Alfred Hitchcock

by Patrick McGilligan

  “Revenge” would feature Miles as former ballet dancer who, after suffering a nervous breakdown, moves to a trailer park with her husband (Ralph Meeker). One day, while the husband is at work, she is attacked by an unknown assailant. The attack leaves her traumatized. The police, as usual in a Hitchcock story, are clueless, so her husband vows to get revenge himself. Driving through a small town, the wife suddenly spots a man walking on the street and cries, “That’s him!” The husband pulls over and follows the man into a hotel, surprising him in his room and bludgeoning him to death. Getting back into the car, the husband reassures his wife, and they drive on. Then she spots another man walking. “That’s him!”

  Hitchcock tried to draw a line between his television and film companies. They were supposed to be distinct operations, even headquartered in separate locations—the film offices at Paramount, the television shows produced on Revue stages at Universal. But inevitably the two spilled back and forth, and during the making of “Revenge” Hitchcock grew so excited about Miles that he signed her to a five-year contract, making her exclusive to him, for television and film. Miles was not only a shapely knockout (she photographed suggestively, ripe to burst in a sunsuit, in “Revenge”), but her acting was subtle and sensitive. With Ingrid Bergman off in Italy and Grace Kelly being a princess in Monaco, Hitchcock wanted Miles in his future.

  The director’s enthusiasm for Miles, and for “Revenge,” led the host to make a last-minute decision: he made her episode the series debut—bumping “Breakdown,” with Joseph Cotten, which was rescheduled for later. Both were quintessential Hitchcock stories—anthologized together in Hitchcock’s 1949 collection, Suspense Stories* —but “Breakdown” was a minimasterpiece, with all the “pocket universality” of Lifeboat or Rear Window.

  Cotten starred as a ruthless businessman finishing a Miami vacation. Firing an employee by phone, he expresses disgust at the weak emotions of the man, who pleads and weeps for a second chance. While driving back to New York from Florida, his car, which has stopped for a prison road gang, is smashed into by a construction vehicle. He awakes to find himself pinned under the steering wheel of his wrecked car, completely paralyzed except for the ability to wiggle one finger. The escaped prisoners come and strip away his clothes and belongings, and when the police arrive everyone interprets his shocked stare as a mask of death. Ending up in a morgue, he is desperate to let people know he is alive. Just as a coroner is about to zip him into a body bag, he starts to weep, and someone finally notices his tears.

  The main dialogue in the twenty-two-minute segment is Cotten’s interior monologue, delivered as a voice-over. Most of the episode is composed of close-ups of his face, his immobility emphasized by extreme camera angles. It was “frozen film,” according to Hitchcock; “you optically repeat the last frame—that’s how you get a still.” It was also extraordinary television, a taste of pure cinema for the small screen—in critic Robin Wood’s words, a parable of “a systematic stripping away of all the protective armor of modern city man.”

  Of the four episodes Hitchcock directed for 1955–56, “Revenge” and “Breakdown” were the best. The other two were “Back for Christmas,” with John Williams burying his nagging wife in the basement, then vacationing in California; and the oddball “The Case of Mr. Pelham,” with Tom Ewell as a man whose doppelgänger gradually takes over his identity.

  Although the series would take a year to build its regular audience and climb into the top ten, it was an instant hit with television critics—and more than one thought that “the best thing about Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” in the words of John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune, “is Alfred Hitchcock presenting.” Leo Mishkin, writing in the New York Morning Telegraph, agreed: “That wide-eyed innocence he displays on the twenty-one inch screen, that pudgy physique with its hanging lower lip, those soft accents of his speech all but annihilate the very image of suspense and terror he has tried so carefully to build up.”

  He was already a star among moviegoers, but it’s no exaggeration to say that television provided a quantum leap in the magnitude of his celebrity. Or that 1955 was another very good year for the director: To Catch a Thief was a hit in theaters, he finally achieved his remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and his name adorned a suspense series.

  The Hitchcocks liked to vacation at Christmas, but it hadn’t always worked out that way. The holidays had meant mass firings at Islington, Gaumont, and Gainsborough. Christmas was dodgy during the Selznick years, too; the producer used to drive Hitchcock crazy, giving him his annual bonus in war bonds that couldn’t be immediately cashed in.

  But a grateful Paramount gave him the Christmas present of a world tour at the end of 1955. Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock departed on the Queen Mary, on December 12, for a monthlong itinerary including Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay, Cairo, Rome, Paris, and London. At each stop Hitchcock visited studio outposts and conducted publicity for his films, spreading his name and face around the globe. He was never happier than when he stood on the Ginza in Tokyo, gazing up at a billboard with his giant face painted on it. He chortled at what he saw: a Hitchcock with Asian eyes.

  * Sickert, it would have amused Hitchcock to know, was “proved” to have led a double life as Jack the Ripper, according to a recent book by American mystery author Patricia Cornwell.

  * The sculptor whose life is depicted by Ken Russell in the film Savage Messiah (1972).

  * It is worth pointing out that two of these projects—To Catch a Thief and The Trouble with Harry—had earlier been rejected by Paramount’s story department when they were read in galleys.

  * “After-Dinner Story” by William Irish appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Fireside Book of Suspense (Simon & Schuster, 1947).

  * The notorious English murderer Patrick Mahon killed and dismembered his mistress in a seaside bungalow in April 1924, stowing the body parts, including her head, in the mistress’s trunk, before trying to burn them. Dr. Crippen ultimately had been arrested when he slipped up by transferring his wife’s jewelry to his lover. Later, in his interview sessions with Hitchcock, François Truffaut noted the subtle thematic echo of the search for Mrs. Thorwald’s missing ring in the film (a significant trifle which is absent from the Woolrich story). The clue Lisa desperately seeks, Truffaut pointed out, symbolizes the marital commitment she yearns for from Jeff.

  * But when Peter Bogdanovich pressed the director about the future of Jeff and Lisa—would they get married and live happily ever after?—Hitchcock wouldn’t nibble. Too philosophical a question. The glow of that happy period had worn off by the time of the interview, and Hitchcock was too hardheaded to speculate about imaginary people. “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “I never bothered about that very much. I would doubt it myself. He’d be off on some job, you know.”

  * Bertani and Huston have different names in the book.

  ** Ironically, André Bazin, though he praised To Catch a Thief, singled this scene out as a sign of “Anglo-Saxon ignorance of French manners and customs”—for quiche Lorraine “is not a specialty of southern France.”

  * This is the top ten according to U.S. and Canadian rental revenue as reported by the distributors, considered a more reliable indicator than total receipts at the box office.

  * The masquerade ball was staged at Paramount in Hollywood toward the end of filming. Kelly took forever to be stuffed and sewn into her magnificent constume, and when she finally arrived on the set the sight of her prompted everyone to gasp. Hitchcock’s relief that she wouldn’t appear flat-chested prompted one of his classic bon mots: “Grace, there’s hills in them thar gold.” (Incidentally, Head’s costume design was beaten out for the Oscar by Charles Le Maire’s for Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.)

  * Richard I was captured by the King of Austria while returning from the Holy Land; his favorite minstrel, “going from castle to castle singing a song Richard had composed,” in film scholar Bill Krohn’s words, “finally heard his master joining in the re
frain from inside the fortress where he was imprisoned.” Richard I was freed, just as Hank is in the remake.

  * Rear Window was also nominated for Best Direction, Best Color Cinematography (Robert Burks), and Best Recording (Loren L. Ryder), but failed to win in any category.

  * Of course the stars ate only at the finest restaurants in Marrakech, and in the film the McKennas stay and dine at the Hotel de la Mamounia—where, off-camera, James Stewart and Doris Day also stayed and dined.

  * The TV version of Suspense returned, after a decade’s hiatus, for one season in 1964.

  * On her own, Marian Cockrell wrote another of the shows that Hitchcock directed.

  * “Breakdown” had also been dramatized for the Suspense radio series.

  FOURTEEN

  1956–1958

  One person who never wrote for Alfred Hitchcock Presents was John Michael Hayes.

  When Hitchcock returned, refreshed, from his monthlong trip around the world in January 1956, he had his next four projects lined up ahead of him, enough to fill out the decade. Paramount had optioned two books for him: Flamingo Feather, a big-budget jungle adventure set in South Africa, and D’Entre les Morts (“From Among the Dead”), a French thriller by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Flamingo Feather was intended as a Paramount film, like To Catch a Thief; From Among the Dead would be an Alfred J. Hitchcock production. The third project was a true wrong-man story based on a Life magazine article by Herbert Brean. The fourth was “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose”—the idea hadn’t grown much beyond Otis Guernsey’s brief treatment, but the concept still intrigued Hitchcock.

  Hitchcock wasn’t yet sure in what order he would make the four films; it all depended on how easily the scripts and other elements came together. But in January 1956 it still seemed possible that Hayes might write one of the films. The trade papers had even announced “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose” as a “Hitchcock-Hayes production.” That kind of shared attribution really irked the director, believed Hayes, who after the success of Rear Window was feeling a little irked and underpaid himself. Hitchcock and Hayes were both MCA clients, and the writer believed their separate agents were colluding to keep his salary low. “They were all in on it because Hitchcock was their big client,” Hayes said bitterly, years later.

  Whenever Hayes complained about his salary, his agent urged patience: “Stick with Hitch and you’ll get a diploma from Hitchcock University, which will be extremely valuable in the future.” When the bonus Hitchcock promised Hayes for Rear Window never materialized, the sore point was aggravated. Yet even Steven DeRosa, in his book celebrating Hayes, discovered that the writer’s salary “doubled” after Rear Window; and Hitchcock considered Hayes’s all-expenses-paid trips to France for To Catch a Thief, to Vermont for The Trouble with Harry, and to London for The Man Who Knew Too Much as bonuses of a different kind.

  But the personal chemistry between the director and his longtime collaborator was never strong. Hayes complained in one interview that Hitchcock never invited him and his wife up to their second home in northern California, and even in Hollywood the Hitchcocks didn’t socialize after hours with the Hayeses.

  The director’s ego couldn’t accept Hayes’s role in shaping several of Hitchcock’s most important successes, the writer believed. Hitchcock found a reason to skip the Mystery Writers of America banquet the year Hayes received the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Rear Window, and afterward made light of the award when Hayes showed it to him: “You know, they make toilet bowls out of the same material.” (Even DeRosa says Hitchcock was probably joking, but Hayes didn’t appreciate the humor.)

  After giving published interviews that annoyed Hitchcock, Hayes was ordered to refrain from personal publicity without prior approval. It wasn’t an extraordinary demand in Hollywood, but Hayes detected the insecurity of a director who “wasn’t going to be Barnum and Bailey,” as he frequently put it, in later interviews. “He was Alfred Hitchcock, Genius. He was the Creator, the Master; it was an Alfred Hitchcock film and nothing else. It was not an Alfred Hitchcock film written by John Michael Hayes.”

  According to associate producer Herbert Coleman, though, Hayes was the real grandstander, from the point of view of the Hitchcock circle. It was Hayes who flaunted the “oversized ego,” in Coleman’s words. It was Hayes who was capable of boasting in print, saying in subsequent interviews that he crafted “the whole construction and treatment and screenplay [of Rear Window] on my own,” or that “most of To Catch a Thief was again my creation.”

  Hitchcock’s view was that Rear Window was handed to Hayes on a silver platter—not only the story but the main characters and the stars playing them, along with detailed discussion of every scene. The same with To Catch a Thief, on which Mrs. Hitchcock had made a significant contribution, not to mention the emendations on location and during postproduction. As for The Trouble with Harry, Hitchcock had practically memorized the book, and the film followed it closely.

  But the latest conflict between them would prove the worst. Who ought to be officially credited for the screenplay of The Man Who Knew Too Much? When Hitchcock insisted that Hayes share credit on the screen with Angus MacPhail, Hayes appealed to the Writers Guild of America; after reviewing all the written material, their arbitration panel ruled in favor of Hayes. A staunch member in good standing with the Hollywood organization, the American trumped the Englishman, who was viewed suspiciously as an arriviste and personal friend of the director’s.

  Hitchcock was furious that Hayes had gone over his head, and felt that MacPhail had been unjustly usurped. Film scholars such as Bill Krohn, and insiders of the period, agree. “As far as I’m concerned,” Herbert Coleman believed, “the credits ought to read: script by Alfred Hitchcock, Angus MacPhail and John Michael Hayes.”

  In spite of the tension between them, Hitchcock put off any showdown with the writer until his return from his holiday vacation, hoping that Hayes might yet reconcile himself to working amicably with MacPhail, who had since moved to Hollywood semipermanently to serve as de facto story editor of Hitchcock Productions.

  As the only one of the four upcoming projects that wasn’t based on previously published material, “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose” needed the most development, so Hitchcock slotted it last. Likewise, the novel D’Entre les Morts offered the director a basic plot and characters to build upon, but needed substantial work—first a translation, then a transplant to contemporary America.

  Flamingo Feather and the true wrong-man case, Hitchcock decided, could be written simultaneously by MacPhail and Hayes, trading off on rewrites in Hitchcock’s customary fashion. MacPhail was asked to take the lead on Flamingo Feather because of its British Empire overtones, while Hayes was expected to concentrate on the other script, which Hitchcock felt was more up his crime alley. Set entirely in New York City, The Wrong Man would be scheduled first.

  First Hitchcock had to arrange a leave from Paramount because The Wrong Man belonged to Warner Bros.; the studio had signed a contract with the actual wrong man in the New York incident. But Hitchcock also told Lew Wasserman that he was directing the film for Jack Warner because he wanted to make good on the single picture still outstanding on his 1947–54 contract. Over the years he would tell interviewers the same thing repeatedly. And it’s possible he was telling the truth; Hitchcock took contracts seriously.

  But did he really owe Warner Bros. anything? It’s far from clear. And Warner’s was actually ambivalent about The Wrong Man until Hitchcock offered to waive his salary, an offer calculated to win him the go-ahead to make the picture. It’s hard to think of very many other directors in Hollywood history who have volunteered to work for free this way, at the peak of their success. Yet such a gesture was entirely in character for Hitchcock, who had often ignored money to make the films that interested him.

  Hayes didn’t have that option. When it came to The Wrong Man, Hitchcock insisted that Hayes agree to collaborate with MacPhail, even stipulating in advance that they must share credi
t on the finished film. According to Hayes, Hitchcock even demanded that, like him, the American writer work “for nothing”—no salary. There is no proof of this astonishing gambit other than Hayes’s recollection—astonishing because Hitchcock must have known full well that the Writers Guild, which insisted on minimum fees for any script commissioned by a producer, would never allow such an arrangement, even if Hayes agreed.

  Hayes believes that Hitchcock never really expected him to take the bait; the director knew “that I couldn’t do it,” in Hayes’s words. “If you don’t come to Warner Brothers with me,” Hayes quoted Hitchcock as saying, “I’ll never speak to you again.” Hayes refused—and that was the end of their relationship. Hitchcock—a “registered coward,” as Hayes liked to say—sent “emissaries” to tell the writer he’d been discharged. More accurately, the writer wasn’t “renewed”; with his four-picture contract fulfilled, Hayes was kicked out of Hitchcock University.

  They did speak again, however, if only once, when Hitchcock ran into Hayes at the ballet a few years later. Hitchcock acted “very cordial” to him, Hayes recalled. But despite sporadic efforts by associates to reunite them, the director refused ever to work again with the scenarist of four films considered among Hitchcock’s greatest.

  Herbert Brean’s June 29, 1953, article in Life had recounted the facts of The Wrong Man case, and there was even a television reenactment, produced by Robert Montgomery, which aired on NBC in February 1954.

  Earlier in 1953, Manny Balestrero, a jazz bassist and father of two young children, was accused of stealing $217 from an insurance company in Queens. Protesting his innocence, Balestrero was arrested, jailed, and brought to trial. He was temporarily freed after a juror inappropriately spoke out from the jury box, causing the judge to declare a mistrial. Then, before Balestrero could be retried, the real criminal was caught robbing a delicatessen—but not before Manny’s wife, Rose, suffered a mental breakdown from the strain.