Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 144 - The Life and Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Abby and Alan sit down to discuss the life and works of Alfred Hitchcock. Unfortunately, we do have to warn that this episode contains some discussion of sexual assault.
Correction: Rebecca did win Best Picture at the Oscars in 1940. The only time one of Hitchcock's films won Best Picture.
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- The 12 Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White
- Screenrant article by Dalton Norman - Why Alfred Hitchcock Remade The Man Who Knew Too Much
- Guardian article by Betsy Reed - What’s wrong with Hitcock’s women
- Lithub.com article by Edward White - The Dark Side of An Auteur
- History.com article by Even Andrews - 9 Things You May Not Know About Alfred Hitchcock
- 2015 Documentary Film Hitchcock/Truffaut
- No Film School article by Jason Hellerman - How Alfred Hitchcock Used Visionary Cinematography
- American Cinematographer Article by David Artkinson, PhD - Hitchcock’s Technique’s Tell Rear Window Story
- BBCUK Article by Matthew Sweet: Alfred Hitchcock: Murder, Mayhem and Music
- Far Out Article by Swapnil Dhruv Bose - How Alfred Hitchcock Changed Cinema Forever
- You Tube: The Dick Cavett Show Interview with Alfred Hitchcock
- You Tube: Tom Snyder Interview
- You Tube: Alfred Hitchcock 1960 BBC TV interview
- You Tube: American Film Institute – Alfred Hitchcock Accepts the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award 1979
- Thanks to April Brenker for research help!
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I am Abbey Branker sitting here with Alan Kudan. Hello. And today we are talking about the life and the works of Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 3:He was a director, filmmaker and actor.
Speaker 1:You're going to qualify him as an actor.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've seen him in multiple films. How does that not make him an actor?
Speaker 1:I think there's a difference between making a cameo and being an actor.
Speaker 3:He's also been on camera speaking to people about stuff. That's an actor.
Speaker 1:That's well. It's talent for sure. There's really so much to say about Alfred Hitchcock, and we're going to say as much as we can. Throughout his career, his films earned 46 Academy Award nominations and six Oscars. He never won Best Director, despite being nominated five times. He also never won for Best Picture, from Vertigo to Dial M for Murder. Today's episode is for the Hitchcock superfans and anyone interested in film history and the evolution of horror.
Speaker 3:I'm curious. I've only seen a handful of Hitchcock films, and most of them were either way back in film school or a handful of films that we watched for this episode. You've seen just about his entire library. Very few of the films some do, but very few of them scream horror. And here we are, in October, a pumpkin's throw away from Halloween. And this is what we choose.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 3:Thank you because I would love for you to. I have a very distinct reason why You're usually opinionated about most things.
Speaker 1:Which is that I agree with you. The majority of Hitchcock's work.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry that was mean. I'm very curious to hear your opinion on this one.
Speaker 1:So I do agree with you that the majority of Hitchcock's work, I would say, kind of comes in closer on the spectrum to thriller suspense. That's what he's famous for mystery. That being said, a lot of that's incredibly connected to the horror genre and especially how it's evolved today. I also think films like Psycho and the Birds specifically laid the groundwork and shifted the horror genre totally. So you had before that films like the Universal Monsters. Right, horror was a different thing and I think with Psycho specifically, but even just a lot of these Hitchcock films that kind of are genre bending to some degree, the genre of horror took a bit of a pivot, like even John Carpenter credits Norman Bates as being the first slasher on film.
Speaker 3:Okay yes. So Psycho is for me. It's a very clear-cut horror film. Yeah, I can't think of another one that he made, the Birds. The Birds is not a horror film.
Speaker 1:I think it is the Birds is a hot pile of garbage. But despite your opinion on the film and its quality, I believe the intention of the Birds was to feel very much like a horror film and I agree with you. I think again, a lot of these skew more towards psychological thriller, spy mystery, but those things all overlap pretty heavily with the horror genre.
Speaker 3:With the horror genre. Yes, Okay. However, Halloween is about when the veil is thin.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:Okay. However, halloween is about when the veil is thin. That's right, and that really lends itself to tales of the supernatural, whether that's, you know, ghosts or monsters, or even if it's a slasher villain. There's something about that slasher villain that brings it outside the realm of normal, and Psycho does that. Yeah, with the whole twist between Norman Bates and his mother, mm-hmm. But the birds, it's just a bunch of angry birds, but outside of Norman Bates and like we're just going to pretend the birds doesn't exist, his portfolio does not lend itself to something that I would associate with Halloween.
Speaker 1:I want to say one thing about the birds, which is that in its own way, the birds is also a creature feature, slasher film, where the creatures just happen to be, to your point, something natural, that have an unnatural element to them. And you know, we know what birds are, but we are not used to swarms of regular birds attacking people. So that to me, I think, is totally horror and exactly what you just described. That being said, ok, I've given you Psycho and I'm what you just described.
Speaker 3:That being said, Okay, I'm giving you Psycho and I'm giving you the birds.
Speaker 1:First of all, how you define what you want to watch in October and for Halloween. Yeah, it's totally specific to you, a hundred percent. I think Alfred Hitchcock is one of the filmmakers in the history of film, yeah, who did more for the horror and suspense genres than almost any other individual filmmaker. If you want to understand, like we did a few years ago, a whole series on halloween right, we did that on the series halloween for halloween. We've done that on other franchises as well. I think if you really want to understand halloween, you have to understand what came before okay, okay, I think I get what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So if horror is a person, yeah. We're not looking at the skin, we're looking at the bones.
Speaker 1:It's a really weird way to say it, but sure.
Speaker 3:And it's a building block and the bones make the skeleton and skeletons are spooky for Halloween. I see what you did there. Very well done.
Speaker 1:Very good. Okay, I'm glad that you're on board now. Hitchcock's impact, despite what Alan says, is undeniable. He translated a new type of story in a new type of horror story to the silver screen. We're going to talk a lot of Hitchcock movies today, but we're not going to talk about all of them, and we're going to talk about them in varying degrees of depths, because, all in all, hitchcock directed 53 films and he made cameos in 39 of them. We're going to talk through his work, his life, both of which were incredibly complicated, and reflect on some of these indisputable masterpieces through a modern lens, which is not going to always be kind. So today's sources. By Evan Andrews Nine Things you May Not Know About Alfred Hitchcock a 2015 documentary film.
Speaker 1:Hitchcock and Truffaut no Film School. Article by Jason Hellerman how Alfred Hitchcock Used Visionary Cinematography an American Cinematographer. Article by David Atkinson, phd Hitchcock's Techniques Tell Rear Window Story. A BBC UK article by Matthew Sweet Alfred Hitchcock Murder, mayhem and Music. A Far Out article by Swapnil Drew F Bowes how Alfred Hitchcock Changed Cinema Forever. Some YouTube videos, including a Dick Cavett Show interview with Hitchcock, a Tom Snyder interview, a 1960 BBC TV interview and, from the American Film Institute, his acceptance speech for the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1979. And I just want to say thank you very much to April Brinker for a massive amount of research help on this episode.
Speaker 3:Based off your sources, I just learned that the man who Knew Too Much was a remake.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Who made the first one? I thought Hitchcock was the original. He made both.
Speaker 1:We're going to get to it. It's an interesting point.
Speaker 3:Okay, so he did every indie director's dream of. I got this really cool idea and I'm going to make it, but I didn't like it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do it again, yep, especially once you become famous and get a bunch of money. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on August 13th 1899. He was born in the apartment that was above the green grocery shop that his parents leased and ran. By all accounts, he was born into a disciplined, forward Roman Catholic household and of course he lived in London, and Alfred did not make any waves for his strict parents. In an interview on the Dick Cavett Show, hitchcock told the story of how, when he was five years old, his father sent him to a police station with a note. When the policeman read the note, he locked Hitchcock up in a cell for five minutes and explained that this is what happens to naughty boys. The experience scarred Hitchcock so badly he became not only a rule follower but also refused to drive because he didn't want to end up with a ticket. He essentially just developed this very lifelong and intense fear of law enforcement, which is interesting considering how much law enforcement is represented in his films.
Speaker 3:As the kids say, that's a little extra.
Speaker 1:Holds on now. Alfred was the youngest of three children. His older sister went by Nellie and his older brother was named William John. Despite his siblings, hitchcock famously said that he couldn't remember ever having a playmate. When he was six, the family moved to a new house and his parents ran a fish and chips shop, and when he became old enough to attend school, he attended religious schools that were known for harsh discipline and using corporal punishment. According to Hitchcock himself, he was usually among the top four or five in the class.
Speaker 1:Hitchcock's favorite subject was geography, but not only that. He had a deep love for maps and trains, so much so that he could name every stop on the Orient Express. His deep love for timetables, route maps and train schedules is well documented, and many of his films feature trains, trams and rail scenes. He was also known to take the scene number and take number on the slate on a film set and whisper the corresponding London tram route names. So, for instance, the example given on Wikipedia is that if the slate read scene 23, take 3, he would whisper Woodford-Hamstead, woodford being the end of the Route 23 tram and Hampstead being the end of Route 3. Maybe connected to his love for trains and geography. When he was 14, he told his parents he wanted to be an engineer and started taking night classes on the subject. But when his father passed away he took a job at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. When he turned 18, he received a C3 classification. He never saw combat, but rather ended up doing a lot of drills and taking part in theoretical briefings.
Speaker 1:In 1919, after World War I ended, hitchcock became interested in creative writing. He became the founding editor of Henley's internal publication called the Henley Telegraph. He was then promoted to the advertising team where he was responsible for writing copy for marketing and designing graphics. He later described this job as his quote first step towards cinema. Quote Alford's first job in film in all earnest started in the spring of 1921. He was designing title cards for silent films. So you you know when you're watching a silent film and there's all these kind of cards with texts that come up every few minutes with like quotes or kind of explaining what's going on I assume you're saying this for the audience benefit.
Speaker 3:I am because we just watched hitchcock's silent film. But can we just reflect on that for a moment? Because, like, his movies seem like yeah, they're old, but they're old in like the way that like yeah, they're a little bit before back to the future came out, but meanwhile he started his filmmaking career during the silent film era he was born in the 1800s.
Speaker 1:That's insane, he's so old. Yeah, he made films from 1921 or 22 until 1978.
Speaker 3:Yes, and when did Back to the Future come out?
Speaker 1:In the 80s.
Speaker 3:Okay, we just Googled. There was seven years between Hitchcock's last film and Back to the Future.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 3:That's not a lot of time for someone that started making films in the silent film era. Yeah, it's crazy that started making films in the silent film era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy. So his first job again was creating these title cards that are, like you know, go to the train station, the little texts that come up.
Speaker 3:Go to the train station.
Speaker 1:You know, they're like oh my God, there's a fire at the train station, Turn around. They're like little snippets to keep you understanding of the plot. It's the dialogue. Sometimes it's the dialogue and sometimes it's like a descriptor.
Speaker 3:it's like the team rushes to the firehouse you know, oh yeah, whatever, you're really focused on these fires well, all the early disaster film, all the early films were like fire films.
Speaker 1:They were like early disaster films not the lodger no, we're gonna get there. Give me a minute. The first project that he took on were titles for a film called the Sorrows of Satan, an adaptation from the 1985 Faustian novel, which just seems very fitting Like it's fitting subject matter to launch Hitchcock's career in film.
Speaker 3:Okay, I have another question. Yeah, you just said the Faustian novel. Yeah. I did some Googling. I know nothing of the story of Faust and I know it's's very famous. I wanted to read the novel and upon my Googling, it's a play.
Speaker 1:It's a play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so OK, is it based on a novel? Because you just said there's a Faustian novel.
Speaker 1:No, this is a Faustian novel based on Faust.
Speaker 3:OK, so the play is like stupid, old, yeah. And then people have written novels stupid old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then people have written novels that's just being like oh, I just made a hitchcockian film.
Speaker 3:It's just like taking elements of that thing it's not the same thing I'm. I. I only ask because I'm trying. I would love to know more about the mythos of faust well, maybe that's something we can cover in a future series well, maybe we can cover it right here, right now.
Speaker 1:So I have something to read on the plane but after turning in his drafts again for the title cards for the Sorrows of Satan, the production company decided to move away from that project in pursuit of another. The Sorrows of Satan was eventually produced and came out in 1926. After freelancing for a while, he was liked enough by his employers to earn a full-time position. So Hitchcock's first film that he directed was a silent film called Number 13. The project was never finished because of financial issues. Hitchcock was directing the picture for a company called Gainsborough Pictures, and this isn't something that Hitchcock spoke about often, but he did describe it as a quote, somewhat chastening experience.
Speaker 1:Around this time Hitchcock married his wife Alma. Alma and Alfred married on December 2nd 1926. Alma Breville was an English screenwriter and she would become Hitchcock's biggest creative collaborator. In 1982, charlie Chaplin said, quote the Hitchcock touch had four hands and two were Alma's end quote. All in all he directed 11 silent films. The first film that he directed that was actually released was released in 1925. It was a silent film called the Pleasure Garden. The Pleasure Garden is not a horror or suspense film. It follows the story of two chorus girls at London's Pleasure Garden Theatre and their trials and tribulations with their relationships. But his next released film, a silent film, the Lodger, from 1927, is dark in nature.
Speaker 3:I have seen this one.
Speaker 1:The Lodger was his first thriller, telling the story of the search for a kind of like a Jack the Ripper-esque serial killer on the loose in London. The Lodger features Hitchcock's first cameo, something that he would work into many of his following films. Where was he in the Lodger? I'll show you a picture after. It also feels strikingly similar to any German expressionist film, like I kept thinking about the Cabinet of Dr Caligari while we were watching it, and that's because this is a style of filmmaking that Hitch adopted for his own. Hitchcock's early silent films were just as big and bold as his later masterpieces. He utilized montage, a Soviet filmmaking technique, and paid attention to the voyeuristic nature of audiences, a theme that penetrates many of his movies.
Speaker 3:This was, hands down, the best silent film I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've only seen a handful.
Speaker 1:You seen metropolis?
Speaker 3:uh, oh, that's true, metropolis is dope. Yeah, forgot about metropolis. I actually don't even remember that metropolis is a silent film. Are you sure it is? Yep, because it's very good. Yep, okay, I think Metropolis is my favorite silent film.
Speaker 1:But the Lodger's number two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty good. It holds suspense very well, and I think the most interesting aspect of this is that it almost romanticizes this person who we're supposed to believe is Jack the Ripper. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I say you're supposed to believe, because the entire film, you're being cast in doubt as to who's who, even when all signs point in one direction. Right, it's, I mean. And that that's hitchcock, in a nutshell. All of the clues are the misdirection, and so you just, you're immediately suspicious that like, oh, it's too obvious, it can't possibly be right. Uh, and that is the misdirection itself. That's a style of filmmaking which just made him super, super famous in the first place.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. In 1928, hitchcock and Alma welcomed their daughter, patricia Alma Hitchcock. Pat would be their only child. After her birth, hitchcock purchased a Tudor farmhouse on 11 acres of land in Surrey. Pat, his daughter, ended up living 93 years and passed away in 2021. She was an actor and a film producer in her own right. The year after his daughter was born, alfred Hitchcock's film Blackmail from 1929 began production as a silent film, but was adapted to a talkie and became the first successful European film with sound.
Speaker 3:Quick question. Yeah, when you say adapted to a talkie, does that mean it was adapted before production began or during post-production?
Speaker 1:I think it was during the middle of production, what yeah, so they went back and reshot certain things, that kind of a thing.
Speaker 3:Either reshot or ADR'd or something I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:I guess there were other talkies out and was wildly successful I mean, yeah, it's I like them well this one I mean in 1936, both alma and patricia hitchcock. So his wife and his daughter acted as uncredited extras in alfred's film sabotage. Throughout many of his early films, alma Alma worked as an assistant director, an editor and a script supervisor. Next his films the 39 Steps, a spy thriller, and the Lady Vanishes were released. The Lady Vanishes came out in 1938.
Speaker 1:It was a mystery thriller and these really I kind of think of these as like bridge films for Hitchcock. They predate his rise to fame and his work on major Hollywood productions. But those films are also really well received and remain quite celebrated and still ranked as some of the best films from the 1900s. Hitchcock became known as a practical joker both in his personal life and on film sets. Some of his infamous and cruel pranks include dying all of the food at a dinner party that he hosted. Blue betting a crew member that he couldn't survive the night being handcuffed, and so he handcuffed this poor man and then he snuck the man. A laxative.
Speaker 1:Oh God two lead actors together in order to force the pair to generate chemistry, and kind of feigned that oh, he lost the key and like kept them handcuffed together for a while to kind of force them into getting along.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cruel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has a little bit of a dark side. I mean, he put like whoopee cushions everywhere.
Speaker 3:Okay, sure, I'll allow the whoopee cushions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but obviously some of these things are pretty fucked up.
Speaker 3:But chaining somebody up with handcuffs and then Giving them a laxative, that's so mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, spoiler alert, there's going to be some dark moments on this episode. In 1940, convinced by producer David O Selznick, known for producing Gone With the Wind, hitchcock moved to Hollywood, california. It was the same year that he released Rebecca. Rebecca is Hitchcock's first American film and his first collaboration with Selznick. Rebecca is based on the amazing novel by Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Olivier plays a widower, and Fontaine's character, his new wife, is constantly living in the shadow of his first wife, rebecca. Not only is the film dreamy visually, the score is incredible, as it often is in Hitchcock films. Mrs Danvers, the character of the housekeeper, comes in as 31 on the AFI's top 100 villains list. Rebecca is devastating. It's certainly one of my favorite Hitchcock films. The novel also is very, very good and to me a lot of his films have twists before and after Rebecca, but it's kind of one of those top 10 Hitchcock twists, I think anyway.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I've seen it.
Speaker 1:It's cool. It's a very cool film. I think you might appreciate some of the visuals.
Speaker 3:It's a heavy Sleep. No More movie.
Speaker 1:Right it is indeed, yes, one of the biggest influences of Sleep no More which, for anyone who doesn't know, is an immersive show that's in New York City and in Shanghai, based on Macbeth but also based on many Hitchcock films, mainly Rebecca, and also a bit of Psycho and Vertigo and a few other films like that In 1941, hitchcock's Mr and Mrs Smith was released. Unlike Hitchcock's many thrillers, mr and Mrs Smith from 1941 was a screwball comedy.
Speaker 3:Mr and Mrs Smith was a comedy. Yeah, I thought it was like.
Speaker 1:It's not the same as the Brad Pitt one or whatever.
Speaker 3:It's not. That's not a remake, that's a spy.
Speaker 1:That's like a spy, I think, like the idea of. There might be some similar themes, but no. Also in 1941, suspicion hit theaters. Suspicion stars Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. This is the first time that Cary Grant and Hitchcock worked together. The first of four films. It contains one of my favorite shots of all time, a stunning visual of Grant's character carrying a very suspicious glass of milk up the stairs. Not only that, but the shot looks like it's from the cabinet of Dr Caligari, like it's just so off kilter and the shadows are so exaggerated. The framing is so interesting. But the really interesting thing, which I never knew before, was that in an interview Hitchcock revealed that he lit the glass of milk by putting a little bulb and battery inside the liquid so that it stands out from the background. Wow.
Speaker 1:It's like quite interesting when you watch it. I don't think I've ever picked up on the fact that it was glowing, but now that I know that, I know that it is.
Speaker 3:That's so hard to do with that technology.
Speaker 1:I know I was like how did it not like short circuit?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, you can just make it waterproof, but just to make it miniaturized is very difficult.
Speaker 1:Well, they did a great job. Suspicion tells the story of a woman who believes her husband is trying to kill her. Joan Fontaine won the Oscar for Best Actress the only time an actor won an Academy Award for a role in a Hitchcock film and Suspicion was also nominated for Best Film. On September 26, 1942, hitchcock's mother passed away. Four months later, his older brother, william, died of an overdose at the age of 52, the same age Hitchcock's father was when he died. Starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Spellbound from 1945 was his next film. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Director, film and Score. Hitchcock often asked famous artists in other disciplines to help punch up his projects. Over the years he called on Dorothy Parker, who we've talked to her ghost before. Remember Alan, when we stayed at the Algonquin. We did.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Big time.
Speaker 1:We have an episode on that if anyone wants to learn more. She was like a famous quippy writer John Steinbeck, thornton Wilder and Raymond Chandler. He even tried to get Hemingway to work with him, but he was successful at getting Salvador Dali to help create the dream sequences in Spellbound what the heck. So he would just like call on his like these, like famous artists that he knew, and famous friends to like help him punch up his projects a bit. It's good to know talented people, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Also in 1945, hitchcock made documentaries about nazi concentration camps, essentially propaganda for the allies. Quoting from the historycom article by evan andrews, quote he famously shot two short films for the British Ministry of Information about French resistance fighters, and in the summer of 1945, he helped assemble concentration camp footage for an ambitious documentary called Memory of the Camps. Hitchcock collaborated with writers who had seen the atrocities firsthand and sent instructions to cameramen on how to properly film the horror of the death camps. The film was originally intended for a German audience, but it was shelved after the British government decided it would be a blow to the nation's already crippled morale. Memory of the camps remained unreleased until the 1980s, when it was shown at film festivals and on public television. End, quote the next year, in 1946, notorious was released.
Speaker 1:As hitch tends to do, he kept with bergman when he cast his next film. This is something I noticed that he does a lot like. If he works with an actor and likes them, the next film, like he. He tends to do it back to back, so like when he first worked with joan fontaine, the next film had her as well. Then he works with ing Joan Fontaine, the next film had her as well. Then he works with Ingrid Bergman, the next film has her, like he. He tends to not only repeat actors but sometimes like back to back. Same thing with Tippi Hedren. So I go, I like her, I like him, and then he has them in mind like immediately for the next project.
Speaker 3:That's kind of fun. I mean, I assume that was also kind of the Hollywood model, though, right when you had your stars.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you just keep shoving them in movies again and again until they do poorly and it's like you're done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's kind of like a mini version of, like the Wes Anderson model.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:Hitchcock kind of has his like his greats. So Notorious also stars Cary Grant and Claude Rains and is again a spy thriller which is a big recurring subgenre for Hitchcock Rope. In 1948 was the first time that Hitchcock cast James Stewart, the first of three times. And of course James Stewart also stars in Vertigo and in Rear Window.
Speaker 3:And Harvey, that's right.
Speaker 1:Rope is a simple and very effective film. It mainly takes place inside a single room in a Manhattan apartment and it also unfolds in pretty much real time, which is kind of a again, a very cool, innovative technique that Hitchcock plays around with. I would also say, like a lot of his films not a lot, but some of his films take place sort of in single locations or stunted locations. Sort of in single locations or stunted locations. Rope it kind of has like a bit of a crime and a punishment-esque plot, certainly very, very tense and very, very good. And again, because it's in real time, it allows him to play with time and pressure and tension in a super interesting way. Strangers on a Train came out in 1951.
Speaker 3:I've seen that. Tell us about it, alan. They're these strangers, yep, and they meet on a train and they say, hey, I want to murder someone and you want to murder someone, but we'll get caught if we do it. And they say, hmm. And they say, well, if I murder your person and you murder my person, then we won't get caught. And they're like that's a great idea. And then every audience member who ever saw that says, oh shit, that's a great idea. Do you like the movie?
Speaker 1:It's okay, it was a great idea 1954 brought us Dial M for Murder, which is certainly one of my favorite Hitchcock films. It stars Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly also is in many, many Hitchcock films, including Rear Window and Catch a Thief. Hitchcock originally wanted Cary Grant to star, but the studio Warner Brothers thought Grant wouldn't make a good villain, and so of course those two do play in To Catch a Thief together. So I want to take a second to talk about the production of the film Rear Window, which came out in 1954, the same year as Dial M for Murder. So this is another one right Back to back. Dial M for Murder, 1954, grace Kelly. Rear Window, 1954, grace Kelly. Just like back to back, hitchcock had his team build a huge set for Rear Window, all in all made up of 31 apartments. 12 of those apartments were fully furnished. Construction took six weeks and the final set was massive. Wow, Some of these fake apartment buildings were five stories high.
Speaker 3:Jeez, that's just an apartment building. There's nothing fake about it.
Speaker 1:Exactly the basement levels were built below the stage floor. This was one of the most complicated rigging and electrical projects that Paramount had taken on at the time. I want to talk to you a little bit about the filmmaking of Her Window. Some of Hitchcock's films to me feel a bit like plays right. I only think about Rope or even Lifeboat, where they're kind of contained to a single location, and I do just want to say this is what I'm reading out is not an exhaustive list. I'm kind of talking through the hits here. But Rear Window is really interesting because the camera never leaves James Stewart's apartment, despite this being the most massive set ever built at the time. Right, oh, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:We are always with him because he's wheelchair bound, and so it makes sense that we feel as kind of claustrophobic and stuck and helpless as he does.
Speaker 3:There is one shot when he's hanging out the window and we see from outside.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. At the very end we do go out briefly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how dare you? Don't misinform the people.
Speaker 1:Well, what did you think Alan Tell us about Rear Window?
Speaker 3:Rear Window's incredible. I think it's his best movie. That's not psycho, it's a great masterpiece on voyeurism and on how to tell a story in an interesting way. How camera perspective affects the way that the viewer understands what's going on.
Speaker 3:How the the camera work can affect the emotional response someone's going to have yeah how you know, just watching an assault from across the street of someone that you care about, you know is so you feel. You feel this sense of helplessness as opposed to just this sense of fear, as if you were, if you were in, if the camera was in the apartment, because then you're sympathizing with this person. Instead, you're sympathizing with the viewer and the fact that there's nothing they can do to help yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I want to pause on the voyeurism point you made a little, because it is one of the biggest recurring themes in Hitchcock's work.
Speaker 1:You know this like voyeurism, like think about Norman Bates peeking through the peephole and psycho, and there's many, many more examples. But I think it's also one of the things that other filmmakers take from Hitchcock, like Brian De Palma. So many of his films are described as Hitchcockian but also have this voyeuristic tendency of both of the camera and of characters. And I think to answer your question a little bit too about tying this series to Halloween, not only again do I believe that it's a building block for understanding a lot of the horror that comes after. But I do think, especially when you think about voyeurism to me okay, I get your point that for you Halloween the veil is thin, I agree. But to me, the things in the world, the thing in the world that I am most afraid of, that brings the most fear for me, is what people do to people and especially with, like, the voyeuristic elements of Hitchcock films. Despite their age, I think they still can be quite unnerving sometimes because they are possible.
Speaker 3:Right, it's the same reason why you gravitate towards true crime, and I don't.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't gravitate towards it because I enjoy the entertainment of it.
Speaker 3:You love being scared, and true crime can be very scary. Yeah, and it's upsetting, that's true, and you love housewives, housewives well, don't rat me out.
Speaker 1:Starring carrie grant and grace kelly again a classic pairing. To catch a thief from 1955 remains a stunning film. To catch a thief screams the stanger oceans. 11 to me versus again one of these like darker psychological thrillers or horror films, but I actually think it's one of hitchcock's best examples of witty comedy.
Speaker 3:Like the witty exchanges between Grant and Kelly even made you laugh. I got a little chuckle from you. That movie was very charming and was very not. I would never have guessed it was a Hitchcock film.
Speaker 1:Right, it kind of has a different vibe to it. I mean in some ways, but in other ways, like the green lighting in that beautiful nighttime scene when they're in the hotel.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, that is very Hitchcockian. I think you're the one that said this, but you're spot on. It feels far much more Ocean's. Eleven than it does Rear Window.
Speaker 1:Right. Exactly Set along the French Riviera, the film tells the story of a retired cat burglar who is trying to clear his name after a copycat emerges onto the scene. Again, it's certainly more of like a surface level film. It's beautiful, it's flirty, it's hilarious, it's charming, but it doesn't make any big psychological points. Another comedy from 1955, the Trouble with Harry, which was the first time that Hitchcock collaborated with composer Bernard Herrmann. All in all, Herrmann composed seven Hitchcock films, including Vertigo, Psycho, the Wrong man, North by Northwest Marnie and the man who Knew Too Much. I really, really love the scores of Bernard Herrmann and I also think just so many Hitchcock films have such iconic and incredible scores and it's one of the elements of his filmmaking that I think is the most, one of the more successful pieces, and obviously that's a high bar. But I really think the scores are incredibly moving and do a lot for creating fear.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, he calls in favors and he just gets all his music from Salvador Dali. That's right.
Speaker 1:So the man who Knew Too Much from 1956. 22 years after Hitchcock made the man who Knew Too Much in 1934, Hitchcock remade his own film and released a completely different version in 1956. The original was one of his earliest successes, especially with his talkie films. So, fast forward to the 50s, Hitchcock was in a five picture deal with Paramount and used this remake to fill one of those slots. So he owed Paramount five films essentially and used one of those slots to remake his own work.
Speaker 3:Ah, that's cheating.
Speaker 1:The first of the five films as part of this deal was Rear Window. Ah, he's fine. Remaking the man who Knew Too Much allowed Hitchcock to fulfill his debt to the studio. But the more important reason to remake the film was that Hitchcock wasn't a huge fan of the original. He felt his direction on the original was amateurish. And the remake stars Hitchcock favorite James Stewart along with Doris Day, and it's really a story of a couple who witness a murder while on a vacation in Morocco.
Speaker 3:I've never seen it, but outside of the fucking birds, you know, all of his movies are great.
Speaker 1:There you go. Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo hit theaters in 1958. It's known for its dizzying cinematic sequences, impeccable performances, haunting score and trippy effects. Vertigo is based on a novel called the living and the dead. The novel was released four years before the film, but the english version only two years before. Many of hitchcock's films are based on novels, including rebecca, psycho, strangers on a train, the birds and the 39 steps, just to name a few. Hitchcock had tried to obtain the rights to a previous novel by this writer called she, who Was no More but was beaten out by another director, georges Clouseau.
Speaker 3:I think it's pronounced Inspector Clouseau.
Speaker 1:Who turned the story into a film called Les Diaboliques in 1955. Well, I don't think Vertigo is a perfect film. There are some elements that stand out to me in a big way and I do love it. First and foremost, Vertigo is a perfect example of a story that relies on the use of a doppelganger, and you know that I love doppelgangers.
Speaker 3:You do love doppelgangers, I don't know why.
Speaker 1:We have a whole series on it.
Speaker 1:I sure do One of my favorite series that we've ever done. Another element of Vertigo that stands out is the soundtrack. Again, many Hitchcock films and thrillers from this time period in general have incredible scores, but something about Vertigo stands above the rest. The score, again, was composed by Bernard Herrmann, who also, in addition to composing seven Hitchcock films, composed the famous Twilight Zone score and Taxi Driver. Herrmann was a Juilliard-trained composer born in 1911, who broadly transformed film scoring. He was a longtime collaborator with both Hitchcock and Orson Welles. Many credit Vertigo as being the first film to use computer graphics, which is also wild that somebody who was born in the 1800s was the first person to use computer graphics in a film. What year was this? 1955. Can you pull this up? What are the first person to use computer graphics in a film? What?
Speaker 3:year was this 1955. Can you pull this up? What are the first computer graphics?
Speaker 1:It's yeah here.
Speaker 3:Okay, we just watched them. It's very interesting that they went with computer graphics, for that I didn't realize. They even had computers then, let alone computer graphics, and this is something that they've.
Speaker 1:this is a shot that I'm pretty sure I've seen done practically with like double exposure and stuff yeah sure so a bold choice well, they have the technology and he was always one to try the new thing. It's cool, yeah, if anyone wants to watch. If you just look up like the vertigo opening credits, you can see it. So another technique that came from vertigo is called the vertigo, which has been adopted by many other filmmakers since it was first pioneered by Hitchcock.
Speaker 3:Okay, Abby, how do you do it?
Speaker 1:The effect results in the subject of the shot remaining stationary while the background shifts, either shrinking or growing. It's accomplished by using a dolly, and it has since been used by Scorsese Spielberg and Peter Jackson, among others. I'll explain to you, alan, how you do it.
Speaker 3:Please.
Speaker 1:I am filming you. Right, You're going to stand still.
Speaker 3:Hypothetically.
Speaker 1:And I have a camera on a dolly. Yep, I am going to move the dolly backwards and zoom towards you with the camera at the same time.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it's going to create this very dizzying, very iconic effect called the vertigo effect.
Speaker 3:Sure. More commonly, however, you would push in while zooming out.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, whatever, same thing. Scotty, played by James Stewart, is an exceptionally flawed character, especially by today's standards. Though he is the victim, in some sense the pawn in a plot, his obsessive and controlling behavior vilifies him by the end. James Stewart and Kim Novak are incredible in the film. One ofive and controlling behavior vilifies him by the end. James Stewart and Kim Novak are incredible in the film. One of my favorite fun facts is that the pair actually appeared in a different film together, which was released in the same year as Vertigo. So Bell Book and Candle with the same two leads also came out in 1958. I see.
Speaker 1:It's a very fun film. It's like a psychological romantic comedy, um, very, very different from vertigo. Very refreshing. Jeffrey sherlock of the production code administration had pressured hitchcock to amend the ending of vertigo in order to convey to audiences that galvin elster was being closed in on by the authorities, so essentially just saying like the bad guy can't get away. At the end, hitchcock appeased them by filming a scene with mid who's that, his neighbor who is in love with him, as she, as she listens to the radio coverage of Elster's whereabouts in her apartment as Scotty has entered and joins her. Hitchcock was able to sidestep actually including this footage, however, and it was rediscovered in the 90s and added as an alternate ending to digital releases.
Speaker 1:Vertigo remains to me a standout film, even within Hitchcock's very impressive resume. From the score to the visual effects and the performances. Vertigo and the talent behind it helped to push cinema forward into a new and uncharted territory. Hitchcock took risks and they paid off. Starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, north by Northwest came out the following year. This was really the golden age of Hitchcock. The film tells the story of a New York City-based ad exec that's forced to go on the run after he's mistaken for a government agent by a group of spies. A little Hollywood tidbit Hitchcock had told James Stewart about the film, who had mistakenly assumed that Hitchcock wanted him to star in it, though in reality Hitchcock had Cary Grant in mind. Stewart was so excited that Hitchcock delayed production until Stewart was working on another project, so that when he offered him the role he knew that he would have to turn it down and then offered it to Grant.
Speaker 1:That so mean actually it's kind of respectful the film is interesting when looked at through a modern day feminist lens, quoting from betsy reeds's guardian article. Quote hitchcock's women are outwardly immaculate, but full of treachery and weakness. But hurrah, he doesn't kill them all, he just teaches them a thoroughly good lesson. In North by Northwest, a seemingly never-ending adventure, farce about mistaken identity, double-crossing and CIA agents. Roger O Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, is the innocent fall guy caught up in the life of lying duplicitous butter-wouldn't-me-it undercover agent Eve.
Speaker 3:Butter-wouldn't-me-it.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's what it says butter, butter, wouldn't butter, wouldn't be it butter wouldn't, as in would not me it, me it butter wouldn't meet it undercover agent eve. Underneath, of course, eve's just another malicious feather brain ah, you're just another malicious feather brain, eh who got into the agenting business because she was flattered to be asked to betray a secretive ex-lover.
Speaker 1:I love that combination of stereotypes we're stupid, cunning, soft-hearted and traitorous all at the same time ah, so women only in the mind of a true hater can these contradictory qualities come together in the nasty piece of work that is woman. Anyway, silly girl Eve gets found out. Her life's in danger. She falls for the fall guy and winds up dangling one-handed over a ledge. Roger saves her End quote.
Speaker 3:Typical. It's my understanding that North by Northwest is most people's favorite Hitchcock film.
Speaker 1:Certainly one of the most popular.
Speaker 3:It's either that or Psycho. If you are horror focused, then yes, Psycho, because that was probably your intro to Alfred Hitchcock. But if you are a Hitchcock fanatic and have watched a lot of the library, North by Northwest is the way to go.
Speaker 1:I think Rear Window also plays a big in people's top fives.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. I have no counterpoint. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:I like the, the shots with the uh the camera in the window 1960 gave us psycho and we over here at lunatics radio hour actually have an entire episode on psycho alone we do if you go all the way back to episode 68, you don't remember that. Nope, we did a whole episode on Psycho.
Speaker 3:I mean, that sounds like us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to cover a lot of the same things right now.
Speaker 3:Can we just roll the tape?
Speaker 1:Let's play back. We'll just insert that episode here. So this is what Hitchcock said about Psycho, quote. Well, Psycho is my first attempt at a shocker. In other words, it has in its content certain episodes that do shock. In one sense, it could be called a horror film, but the horror only comes to you after you've seen it, when you get home in the dark End. Quote the screenplay was written by Joseph Stefano. It was based on a book by Robert Block which came out in 1959. The movie was independently financed by Hitchcock with a budget just over $800,000. Production started on November 11, 1959, and concluded on February 1, 1960. Each evening, filming ended at 6 pm at the latest, so that Hitchcock could eat with his wife, Alma, at Chasen's, a famous Hollywood restaurant. Most of the film was shot using 50mm lenses on 35mm cameras. Hitchcock felt that this helped to mimic human vision and bring the audience into the story even more.
Speaker 3:This is a matter of debate.
Speaker 1:What do you think, Alan?
Speaker 3:I mean no, I'm sure he shot on those lenses.
Speaker 1:I know, but what do you think is the best way to bring the audience into reality?
Speaker 3:It's more of which lens emulates the human field of view the best. Right. And it's been debated for a while whether it's 35 or 50. I think, if you're getting really specific, something like a 42 millimeter lens is the field of view and also just like the way that the depth compresses. Interestingly, I've never seen a 42 millimeter lens outside of a zoom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, outside of what?
Speaker 3:Like a zoom, where you can just go through all the different. I've never seen a 42 millimeter prime.
Speaker 1:We should make one, we should invent it.
Speaker 3:We have a 40.
Speaker 1:Shark tank.
Speaker 3:Yeah, shark, tank it We'll market it as the most accurate the Hitchcock lens.
Speaker 1:The Coudin lens.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think it would sell better as the prior.
Speaker 1:Well, we wouldn't get sued if we called it the Kudanlons. Before filming began, hitchcock sent his assistant to Phoenix to scout locations that were later recreated in the Hollywood studio. In the film adaptation we have famous performances by Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane. Though Psycho was initially met with mixed reviews, it went on to be nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress and Best Director. Janet Leigh won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. During filming, perkins and Leigh were allowed to improvise and interpret their roles as they'd like, as long as it didn't involve moving the camera. For example, perkins improvised the moment when Bates eats candy corn. Also during production, hitchcock created many different iterations of the dead mother's skeleton body and would hide it in Janet Leigh's dressing room another example of him being a cruel prankster.
Speaker 3:And yeah, and then he would handcuff her to the skeleton and give her laxatives. Freaking psycho.
Speaker 1:Reportedly she took it very well and most believe it was done to keep her on edge during filming I'd be on edge, too, if every time I ate or drank something I'm like is this tainted hitchcock often ran into trouble with hollywood censors, and this was particularly true with psycho.
Speaker 1:quoting from the historycom article by evans, quote Hitchcock spent most of his career bristling at the restrictions of the Hays Code, the industry guidelines that regulated the content of Hollywood films, and he often devised clever techniques to circumvent the rules. While making Psycho, he intentionally sent the Hays office scenes with graphic violence and nudity to distract them from axing the more subtle shots that he wanted to keep. He also convinced the officials that a shot of a toilet, long forbidden under the restrictions of the Hays Code, was crucial to the film's plot. When the censors later asked him to reshoot the sexually suggestive opening of Psycho, hitchcock claimed he didn't understand their requests and needed them to personally join him on set and give instructions. The gambit worked when the censors didn't show, the director was able to leave the scene unchanged. End quote.
Speaker 3:Huh, I mean, the Hays Code seemed weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to say the least.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I agree that we should have a rating system for movies and, you know, games and everything. Yep. But the Hays Code. It just seems so arbitrary where it's just like this one person's, like you know what. No, this is an affront to my beliefs.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it's very one sided in terms of like a religious and pious point of view, which is part of the problem with the world.
Speaker 3:I wonder if it was in writing that you can't have a toilet yeah, I think it was like one of the regulations, like in writing and I wonder if it's like legal precedent where, like, yeah, well, hitchcock showed a toilet, so now I'm making toilet the movie.
Speaker 1:Well, and then by 1968, so eight years later the Hays Code was deprecated and replaced with the rating systems that we all know and love.
Speaker 3:Deprecated yeah, or defecated.
Speaker 1:Very good Alan.
Speaker 3:I like that you laughed at that.
Speaker 1:Did you not want me to?
Speaker 3:No, it just shows your maturity level is very low.
Speaker 1:That's right. It just shows your maturity level is very low, that's right. So the toilet bed, just to be really clear, is this is also the first time that we ever saw a toilet flushed in a film. Hitchcock was involved in none of the sequels and spinoffs of Psycho that came to follow, and this included three sequels, a remake, a TV series and a made for TV spinoff.
Speaker 3:Does that include American Psycho?
Speaker 1:No, it could, it doesn't. I also want to talk about the sexually explicit or suggestive opening that that quote referenced as well. So Hitchcock's use of sexuality and violence in Psycho is extremely bold for the time. It may of course seem mundane to us now, and in many ways it was the first film of its kind to show what it did. And if we think about what psycho has done for horror, I think we also have to think about the coupling of sexuality and violence in that way. But even marion in a bra at the beginning, right, the shower scene, graphic violence, the blood, the fact that when they open they're clearly like hooking up at a hotel, it's all just very tongue in, it's all very envelope pushing for the time.
Speaker 3:Just wondering what he put in as like red herrings for the Hays Code people to be like oh yeah, get rid of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he probably had them film some. He filmed the guy with the laxatives. So let's talk about the shower scene in Psycho. Psycho shower scene is one of the most infamous scenes in all of cinema. The scene was filmed between December 17th and 23rd 1959. So five days of filming just for this one scene. Six days. It had been postponed by Janet Leigh twice, one because she didn't feel well and once because she had her period. It's laxatives.
Speaker 1:We all know didn't feel well and once because she had her period. It's laxatives, we all know, famously. 77 different camera angles were used in the final edit. The scene lasts for three minutes with 50 cuts, quoting from hitchcock quote. As you know, you could not take the camera and just show a nude woman. It had to be done impressionistically. So it was done with little pieces of film the head, the feet, the hand, etc. In that scene there were 78 pieces of film in about 45 seconds. End quote.
Speaker 1:The scene is a master class in editing. So when the film finally was set to be released, hitchcock mandated that theaters could not let anyone into the theater if they arrived late Unusual for the time, and he said that this was because people who arrived late wouldn't see the performance of star Janet Leigh. Psycho relies heavily on its twist ending. Hitchcock was so protective of this that he wouldn't let the stars do any promotion of the film because he was afraid that the ending would be accidentally revealed, which is crazy, because usually that's like the number one promotional element of a film is the actors giving interviews about it.
Speaker 3:It's really just amazing that not a single person spoiled it on TikTok.
Speaker 1:No private or advanced screenings were given to critics or press. Hitchcock told Robert Ebert in a 1969 interview quote once the screenplay is finished In a 1969 interview quote Once the screenplay is finished, I just as soon not make the film at all. All the fun is over. I have a strong visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all of this out in the greatest detail in the script and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not to look at the score. It's melancholy to shoot a picture. When you finish the script, the film is perfect, but in shooting it you lose perhaps 40% of your original concept. End quote.
Speaker 3:I've worked with so many directors that like have this mentality, where they're just like no, no, no, it's all in my heart and those guys are just the fucking worst.
Speaker 1:That's not sustainable.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, don't get me wrong there are the greats out there that can do it, but there are so many people that think they're the greats, you know, but you're working with a bunch of people that are there just to do their job. They have not lived and breathed inside your head, and for you that's a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I wonder was he a good guy? Did people?
Speaker 1:like him? Well he's. We're about to get into that right now did I actually go on outline?
Speaker 1:yeah, that was a pretty good transition wow so I'm gonna say, just before we get into the, the kind of rest of this episode, things will take a little bit of a darker turn. There's going to be, I'm just gonna say it, some references to sexual assault, so kind of a content turn. There's going to be, I'm just going to say it, some references to sexual assault, so kind of a content warning for the rest of this piece here.
Speaker 1:In 1963, the Byrds hit theaters. A creature feature and a rarity for Hitchcock. Like Rebecca, the Byrds was also based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor. Hedren plays Melanie Daniels, who arrives at Bodega Bay about an hour outside of San Francisco in order to play a joke on Mitch Brenner as he's visiting his family. But not too long after she arrives the birds in the area start to behave strangely. I also think some could make an argument here for like an early environmental horror, like in some ways it feels like the happening, or something like that right, the birds makes you want to burn the whole world down exactly my point.
Speaker 1:the birds was tippy hedren's first film and it wasn't an easy set for her on many levels. Despite being promised that she would not have to interact with live birds, an on-set decision was made to use real birds and this was that attic shot of her, and it is quite a terrifying shot. It was decided that the mechanical prop birds wouldn't look real enough on film and so Hedren was forced to film traumatic scenes in a traumatic way. Quoting from the Lit Hub article by Edward White, quote as Hedren remembers, she found out about the change of plan on the morning of the shoot. Quoting from her it was brutal and ugly and relentless, she says of the five days she spent on the floor of the set while birds were thrown at her head. The crew members who have spoken about it over the years attest that they all, hitchcock included, felt bad about the situation. In 1980, hedren said it was very hard for Hitch at this time too.
Speaker 3:I thought you're going to say all of the crew, hitchcock included, took turns throwing the birds at her.
Speaker 1:Oh no, he wouldn't come out of his office until we were absolutely ready to shoot, because he couldn't stand to watch it. End quote. However, she now suggests that the episode was part of Hitchcock's effort to dominate her end quote. However, she now suggests that the episode was part of Hitchcock's effort to dominate her end quote. So I just want to say like to me that's quite a manipulative tactic. Like okay, what's best for the film is that we have to throw live birds at this woman, which feels traumatic for the birds and for the actor. And Hitchcock is mandating it, but his whole thing is oh my gosh, it's so hard for me to watch this. I'm going to stay in my office until it's time to shoot, even though everybody else on set has to deal with it and be traumatized because he's making them.
Speaker 3:It's just a bit of a manipulative thing to do it's okay if it's hard for you, but it can't be hard for me right, exactly.
Speaker 1:But even beyond production boundaries being crossed, there is unfortunately more darkness present in the relationship between hitchcock and hedren. Hitchcock did essentially discover her and gave her this huge starring role. So really, the birds was not only the first film she was in, but like the first film she starred in as not an extra and wasn't commercial work. So she was plucked out of a very, very small time, you know, acting like local acting gig and given the starring role of a Hitchcock film, which is also, you know, just like a crazy thing. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:On the press tour for the birds. He was ever present during every interview Tippy gave, even to magazines like Seventeen Hedren was extremely aware of the money that Hitchcock had invested in her screen tests. You know, not even to magazines like Seventeen Hedren was extremely aware of the money that Hitchcock had invested in her screen tests. You know. Not even to mention, of course, like the chance that he gave her in the movie. So it kind of to me as an outsider feels like this very, very, very successful man found this small-time kind of local actor, made her incredibly famous and then was incredibly controlling of her on and off the screen.
Speaker 3:It seems like this guy wrote the book that Harvey Weinstein then followed.
Speaker 1:Right. He like broke her down, you know, on the set of the Birds, by throwing birds at her, and then that continued. So I'm going to quote again from the Lit Hub article. Quote the minute attentions paid to her acting and the creation of her public persona elicited no complaints from Hedren. He was not only my director, he was my drama coach, which was fabulous. The problem was that the Tippy project strayed beyond the film set.
Speaker 1:Hitchcock inserted himself into Hedren's life in ways she could not accept. He left food he wanted her to eat outside the front door, sent her a peculiar Valentine's message and peppered her with requests for her to join him for dinners, lunches and drinks when alone, he told dirty stories and jokes, likely the same ones he told Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, though Hedren wasn't anywhere near as amused as those two women appeared to have been. Worst of all, she alleges that one afternoon, hitchcock, quote, threw himself on top of me and tried to kiss me. Quote in the back of a limo directly outside their hotel. Quote. It was an awful, awful moment I'll always wish I could erase from my memory. End quote. Hedren says the incident was never mentioned by either of them for the rest of the production. End quote. However, the situation continued throughout Hitchcock's next film, marnie. This is another example where he finds Hedren and then back-to-back films cast her, so she's in the Birds and then the next year she's in Marnie.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:Marnie was released in 1964 and stars Tippi Hedren along with Sean Connery. Hitchcock's possessive and controlling behavior continued to worsen until Hedren hit a breaking point. She was invited to New York City to receive an award from Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, but Hitchcock would not allow her to go. The fight escalated so much that they never worked together again and, by all accounts, this also ended their off-screen relationship. This was rarely discussed by Alfred, with the exception of one interview where he admitted that she had gone too far by referencing his weight, but in 2016, hedren released a memoir. This is what she wrote about the incident that ended their relationship End quote. I've never gone into detail about this and I never will. I'll simply say that he suddenly grabbed me and put his hands on me. It was sexual, it was perverse and it was ugly, and I couldn't have been more shocked and more repulsed. End quote.
Speaker 1:Predating her memoir, in 2012, a film was released called the Girl that fictionalized this encounter and relationship, though by most accounts, it seems to be quite exaggerated. There are many who maintain that hitchcock was a staunch gentleman with women and that this encounter is fabricated. However, at the time, hitchcock was at his peak. He was considered, and I quote, a god of cinema, there was little to be gained for hedron to burn a bridge with him and to fabricate the story or want to pull away from him in general. Well, this predates, like you referenced before alan, me too all the things with harvey weinstein, and I think there's probably a lot of other stories from women who worked on sets with hitchcock but decided, because they wanted to protect their careers and be in these films that were massive, mega hits, not to say anything and not to fight back in the way that Tippi Hedren to her you know props again, being kind of plucked out of nowhere and thrown into superstardom really was able to separate herself from him pretty quickly.
Speaker 3:The old adage of you'll never work in this town again. You know, know, that has to come from somewhere yeah, and it's from men like hitchcock yeah that if you said you're done, you were done yeah because the the other people that maybe would hire you were then too afraid to to, you know, to ruffle the feathers of someone so important yeah yeah, everyone's trying to establish their career and is basically you're climbing the, the ladder and the, and it's completely controlled by the people at the top at any time they can say you know, fuck you, you're blacklisted and that's it yep, yep, exactly.
Speaker 1:Not only was hitchcock's treatment of women in real life unacceptable, but I also want to take a minute to reflect on how the female characters in marnie are portrayed in this film, quoting from the Guardian article by Betsy Reed on Hitchcock's depiction of women. Warning this quote is a bit rough and references sexual abuse Quote. If you want some full-on misogyny, rampant woman blaming and outright abuser, apologism, look no further than Marnie. Mie is a liar thief in an all-around uptight, frigid piece of trouble who is set up, blackmailed into a forced marriage and raped by her husband. She tries to kill herself. The husband subjects her to a private investigation.
Speaker 1:Raping her past turns out marnie's pathology is entirely the fault of another woman, her mother, who is a sex worker I'm changing the words here who is a sex worker, of course. One night, during a storm, one of her mother's johns tried to confront Marnie. The mother, silly thing, totally misconstrued it and thought he was molesting Marnie, and so she went for him. And then Marnie, the daft little sausage, got all hysterical watching the ensuing tussle and killed that poor, sweet, innocent guy with a poker. Anyway, once we get to the bottom of all of this, marnie has a brainwave and decides to make it work with her lovely young, abusive, stalking, blackmailing, rapist husband. Happy endings. What.
Speaker 1:That's the plot of Marnie as described through a feminist lens.
Speaker 3:That doesn't sound like a great movie.
Speaker 1:I think here's the also thing, here's the complicated thing. If you look at any Hitchcock film, I think you can struggle to find a feminist angle. Really, it's just such blatant misogyny. And even in these micro ways in Re right, where the whole tension between James Stewart and Grace Kelly is that she's too feminine to possibly keep up on his you know, adventurous photojournalism lifestyle, and so if she doesn't stop reading Harper's Bazaar and wearing heels, and so she has to prove herself to be a worthy wife to him by breaking into this murderer's house and, like you know, getting into a physical situation with this guy, and then at the end she wears like loafers, you know, because she's she's now an evolved woman. It's just very, you know, it's not great.
Speaker 3:It was Abby. It was a different time. Women had only been invented shortly before. Everyone was still getting very used to the concept.
Speaker 1:That's right. Before that they were just were just a rib hitchcock's last film was family plot, which was released in 1976, and again, we have not gone through all 53 of hitchcock's films, but shame we have talked about.
Speaker 3:Quite he sounds like a dirtbag. I before at the beginning of this I'm like, wow, what a great guy. I like his movies.
Speaker 1:Now is he dead yeah, he was born in the 1800s. Do you think he's still alive?
Speaker 3:I don't know with modern advancement and Botox, you know.
Speaker 1:You never know. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing and that's something we contend with a lot.
Speaker 3:What death.
Speaker 1:Well with death, but also with the whole. You know, art versus the artist debate, and Hitchcock's films are incredible, michael Jackson's music is incredible, but at what point. You know, we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, like, how do we as audience members grapple between these two things and somebody's personal life and somebody's art? And I think you really can't, in my opinion, separate the art and the artist entirely, because art is who you are and you're, creating things and you're you know everything about you is going into that art and it's going into the behind the scenes and the treatment of the other people who are collaborating with you on that course of modern cinema. They changed the course of horror. They changed the course of thrillers and psychological thrillers and suspense. But we can acknowledge that without thinking that Hitchcock is a god, you know. I think the real plot twist here is that Hitchcock turned out to be a villain.
Speaker 1:In 1979, hitchcock won the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. He thanked four people. Quote four people. Quote Four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation and encouragement and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a script writer, the third is the mother of my daughter, pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever, performed miracles in a domestic kitchen, and their names are Alma Reville, which of course is referring to his wife, are has ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen, and their names are Alma.
Speaker 1:Reville, which of course is referring to his wife. Are those all?
Speaker 3:the same person. Yeah, he's making a. What a twist.
Speaker 1:In 1980, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Alfred Hitchcock, but he never won an Oscar for Best Film or Best Director. So he had to kneel.
Speaker 1:That's right, he had to kneel. In 1967, he won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Academy Awards and I think in 1979, he won the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. Sir Alfred Hitchcock was 80 years old when he died of kidney failure in his Los Angeles home. All in all, hitchcock made films from 1922 until 1976.
Speaker 1:Looking across Hitch's films, you see constant patterns, especially when analyzing the female characters, most of which are incredibly flawed, which wouldn't be so bad if only the men were just as complicated. Quoting again from Reed's Guardian article, quote and for now the biggie, the all-encompassing Hitchcockian entity known as Mother. In North by Northwest, the entire drama kicks off as the protagonist is on his way to send his mother a telegraph. In the Birds, lawyer Mitch lives with his mother when he's not working. In Vertigo, scotty chides his ex for being too motherly towards him when she's helping him convalesce. And in Rear Window, jeffrey's therapist again plays a strongly motherly advisory role. I think it's safe to say that little Alfred has mummy issues. Nowhere are they more apparent than in Psycho. Despite its horror and suspense, psycho is one of the simplest of Hitchcock's films because the central dynamic is so stark. It is all psychologically realistic, despite the ghoulish trappings. End quote Hitchcock is dubbed the master of suspense for a reason.
Speaker 1:His work helped shape the horror and thriller genres as we know them today. Psycho alone is thought of as one of the best horror films of all time. Again, john Carpenter credits Hitchcock as creating the slasher genre with Norman Bates. Hitchcock was a bold filmmaker, a pioneer, whose influence on movies is so vast it's impossible to quantify. Not only did he shape the horror genre with Psycho, but he truly was the master of suspense across most of his other works. Hitchcock is known for his incredible mastery of tension, his inventive filmmaking techniques and his twist endings. His work was groundbreaking from a technical perspective and a story perspective, from keeping the focus on the character's eyes to inventing new dolly moves or POV shots. Hitchcock created suspense with those intentional and, at the time, new technical moves. Quoting from a no Film School article by Jason Hellerman, quote Hitchcock often frames the protagonist and antagonist in the same way, mirroring them for the audience, but uses lighting to show what's different about them as characters.
Speaker 1:In other words, he uses lighting to help the viewer determine who's bad and who's good. Furthermore, his thoughtful use of long shots and close-ups convey plot and emotion. Visually, we can tell who is lying, who is telling the truth and what makes them nervous. Also, the pans from a close-up to a wide shot are so masterful, end quote. Any lover of horror, suspense or human stories can appreciate the works of Alfred Hitchcock. His films are transformative, special and were groundbreaking. But he and his works are certainly flawed and not perfect. Not everything aged very well and his tactics as both a filmmaker and a man were not always consensual. From the early 1920s until the late 1970s, hitchcock made 52 films, which makes him one of the most prolific and enduring Hollywood directors of all time.
Speaker 3:I mean, his movies are great. He made a lot of great stuff. You kind of lost me in him just becoming a total Hollywood jerk at the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really interesting because I bet there's. You know, when there's smoke, there's fire. I sadly bet there's more untold stories.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure, Also the few. If you watch trailers for his films, they're hilarious because he talks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And him on camera speaking is just so comical yeah he just he seems like a clown yeah, he's very awkward yeah, the in the trailer for marnie. It's absurd he's. He's saying like and let's let's.
Speaker 2:Let's watch a scene right here with a man talking with a woman. I'm okay, we want. I'm gonna stop you right there. I don't really know where this is going and this could be anything, just a man talking to a woman. I don't really know. Let's look at the next scene. Like that's the fucking trailer yeah, yeah, it's I mean.
Speaker 1:But the thing about him too, and where you get things like that he's trying new things all the time, you know, and like it gets to the point where everyone's like, oh, it's, it's Hitchcock, it's great and his films are I mean with 53, I'm sure there's some real stinkers in there, First and foremost being the birds.
Speaker 1:What do you think about? I think some of the boldness in his films is a bit lost on us now because they all just seem like old, outdated films. But when you look at the green lighting in To Catch, to catch a thief, that's also in vertigo and you think about that. He was the the filmmaker who first took a chance on cgi effects, like, and I think that's what he's trying to do with some of those weird or he was trying to do some of those weird commercials. It's just like he was always trying to innovate and push for like a new weird thing that's true.
Speaker 3:It's really easy to look back at old media and think this is such a like. This is so cliche.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But it wasn't when you did it, because you were the guy that invented it, right, but you need the context, and without the context it looks stupid as hell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does, I will give you that it does Okay. So, alan, I know we've kind of come to a down note here on hitchcock.
Speaker 3:But what's your favorite hitchcock film? I think I'm coming around on the birds. No, you're not. No, I'm not, it's stupid. Uh, I mean, I love psycho. Psycho's really great, yeah. And rear window yep, those two they're very different.
Speaker 3:I don't, you don't really need to pick one or the other you don't there, I think rear window is a perfect example of a unique story yeah you know, if that's the one room movie, technically you just happen to be able to see a lot of other rooms and that has inspired so so many other stories. Psycho is just really quality storytelling in a. It's in a very simple yet crafted way yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:I also would encourage anybody who maybe hasn't or isn't as familiar to check out the films of brian de palma, which are incredibly inspired by alfred hitchcock and also kind of, but like in a more updated, like 80s, 90s version, and so they're very fun and also kind of make bold technical choices and to varying degrees of success. But you'll notice a lot of similar themes, plot twists, storylines and again this push towards new, strange camera technique and things like that camera technique and things like that.
Speaker 3:Speaking of which, when we were rewatching Rear Window, we thought it was so neat when they just did this slight high angle over the shoulder.
Speaker 1:On James Stewart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we both were like whoa look at that shot.
Speaker 1:Whoa, look at that shot.
Speaker 3:There's nothing unique about that shot. With the one exception of it's. Everything else in the movie is standard coverage or pov shots. That's it. That's the whole movie. And then you have one thing that is off the access of a human eye line.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're just like whoa it stands out wow again, like you knew it, it was really cool. I really wonder how like we haven't talked about his cinematographers at all and how much was Hitchcock and how much were the cinematographers? You know, this is a very classic Hollywood thing of giving all of the credit to the director, and maybe that's fair, maybe it was Hitchcock being like absolutely drilling it into people, do this, do this, but that is absolutely not how it's done at all today. Today, you know it's it's a collaborative thing or it's you pick your lane, where the director is in charge of the actors and the DP is in charge of telling the story with the camera. You know, normally there's, uh, a lot of collaboration. You know it's a lot of collaboration. It's a collaboration of the two, but very infrequently is it like the director being doing absolutely everything.
Speaker 1:A thousand percent, and you know what else is really interesting. So I just looked this up while you were talking. Out of 53 films, hitchcock only worked with 19 cinematographers.
Speaker 3:I'm going to totally go out on a limb and say that once he found somebody that would put up with him, he kept them around yeah, it seems like that person might have been robert burks he's the guy, huh he was a cinematographer for vertigo to catch a thief rear window.
Speaker 1:Strangers on a train marnie the birds okay north by northwest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hitchcock liked control and this guy and who knew too much trouble, harry, yeah that he this is this guy totally understood what hitchcock wanted and could just make it happen, and he probably kept around as long as humanly possible just so that he didn't have to have a new guy and start all over again. Yep, despite I'm sure that there was a line a mile long of cinematographers that are just like. Excuse me, mr cock, uh, can can I please shoot your movie?
Speaker 1:yeah, and the other film that he shot was dial him for murder of hitchcock's. But he is incredibly prolific, this guy he's. He's worked on a ton of films outside of hitchcock as well. Here's the other thing too. Like I think, when you are someone in that position, like when you're in a position like Hitchcock, it's like this self-fulfilling loop, I suppose, of becoming controlling right. It's like how I think of CEOs. Of course CEOs eventually lose it a little, or you need a certain type of person to be in that role, because if you're going to be an auteur or a ceo, you know it's like your job is to run the ship and to have a vision and to execute it. But it's when you can't separate yourself from that that it becomes a problem.
Speaker 3:And I think, and then you also start sexually assaulting women right is one of the the worst, probably, you know.
Speaker 1:Not only is he on set like being a controlling film freak, he is also handcuffing his actors to one another and throwing live birds at people and putting you know fake skeletons of people's mothers and actors, dressing rooms like he's just out of control.
Speaker 3:All at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just, you know he's. Everything he's doing is manipulative and controlling. On that note, we are very excited that next episode we do have some really lovely Hitchcock inspired stories for you. I am so excited. They're both incredibly well written and have really really good twists on both of them. So stay tuned for that next episode, and then we are going to get into something very, very spooky at the end of the month for Halloween, as always. Thank you, guys for being here. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3:Bye, bye.
