Hitchcock@113, August 13 in NYC

It's hard to believe that thirteen years have passed since what seemed like a year of centenary celebrations for Alfred Hitchcock in 1999. I hope you will come and join me as I mark Hitchcock's 113th at Barnes & Noble in Union Square.

Event Details

Having lived in Westchester County for a good part of my life, I've enjoyed the view of the Palisades, the cliffs that run along the Hudson River, for many years. Whenever I watch Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, there they are, right out the window of the dining car on the Twentieth Century Limited as Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint dance around the idea of her inviting him into her drawing room to spend the night. In this video I visit the Philipse Manor Train Station in Sleepy Hollow, just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge, which can also be seen in the film. It was here that the train makes an unscheduled stop and the New York State Police board in search of United Nations killer Roger Thornhill.

Hitchcock On Tap

I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than combining two things that I love—Hitchcock and beer—but even more specifically, talking about Hitchcock movies and enjoying one of my favorite brews from Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. I am very pleased that I will get to do that this coming Saturday as they're hosting their very first book event—and honored that Writing with Hitchcock gets to be that book.

Owner Scott Vaccaro and the team at Captain Lawrence have been producing some amazing beers since they opened in 2006. There's almost always a fresh growler of Imperial IPA, Freshchester Pale Ale, Smoked Porter, Espresso Stout, or Brown Ale in my fridge at home...and lately one of their specialty bottle-only brews as well. To commemorate Father's Day this weekend, they'll be offering their St. Vincent's Dubbel, a Belgian style abbey ale, named after Scott's dad Vincent. It's been on tap in the tasting room over the last ten days and it's a winner!

Now in their expanded Elmsford facility, with food, a new bocce court and patio...Captain Lawrence has definitely become a place I enjoy to sample some great beers, hang with Bogie (my pug), and meet fun and interesting people.

Please come for the reading, stay for the beer (or vice versa), and be sure to say hello. Hope to see you there.

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.

Mondays with Hitchcock — Fall 2011

If you're in the New York area I hope you will join me this fall for Mondays with Hitchcock. I've put together two programs for Westchester Community College, six sessions each, where we'll be screening and discussing scenes, sequences and films of Alfred Hitchcock. Each night will have its own theme, and some rare items will be screened as well, including a the silent version of Blackmail.

Hitchcock’s Signature Style: The British and Early Hollywood Years

An examination of the signature elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema. From his perfecting of the double-chase, to his ability to extract every ounce of suspense from a situation, he took ownership of a genre with films like Blackmail, The 39 Steps, and Sabotage. On his arrival in Hollywood, he upped his game through more character-driven stories like Rebecca and Shadow of a Doubt, demonstrating that his true talent was not in directing his performers, but in directing his audience. Through screenings and discussion, we'll explore the elements which made Hitchcock the preeminent director of psychological and suspense thrillers.

 

CE-FILM 2019QV 

Monday evenings, 7-9 PM  from  9/26/2011 - 11/7/2011

 

Writing with Hitchcock: Masterworks of the 50s and 60s

A re-examination of Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema from the perspective of his most frequent writing collaborator in Hollywood, John Michael Hayes, whose scripts include Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hayes set the tone for a decade’s worth of masterworks that have come to be known as the Golden Period of Hitchcock’s cinema. Through screenings and discussion, the course explores the elements which have made Hitchcock the preeminent “auteur,” while also pointing out the contributions of his most significant writers.

 

CE-WRITG 2037QV

Monday evenings, 7-9 PM  from   11/14/2011 through 12/19/2011

 

Where: Ardsley High School, 300 Farm Road.Ardsley, NY

 

Enroll now at http://www.sunywcc.edu/Intervillage

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?!?

Hitchcock Halloween Contest

Writing with Hitchcock is proud to announce our first Hitchcock Halloween Contest!

Now is your chance to get into the spooky spirit of the season by dressing up as your favorite character from an Alfred Hitchcock movie—Norman Bates, Melanie Daniels, Richard Hannay, Mrs. Danvers? Or perhaps you'll dare to disguise yourself as the Master of Suspense himself? In any event the contest is very simple…

Between now and 12:00 AM Eastern, Tuesday, November 2, 2010, submit your photo to the Hitchcock Halloween Contest by posting it on the Writing with Hitchcock Facebook Wall.

At 12:00 PM Eastern, Tuesday, November 2, 2010, all submissions will be placed in an Album and judging will begin in the form of a poll on the page. The poll will be open until 12:00 PM, Sunday, November 7, 2010 when the winners will be announced.

• FIRST PRIZE: Two Orchestra Seats to The 39 Steps at New World Stages in New York City
• SECOND PRIZE: Psycho (50th Anniversary Edition) Blu-ray
• THIRD PRIZE: North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) DVD

For more info on The 39 Steps visit www.39Stepsny.com. For tickets visit Telecharge.com. 

CONTEST RULES: You must be a member of the Writing with Hitchcock page to submit a photo. It must be you in the photo. You may only vote in the poll one time. You must be a member of the Writing with Hitchcock page to vote. Yes, you can encourage all your friends to join the page and vote for you! 

CONTEST RESTRICTIONS: First Prize is valid for two orchestra seats to The 39 Steps at New World Stages in New York City on a select performance through December 30, 2010. Winner will have the option to choose from a variety of dates. Blackout dates apply. Second and Third Prizes are Region 1, US Release only.

Hitchcock Book Recommendations & Something's Gonna Live

I thought it would be a good idea to follow up on a recent thread on our Facebook page by discussing some key books on Alfred Hitchcock. These are just a few of my personal recommendations from the growing mountain of Hitchcock literature, which includes Donald Spoto's The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, Leonard Leff's Hitchcock and Selznick, and Dan Auiler's Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic.

I also highly recommend the new documentary by Academy Award Nominee Daniel Raim, Something's Gonna Live, which follows Hitchcock production designers Robert Boyle, Henry Bumstead and others as they reminisce about their decades of experience in Hollywood.

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.

The Trouble with Harry—Perhaps a secret to Hitchcock's Art

What is the trouble with The Trouble with Harry? Why does it remain among the least analyzed of Hitchcock’s 1950s films (probably beating out only Dial M for Murder and Stage Fright)? To date, few have seen fit to rank The Trouble with Harry as a key work in the director’s canon. (By far, I most admire Ed Sikov's chapter on the film in his 1996 book Laughing Hysterically. And more recently, Joel Gunz of AlfredHitchcockGeek.com, has devoted several excellent blog posts to the film.)

For obvious reasons critics have preferred delving into the tragedy of Vertigo, the refined technique of Rear Window, the sweeping movement of North by Northwest, for these films enjoy a certain following because they touched audiences in a way that Hitchcock and his collaborators had planned. They were carefully constructed and designed in a manner consistent with a majority of the director's work. But The Trouble with Harry is so very faithful to the novel by Jack Trevor Story that the film is problematic, creating an instance where Hitchcock’s signature is not easily discerned.

To begin by searching for what Hitchcock brought to the material is the wrong approach. Instead, one must look at The Trouble with Harry for what it brought to Hitchcock. His legendary technique for being “ruthless” when adapting literary material was severely reined in on this one. Hitchcock found a novel that truly spoke to him.

Something I had the pleasure of discussing at length with John Michael Hayes, was the different approach taken by him in each of the four screenplays he wrote for Hitchcock. In one he had concentrated on telling the story cinematically, consistently falling back on the director's preference for supporting the narrative through technique. In another they had fun planting visual and verbal clues, and so on. But Hayes recalled that Hitchcock didn’t want Harry tampered with very much. Had the story been reworked to build up a role for Cary Grant, a notion Hitchcock had considered early on, the film might have had more commercial appeal, but as Hayes pointed out, "Hitch didn't want to lose what was already there."

What was already there was a story where someone's death has an impact on a group of characters, bringing them together, and in this case, resulting in a romance. One need only look at Rebecca, Spellbound, The Paradine Case, Rope, Stage Fright, I Confess, Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho to find variations of this dynamic. Additionally, the theme of redemption looms large in The Trouble with Harry. In Writing with Hitchcock I demonstrate the significance of the confession in Hitchcock’s films, and its particular importance in The Trouble with Harry, a film in which each of the major characters has a confession of sorts.

As for a bit of trivia … John Michael Hayes began working on the script while in Cannes for the location filming of To Catch a Thief—in fact, Hitchcock had him working on both scripts at the same time, since many of To Catch a Thief's scenes were being rewritten during filming. Some of the second unit footage of the New England landscapes which were also filmed in VistaVision made its way into Peyton Place, which was also scripted by John Michael Hayes. Both films share a number of shots that follow their title sequences. Not long ago, I visited some of the Vermont locations used in the film—Morrisville, East Craftsbury, and Craftsbury Common. In fact, the little square in Craftsbury Common, which in the film is opposite the Wiggs's Emporium (where Sam looks off and sees a few cows and asks "Do you think we'd do any better on Fifth Avenue?"), looks very much the same as it did in 1954, minus a few trees.