Alfred Hitchcock

by Patrick McGilligan

  “Everyone’s frightened.”

  “Don’t tell me you are.”

  “Oh yes, I am. I’m always frightened. When I walk into the dining room at Paramount I’m as insecure as everybody else.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Everybody’s frightened and insecure, and the ones who appear not to be are just appearing not to be. Deep down, they’re as frightened as the next fellow, maybe even more so.”

  “Well, Hitch, I’m not frightened anymore and I feel that you and I can talk about anything. And if I’m not giving you what you want in a scene—”

  “Of course I’ll tell you—you’ll be the first to know!”

  Shortly after this master class—which should be excerpted in the chapter in directing manuals headed “On the Handling of Nervous Actresses”—Day’s biggest scene came up on the schedule. It was the scene, by happy circumstance, where her character’s nerves have been stretched to the breaking point—the scene where, before her husband tells her that her son has been kidnapped, he insists on sedating her with pills. Upon hearing the terrible news, she cries out and attacks him, and he restrains her as her strength ebbs. A tough, tough scene.

  The two stars went through the blocking once for the camera, then broke for lunch. The actress spent the entire lunchtime nervously preparing, “doing the whole scene, every detail, every line of dialogue in my head, which is the only place I like to rehearse.” Then Hitchcock shot the difficult scene in one take—and it became the acting highlight of the film.

  Ultimately, the second Man Who Knew Too Much belongs to Day more than Stewart, just as the first belongs more to the mother. Stewart’s performance improves in the second half, but hers reaches a level of real, affecting depth, climaxing in the Albert Hall scene. As the cymbalist reaches for his brass instruments, and the assassin slips into the shadows in order to strike, the look on Jo’s face when she realizes what is about to happen—as she writhes futilely and sobs uncontrollably—fulfilled Hitchcock’s every hope for Day’s performance.

  The director hadn’t thought about a pop song for this film, any more than he had initially wanted Day, composer Jay Livingston insisted. At least that’s what he told the songwriters—“which didn’t make us feel too good,” Livingston recalled. But MCA wanted a song for Day, so Hitchcock met with Livingston and Ray Evans, fellow MCA clients, who had won previous songwriting Oscars for “Buttons and Bows” and “Mona Lisa” (the latter heard in the background of the Rear Window sound track). Hitchcock told them, “I don’t know what kind of song I want,” but said it must be simple enough for a child to sing also—and that it would be heard twice in the film. (The first time is in Marrakech, as Jo tucks Hank into bed; the second is during the embassy sequence, when she sings it to a ballroom of guests, her voice soaring upstairs to be heard by the kidnapped boy.)

  Livingston had just seen The Barefoot Contessa, in which Rossano Brazzi takes Ava Gardner to his ancestral home in Italy, where these words are engraved on a stone: “Che Serà Serà.” The lyricist had jotted the words down in the dark, later changing them to the more universal (Spanish and French) “Que Serà Serà.” “We wrote the song very quickly,” recalled Livingston, who penned the lyrics while Evans wrote the music, “but we waited two weeks to let him feel that we had taken a lot of time. When I sang it for him, he said, ‘I told you I didn’t know what kind of song I wanted. That’s the kind of a song I want,’ and walked out.”

  Shades of Marlene Dietrich and Stage Fright: Day didn’t like the number at first, and resisted recording it for one of her albums, convinced that it was really a song for children. When Paramount and MCA applied pressure, she did record it, but refused to do more than one take. Afterward she declared, “That’s the last time you’ll hear that song.” But “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Serà, Serà)” won the Oscar for Best Song of 1956; it became Day’s biggest-selling single, and in time she would embrace it as her signature tune.

  The world of Hitchcock fans can be divided into people who prefer the original The Man Who Knew Too Much, and those who find the remake superior. The former may be the majority, but the latter make up a noisy faction.

  The remake has a solid supporting cast of players rarely glimpsed in Hollywood films. They include Daniel Gelin (a veteran of films by Jacques Becker, Sacha Guitry, and Max Ophuls) as the foreign agent, Louis Bernard. The duplicitous English couple are played by Bernard Miles (a pillar of the British stage, also active in film) and Brenda de Banzie (she was the eldest, rebellious daughter in David Lean’s film of Hobson’s Choice). And Hitchcock immortalized Reggie Nalder, whom he plucked from obscurity, as the film’s assassin; his advice to the Viennese dancer and stage actor for the Albert Hall sequence: gaze at your victim as if you’re gazing at a beautiful woman.

  The first film runs a galloping 85 minutes, the second an overlong 120. Even Arthur Benjamin’s “Storm Cloud Cantata” was elongated for the remake: Benjamin was hired to compose an extra minute and a half of music for the American version. As though unwilling to trust the moron millions of Americans who hadn’t seen the original, the director stretched out the suspense, adding several reminder shots of the cymbalist. (“In the audience there are probably many people who don’t even know what cymbals are,” Hitchcock explained to Truffaut.) Bernard Herrmann appeared on-screen as the conductor, but the rest of his score—rising and falling arpeggios—was the least distinctive of his contributions to Hitchcock films.

  The original was made at a time when the world was living in dread of Hitler. The remake looked to the Cold War for its drama, making various allusions to Communism, but Paramount was nervous about offending foreign markets, and Hitchcock’s political references were tamped down by censors. The studio insisted that all references to Hungary and the Soviet Union be deleted. Hitchcock was an old hand at coding his politics; for the remake, the target of assassination would hail from a nameless nation, the embassy would be generically Eastern European, and the crypto-Communist couple would be only faintly defined—derisively, by the diplomat who has manipulated them—as “intellectuals.”

  The 1950s were not the 1930s, however, and British Communists could never carry the same frisson as Peter Lorre’s evil embodiment of Germany. Above all, the remake suffers from the absence of the magnificent Lorre, and of the spectacular crescendo of the original, in which Lorre and his gang shoot it out, and the kidnapped daughter’s safety is assured by her mother’s cool marksmanship.

  Yet the musical ending of the remake has its own cathartic emotion, its defenders insist. “Middle aged academics are not supposed to admit they burst into tears every time Doris Day begins ‘Que Serà Serà,’ wrote Robin Wood, “but in my case it’s a fact.” Audiences certainly embraced the remake—and The Man Who Knew Too Much did well at the box office for Hitchcock and Paramount.

  Interviewing Hitchcock, François Truffaut insisted that “the remake is by far superior to the original,” but Hitchcock countered with a statement that is widely quoted in studies of his career, if not always appreciated for its double-edged meaning: “Let’s say that the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.”

  Speaking to film historian William K. Everson some years after Truffaut’s book was published, Hitchcock was asked to explain this ambiguous statement. “I think, actually,” the director amended himself, “the difference would be in the original The Man Who Knew Too Much I wasn’t audience-conscious, whereas in the second one, I was.”

  By late summer Hitchcock could turn his focus to an enterprise that might have consumed a full year’s attention for a man less well organized, less brimming with ideas and energy. But less than six months after it was conceived, Alfred Hitchcock Presents premiered in October 1955.

  Other books about Hitchcock have maintained that he had little to do with the day-to-day management of the series that bore his name, often quoting his own publicity to that effect. But the publicity was rooted in Hitchcock’s desire to divert
credit to Joan Harrison; the fact is that he worked very hard to establish the show, especially in the first two seasons. He involved himself closely in all the story and personnel choices, and met frequently with network and ad agency representatives to apprise them of his decisions.

  The Hitchcock name had been on storefronts in his boyhood, and he had made it an asset to film companies in England well before he reached Hollywood. He did rely heavily on Harrison, once his secretary and protégée, whose judgment he knew he could trust. Once again they worked together easily, if not quite as equals, certainly as kindred professionals. But from the outset, setting the tone and style, it was Hitchcock’s show in name and spirit.

  “A television show, like a soufflé, reflects the taste of the person who selects and mixes the ingredients,” Hitchcock said years later in one of his public speeches. “It matters a great deal, for example, whether onions or garlic are used and when the arsenic is added.”

  “Selecting the ingredients” meant, first of all, taking care with the stories and scripts. With thirty-nine episodes to be produced each season, Hitchcock had to cast a wide net for material. Over the years, he had amassed a fund of favorite stories, and had also built relationships in the publishing field. “I have always wanted to work in the short story,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “The small, simple tale of a single idea building to a turn, a twist at the end. A little shocker. The story that’s lost, when stretched to the length of a movie.”

  The tone of the series was at first decidedly English with only a thin coating of Hollywood, and its British accent would persist throughout the run of the series. No other U.S. television show could claim quite the same pedigree, drawing on stories by a British Who’s Who of authors including H. G. Wells, A. A. Milne, Rebecca West, Julian Symons, V. S. Pritchett, Eric Ambler, and John Mortimer. Roald Dahl and Stanley Ellin were probably the most frequently adapted, and more than once Hitchcock returned to authors whose novels he had already filmed, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, Ethel Lina White, and Selwyn Jepson among them.

  Another major source for early episodes was stories previously dramatized on radio, especially on the Suspense series—and its televised counterpart, which ran from 1949 to 1954.* Previous publication wasn’t “a rigid policy,” said Norman Lloyd, who joined Hitchcock’s show as associate producer in 1957, “but rather a pragmatic one. Hitch liked to know that a story had been published first, because he always felt that if a story had been published, you had something to begin with. He was not one for developing stories, as is mostly done today.”

  The bulk of the stories involved murder under suspicious or peculiar circumstances. Episodes were sometimes darkly comic, sometimes stark or mordant, and most of the episodes had twist endings. Among the first season’s highlights was the story Hitchcock once cited as an inspiration for The Lady Vanishes—“The Vanishing Lady” by Alexander Woollcott (with Pat Hitchcock as the daughter of a woman who vanishes at the 1899 Paris World Exposition). The first season would boast adaptations of Dorothy Sayers, Anthony Armstrong, and John Collier. But Alfred Hitchcock Presents also had its share of American writers, and the first season featured stories by Rear Window author Cornell Woolrich (who never wrote directly for the program, though again and again his stories were adapted) and Ray Bradbury, who wrote originals as well as adaptations throughout the run of the series.

  Television scripts called for a brevity and economy similar to the demands of radio, and many of the scriptwriters also had cut their teeth in radio. The most prolific were Suspense alumni: Harold Swanton, James P. Cavanagh, Louis Pollock, Mel Dinelli. Francis Cockrell—who wrote all four of the episodes Hitchcock directed in 1955–56, and seven of the twenty shows Hitchcock directed for television—was a southerner who wrote humor, short stories, novels, and films, often with his wife, Marian.* The Cockrells and Joan Harrison had collaborated on 1944’s Dark Waters, a Hitchcockian frightened-lady film.

  Besides directing a handful of shows, Hitchcock was contracted to introduce each episode, and at the conclusion provide a wrap-up. He also agreed to hawk for the advertisers, which was standard practice on television in the 1950s. But it was clear, from the very first discussions, that this was no burdensome requirement: Hitchcock relished the opportunity for these mischievous cameo performances.

  His brief appearances called for a ghostwriter uniquely attuned to his sensibility. MCA once again rode to the rescue, with James Allardice. Born in Ohio, Allardice was a former newspaperman who had drawn on his war experiences for his first Broadway play, later adapted into the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedy At War with the Army. He then wrote a Francis the Talking Mule picture as well as other vehicles for Martin and Lewis. Having drifted into television, Allardice had just won an Emmy, in 1954, as part of the team who wrote monologues for the highly rated The George Gobel Show.

  Allardice and Hitchcock were a perfect match. At their first meeting, Allardice told Hitchcock about a high school play he had written, in which he displayed an electric chair under which hung the sign: “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse.” “Hitchcock loved this,” according to John McCarty and Brian Kelleher in their book on Alfred Hitchcock Presents “and accepted Allardice enthusiastically, putting him under exclusive contract.”

  It was also standard practice for a television series to have a recurring title sequence with theme music. For the underlying music Bernard Herrmann suggested “Funeral March of a Marionette,” written by Charles Gounod in 1872, a classical novelty Herrmann had used on Suspense and later recycled as a temporary sound track for The Trouble with Harry. Hitchcock, who matched up songs with Marlene Dietrich and Doris Day, finally had his own trademark music. “Even when people hear the music today,” wrote McCarty and Kelleher, “what they usually think of is Hitchcock’s silhouette countenance merging with the odd little line drawing that he had sketched of himself for the show’s logo.”

  After the titles and “Funeral March,” the curtain metaphorically rose, and the host appeared to greet the viewers. Hitchcock’s first costume was ordinary, the speech concise:

  Good evening, I am Alfred Hitchcock. Tonight I’m presenting the first in a series of stories of suspense and mystery called, oddly enough, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I shall not act in these stories, but will only make appearances, something in the nature of an accessory before and after the fact, to give the title to those of you who can’t read and to tidy up afterwards for those who don’t understand the endings.

  But after the premiere, it was off to the races. The voyeur was also an exhibitionist. Sensing Hitchcock’s eagerness to perform—his willingness to show off and poke fun at himself—Allardice wrote wildly. By the third episode Hitchcock was twirling a gun; his weight was already a running joke; and, most astonishing, he had begun to skewer advertisers:

  Tonight’s story is about a man named Perry and follows after a minute called tedious.

  Our story will continue following this calculated but confusing interruption.

  Our play tonight is a blend of mystery and medicine. It follows this one-minute anesthetic.

  The cameos were sometimes vignettes of low comedy; other times they were extremely witty. Hitchcock was willing to take any Allardice dare: he donned a mustache to play his own twin brother, impersonated a genie lurking inside a bottle, became a scarecrow in a cornfield, even affected a mop top as one of the Beatles. The host set the tone as much as the stories themselves, commenting on the absurdity of what audiences were about to witness, thereby ameliorating its subversive excesses.

  The tone was also set, that first season, by first-class actors. They included familiar faces from Hitchcock films (Joseph Cotten, Barry Fitzgerald, Patricia Collinge, Robert Newton, Isobel Elsom, Thelma Ritter) and edgy newcomers (including, in the first season, John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson, and Joanne Woodward). The casting was often heavily English, and Hitchcock favorites abounded. John Williams, from The Paradine Case, Dial M for Murder, and To Catch a Thief, might hold the record. The dapper,
self-effacing Englishman “was the definitive Hitchcock actor,” recalled Norman Lloyd. “Everything in his style served Hitchcock’s purposes: the underplaying, the subtle humor, the indirect approach he had.”

  The directors were likewise topnotch. Hitchcock and Joan Harrison recruited many old acquaintances dating back to England—among them Robert Stevenson, Ida Lupino, and John Brahm. Robert Stevens, who guided more episodes than anyone (he was the only Alfred Hitchcock Presents director to win an Emmy, for the second season’s “The Glass Eye”), was another Englishman—and a veteran of Suspense.

  But the show was also open to up-and-comers, and young Americans like William Friedkin, Robert Altman, and George Stevens Jr. (the son of the well-known director) held their first important jobs on the series. Hitchcock was as closely involved in choosing the directors as he was with the stories and stars. Paul Henreid, the stalwart Warner Bros. actor known for his roles in Casablanca and Now, Voyager, was surprised one day by a call from Hitchcock himself, complimenting the only film he had directed—For Men Only, a low-budget college drama—and inviting Henreid to join the roster.

  “But—but the blacklist …,” stammered Henreid, who believed that his left-leaning politics had gotten him “graylisted” in Hollywood.

  “I think that’s over, Mr. Henreid,” said Hitchcock, “and high time.” Indeed, it was: Henreid thereafter got steady work directing episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

  Bottom-billed in the cast of For Men Only was a beautiful blonde named Vera Miles, who had represented Kansas in the Miss America contest of 1948. After spotting the actress in Henreid’s 1951 film, Hitchcock ordered up a more recent John Ford film, and was impressed by Miles as Jeffrey Hunter’s pining sweetheart in The Searchers. He originally hired the actress for just one episode in the first season—a particularly audacious episode that involved fragile sanity, an implied rape, and a mistaken-identity murder.