A Hitch at the Fairmont
Page 21
Cameo: None.
Chapter 11. Rebecca (1940)
Summary: A shy, colorless young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves to his palatial home, Manderley, where she is terrorized by his first wife’s maid.
Famous Scene: The evil housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is enveloped by flames as Manderley burns.
Cameo: Hitchcock walks behind the character Jack Favell (played by George Sanders) as Jack speaks with a policeman.
Chapter 12. Secret Agent (1936)
Summary: During World War One a novelist and spy is sent to Switzerland to kill a German agent.
Did You Know? This movie was based on the Ashenden stories by Somerset Maugham, a real British novelist who was also a spy.
Cameo: None.
Chapter 13. The Wrong Man (1956)
Summary: A musician is wrongly accused of robbing an insurance company.
Did You Know? The movie is based on the true story of Manny Balestrero.
Cameo: Not really a cameo, but he appears at the beginning of the film to introduce it.
Chapter 14. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, 1956)
Summary: Hitchcock actually filmed two versions of this movie. In both films a couple traveling abroad learns of a plot to assassinate a foreign dignitary. Their child is kidnapped to keep them silent.
Famous Scene: In both films the assassination takes place during a crash of cymbals at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
Cameo: In the 1956 version Hitchcock watches tumblers at the market in Marrakesh. In the 1934 version he may be the man crossing the street as a bus passes by.
Chapter 15. Woman to Woman (1923)
Summary: A British officer in World War One falls in love with a French dancer and promises to marry her, but a battlefield injury causes amnesia, and he marries another woman instead.
Did You Know? Alfred Hitchcock was an assistant director and helped write the screenplay. This lost film is one of the British Film Institute’s “75 Most Wanted.”
Chapter 16. The Birds (1963)
Summary: Birds go crazy and attack the inhabitants of a seaside town in California.
Famous Scene: Melanie Daniels is trapped in a phone booth as seagulls smash into it from all sides.
Cameo: Hitchcock leaves the pet store with two dogs as Melanie Daniels enters it.
Chapter 17. Rear Window (1954)
Summary: L. B. Jeffries is a photographer trapped in his apartment with a broken leg. He thinks he witnesses a murder in the apartment across the way.
Did You Know? The American Film Institute ranks Rear Window as the third-best mystery film of all time. Four of the top ten films are by Alfred Hitchcock. The others are Vertigo (#1), North by Northwest (#7), and Dial M for Murder (#9).
Cameo: Hitchcock winds the clock in the apartment of the musician across the courtyard.
Chapter 18. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Summary: A young woman, bored with her small-town life, eagerly enjoys her beloved uncle Charlie’s visit, until she begins to suspect he may be a murderer.
Famous Scene: When the train carrying Uncle Charlie pulls into the station, smoke from its stack blots out the sun, symbolizing the evil it carries on board.
Cameo: Hitchcock is on the train, playing cards.
Chapter 19. Saboteur (1942)
Summary: During World War Two, Barry Kane is falsely accused of starting a fire at the aircraft factory where he works. He enlists the aid of blond and reluctant Patricia Martin to prove his innocence.
Famous Scene: The true saboteur dangles from the top of the Statue of Liberty as Barry Kane tries to save him.
Cameo: Hitchcock stands in front of Cut Rate Drugs in New York as the saboteur’s car arrives.
Chapter 20. Downhill (1927)
Summary: After boarding-school student Roddy Berwick takes the blame for a school friend’s misdeeds, his life falls apart.
Innovative Technique: For this black-and-white film, Hitchcock had prints of the scenes where Roddy is ill tinted a sickly green to reflect his physical state.
Cameo: None.
Chapter 21. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Smith are shocked to learn that, due to a legal technicality, they aren’t married and can resume their lives as single adults.
Did You Know? Carole Lombard, a famous actress of her day, prevailed upon her friend Alfred Hitchcock to film this light comedy. Though it is a Hitchcock film, it can’t really be considered “Hitchcockian.”
Cameo: Hitchcock passes in front of Mr. Smith’s building.
Chapter 22. Family Plot (1976)
Summary: A psychic/con artist is paid to track down the missing heir to the Rainbird fortune, only to find that the heir is a kidnapper and jewel thief.
Did You Know? Although Hitchcock never names the location in the movie, this film was shot in San Francisco. Hitchcock stayed at the Fairmont Hotel during filming.
Cameo: Hitchcock’s famous profile is seen in silhouette in a window at the Registry of Births and Deaths.
Chapter 23. Rich and Strange (1931)
Summary: A couple receives an inheritance and embarks on a round-the-world trip, suffering a breakup, a swindle, and a shipwreck along the way.
Did You Know? The title comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest: “Full fathom five thy father lies; / Of his bones are coral made; / Those are pearls that were his eyes; / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.”
Cameo: None.
Chapter 24. Suspicion (1941)
Summary: Mousy newlywed Lina fears her irresponsible husband, Johnnie, may be trying to kill her.
Innovative Technique: Hitchcock calls attention to a potentially poisoned glass of milk by making it glow malevolently; he had placed a lighted bulb inside the glass.
Cameo: Hitchcock has two. He mails a letter, and he walks a horse on-screen at the hunt.
Chapter 25. Always Tell Your Wife (1923)
Summary: This lost short film (only one reel survives) is the remake of a film about a man who fakes a cold to meet a blackmailer.
Did You Know? When the original director left the film, assistant director Alfred Hitchcock and star Seymour Hicks took over.
Chapter 26. Stage Fright (1950)
Summary: When aspiring actress Eve Gill’s friend claims to have been framed for murder, Eve investigates by posing as a maid for the woman her friend says really committed the crime.
Did You Know? Alfred Hitchcock’s daughter, Patricia, had a part in this film as the hilariously named Chubby Bannister.
Cameo: Hitchcock passes Eve Gill on the street and looks back at her in apparent astonishment.
Chapter 27. The Call of Youth (1921)
Summary: This short romance film is now lost.
Did You Know? Hitchcock did not direct, but it was one of the first films with which he was connected. He designed the intertitles (cards that showed dialogue in early silent films).
Chapter 28. The Skin Game (1931)
Summary: Two wealthy families feud over a piece of rural English real estate. Based on a John Galsworthy play.
Did You Know? A “skin game” is a con or swindle.
Cameo: None.
Chapter 29. The 39 Steps (1935)
Summary: Richard Hannay meets a woman who claims she is a spy trying to prevent sensitive information from leaving England in the hands of a foreign enemy. When she is stabbed in his flat, Hannay is accused and on the run. This is the second film (after The Lodger) to use Hitchcock’s common theme of an innocent man unjustly accused.
The MacGuffin: Plans for a new aircraft engine that are somehow being smuggled out of the country.
Cameo: Hitchcock walks past as Hannay and the spy board a bus after a riot at a music hall.
Chapter 30. Blackmail (1929)
Summary: Alice White is attacked by a man in his apartment, and she kills him with a knife. Fearful, she covers up her presence at the scene of the crime, and i
s subsequently blackmailed by someone who saw her there.
Innovative Technique: This film was originally intended to be silent, but with the arrival of “talkies” Hitchcock was given the go-ahead to use sound. He did so memorably. In the scene where Alice’s family sits down to eat, a neighbor’s gossip blurs into gibberish, except for the repeated use of the word “knife,” highlighting the guilt Alice feels for stabbing a man to death.
Cameo: As he tries to read a paper on the subway, Hitchcock is pestered by a small boy.
Chapter 31. I Confess (1953)
Summary: Father Michael, a Catholic priest, hears the confession of a murderer, but because of the seal of the confessional (which prohibits priests from discussing what they have heard during confession), Father Michael is unable to use his knowledge to defend himself when he is accused of the murder.
Did You Know? Although the film is black and white, Montgomery Clift, the actor who played Father Michael, insisted on wearing contact lenses so his eyes would be the same color as his character’s.
Cameo: Hitchcock crosses the top of a staircase just after the opening credits.
Chapter 32. Bon Voyage (1944)
Summary: A Royal Air Force pilot goes down in German territory in World War Two.
Did You Know? This was one of two short propaganda films Hitchcock made during World War Two.
Cameo: None.
Chapter 33. North by Northwest (1959)
Summary: New York business executive Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a government spy and falsely accused of murdering a man at the United Nations. He travels across America to find the real culprits.
Famous Scene: Thornhill is pursued by a murderous pilot in a crop dusting plane in the middle of cornfields south of Chicago.
Cameo: Hitchcock misses a bus right after the credits, the bus door slamming shut in his face.
Chapter 34. Rope (1948)
Summary: Two college chums murder a third just to prove they can do it. That evening they have a party with friends of the victim and serve the meal from the trunk where the body is stored.
Innovative Technique: Each eight-minute take in this movie (the length of time of a fresh reel of film) is one continuous shot with no edits. This meant the actors had to recite their lines perfectly or begin again from the start, and that stagehands had to move furniture and scenery as the actors moved around the room with the camera following.
Cameo: Hitchcock is seen walking on the street with a newspaper just after the credits, and possibly his famous outline is seen as a neon sign in an ad for Reduco out the apartment window.
Chapter 35. Lifeboat (1944)
Summary: During World War Two a group of American and British civilians are stuck in a lifeboat after their ship and a German U-boat trade torpedoes. The final passenger to climb aboard their lifeboat is a German sailor from the U-boat.
Did You Know? The movie was shot in a large studio water tank, and several of the cast suffered seasickness during the filming.
Cameo: Hitchcock appears as both the “before” and “after” image in a newspaper ad for a weight-loss drug called Reduco.
JIM AVERBECK works, plays, and evades the law in the San Francisco Bay Area. Between dodging the falling bodies of vertiginous blondes, crouching to avoid killer birds, and taking quick and fearful showers behind a triple-locked bathroom door, he writes and illustrates for children. His first book, In a Blue Room, was a Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book. His popular books, except if and Oh No, Little Dragon!, feature charming protagonists with long pointy teeth. His book The Market Bowl was a Junior Library Guild Selection. A Hitch at the Fairmont is his first novel for middle-grade readers. Spy agencies can find Jim online at jimaverbeck.com.
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster
New York
Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/Jim-Averbeck
authors.simonandschuster.com/Nick-Bertozzi
PICTURE BOOKS BY JIM AVERBECK
except if
Oh No, Little Dragon!
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Jim Averbeck
Interior illustrations copyright © 2014 by Nick Bertozzi
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2014 by Laz Marquez
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket illustrations copyright © 2014 by Laz Marquez
The verse on p. 55 is a variation of one written by Charles K. Field in response to the 1906 earthquake.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
The text for this book is set in Times New Roman.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in ink and Adobe Photoshop CS5.5.
0514 FFG
First Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Averbeck, Jim.
A Hitch at the Fairmont / illustrated by Nick Bertozzi. — First edition.
p. cm
Summary: When his aunt is kidnapped, an eleven-year-old boy staying at
San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel in 1956 tries to find her, with the help of
Alfred Hitchcock.
ISBN 978-1-4424-9447-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-9449-7 (eBook)
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Hitchcock, Alfred, 1899-1980—Fiction. 4. Fairmont Hotel (San Francisco, Calif.)—Fiction. 5. San Francisco (Calif.)—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Bertozzi, Nick,
illustrator. II. Title. III. Title: Hitch at the Fairmont.
PZ7.A933816Ji 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013028921
The author is donating a portion of his proceeds from the sale of this book to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, for research into cystic fibrosis.