salary for the additional film, but it should be noted that he was to share in the film’s profits.) 

Hitchcock left Warners after completing Dial M for Murder, yet it wasn’t long before the studio reminded Hitchcock of his informal promise of an additional, or fifth picture. The studio managed to do this just a few months before the original contract would expire. Knowing that Hitchcock was about to embark on a large scale production for Paramount, Warner Bros. requested an extension of the original agreement so that they could still get their “free” Hitchcock picture, and so on April 13, 1955, Hitchcock entered into an agreement to produce and direct The Wrong Man for Warner Bros.

Briefly, the story was based on the actual events surrounding the wrongful arrest of Christopher Emmanuel (Manny) Balestrero, a musician in New York’s Stork Club. Subsequent to his arrest for armed robbery and during the course of preparing his defense for trial, Manny’s wife, Rose, suffers a mental breakdown and is placed in a sanitarium. Later, Manny is cleared when his “double” is apprehended, but the damage to Rose’s psyche has already been done. 

This was a departure from the recent upbeat enertainments that Hitchcock had turned out in his collaboration with screenwriter John Michael Hayes. Hayes told Hitchcock as much, which added to the growing friction between writer and director. Another reason Hayes expressed reluctance to write the project was that the story had recently been done on television as "The Idendified Man" for Robert Montgomery Presents. 

Robert Ellenstein, who would later play Licht in North by Northwest, played the role of Manny in the TV production "The Identified Man" aka "A Case of Identity" in 1954.

The real Manny Balestrero reenacts the walk to his front door for Life.

Hitchcock's depiction of Manny's walk to his front door with Henry Fonda as Balestrero.

Of course, Hitchcock did not merely want to redo what had already been done on television, and despite his promoting the film as a factual case, his intention was not to make a docu-drama. Hitchcock's focus would be on the mental breakdown of Rose Balestrero. With the exception of North by Northwest (which was actually initiated with Hayes), Hitchcock's post-Hayes films—The Wrong Man, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie—would each focus on the psychological trauma a character endures. In the case of The Wrong Man, although Manny is ultimately cleared of the crimes for whch he is accused, the real nightmare of Rose's remained.

Manny (Robert Ellenstein) tells Rose (Florence Anglin) that he has been cleared of the robberies.

In Hitchcock's depiction of the same sequence, the focus is on Rose (Vera Miles).

Not wanting to end the film on the bleak note of Manny leaving Rose in the institution, the final shot of The Wrong Man shows the Balestreros and their two boys strolling beneath the palm trees of sunny Florida, with the an epilogue stating, “Two years later, Rose walked out of the sanitarium — completely cured. Today she lives happily in Florida with Manny and the two boys ..and what happened seems like a nightmare to them — but it did happen...”

It has long been contended that Warner Bros. insisted on tacking on the final shot of the Balestrero family along with a "happy" epilogue over Hitchcock's "loud objections." Fortunately, the interesting circumstances under which the script of The Wrong Man was written resulted in a trail of correspondence between the director and his writers, playwright Maxwell Anderson and Hitchcock’s longtime friend and occasional collaborator Angus MacPhail, which reveals that the director had both the final shot, and the reassuring epilogue in mind even before the screenplay was completed. 

MacPhail and Hitchcock worked in New York, researching factual details, interviewing persons like Judge Groat, (Rose's doctor) Dr. Banay, (Manny's attorney) O'Connor and (Prosecuting Attorney) Mr. Crisoda, and laying out the story and the visuals more or less in treatment form. As they completed each section of the story, they sent pages to Maxwell Anderson, at his home in Connecticut. Anderson then set about adding the dialogue, which MacPhail would edit and incorporate into the final script as approved by the director.

Correspondence between Hitchcock, MacPhail and Anderson reveals that Hitchcock fully intended both the final shot of the Balestrero family in Florida, as well as the epilogue. As early as March 20, 1956, while the script was in preparation, Hitchcock indicated in a letter to Anderson, "if you would have a 'go' at the words that are to be printed on the screen at the end, I would be very grateful. Not only does this give us a note of relief, but more than that, they [the audience] have been seeing a factual case and I think this is very important." 

Although Hitchcock had asked Anderson, it was MacPhail who had the first "go" at the epilogue, which he turned in on April 4, 1956. MacPhail’s epilogue went as follows: "Two years after these events Rose Balestrero walked out of the sanitarium completely cured. Today she lives happily in Florida with the two boys. Now they can hardly believe that this nightmare experience was reality. But it did happen to Manny Balestrero, and but for the grace of God, it might happen to you." 

MacPhail sent his "temporary" epilogue to Anderson, who replied in a letter dated April 5, "I think it's essentially good, but I don't personally think the deity intrudes in these matters, so I just left him out." Anderson simply cut MacPhail's "and but for the grace of God". In a letter to Anderson dated April 10, MacPhail indicated, "[Hitchcock] would like the Epilogue to end up on a note of warm reassurance and not on a chilling reminder," adding, "I accept your reproof about the deity." 

Anderson replied on April 11, "As for the Epilogue, it seems to me Hitch's objection should simply be remedied by excising the two final sentences. We don't need them ... The warm reassurance is there in the Florida sky and in the family group." And regarding the reference to God, Anderson wrote, "I didn't mean to reprove anybody about the deity, but my father was a Baptist minister and I'm allergic." 

As far as Hitchcock was concerned though, the reference to the Almighty might well have been left in, for as he expressed to a reporter from the Los Angeles Examiner, "The [film's] suspense is due to the thought that will strike everyone, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I.'"