The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White (an ebook reader txt) 📗

to exercise of any sort. Weekly checkups with the doctor had been part of his life since 1942, but in 1965 these increased to two, sometimes three, times a week. He had a pacemaker fitted in 1974, and took pleasure in showing people the machinery he had to connect to himself when sending the hospital his latest readings. Boozing was not advised in this condition, but the more his health faltered and his productivity declined, the more he reached for liquor to stem the anxiety. He tried to be subtle about it. He’d ask a secretary to bring more ice for his drink, her cue to break out a cube of frozen vodka; the maid knew that when he requested orange juice, he really meant something more medicinal; he’d find a way to bring afternoon drinks into the morning, and he secreted a bottle of brandy in his bathroom for emergency swigs. He was in no condition to make films, and Alma, who fell victim to her own debilitating health problems in the seventies, was too frail to cook. The two cherished pillars of their creative lives, cinema and food, had been knocked away from beneath them. In a couple of heartrending letters to friends and family in the late seventies, Hitchcock chose to express the emotional difficulties both were experiencing in terms of the impact it was having on their diet.

Gourmand and gourmet; Hitchcock at the 21 Club in Manhattan, 1956.

Lunch usually consists of a sandwich of thin bread, one we enjoy most is a roast beef spread, and we always keep a ham. She has a toast breakfast, afternoon tea with a chocolate biscuit and then dinner. If Pat doesn’t provide it, I go out and with the help of the day nurse usually prepare something like a fillet steak or half a chicken, which is easy to handle. . . . This is a very sad letter, but there’s little else I can tell you. Naturally, she never leaves the house, but I try to take her out one night a week to our favorite restaurant, but manoeuvring her is quite a business. That is why she can only manage it once a week.

Ultimately, though, Hitchcock kept control of his body and ensured that it lived beyond the grave. While his television shows aired, the silhouette of his profile was as recognizable to viewers across the Western world as Mickey Mouse’s ears, Marilyn’s hourglass figure, or Elvis’s curled upper lip. In 1956, a year after Alfred Hitchcock Presents premiered, and several years after their association had ended, David O. Selznick requested permission to use the silhouette to promote some Hitchcock movies that Selznick wanted to re-release. Hitchcock refused. Later, a PR executive suggested that they freshen the image and create a new silhouette design. Again, Hitchcock said no.

In June 1972, the audience of The Dick Cavett Show applauded as the host, in imitation of Hitchcock, appeared in silhouette at the back of his set. He held the pose for a few seconds, at which point Hitchcock emerged from the opposite direction, just as he did at the start of his own programs. The studio erupted with cheers and whistles. Facing a svelte, debonair man half his age, Hitchcock knew the body being celebrated was his. Traitorous, deceptive, and unreliable though it may have been, it could not have belonged to anyone else.

* “Lamb to the Slaughter,” written by Roald Dahl.

6

THE DANDY*

Of the ten movies that Hitchcock made during his seven-year contract with Selznick, only three were produced by the mogul who brought him to Hollywood: Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case, starring Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, and the Italian actress Alida Valli, whom Selznick hoped would be his next great female star. On paper, The Paradine Case seems promising Hitchcock material: the story of a suave English barrister whose infatuation with the woman he’s defending in a murder trial imperils his marriage, his sanity, and his client’s life. Selznick, however, wasn’t content for Hitchcock to shape it as he saw fit, and intervened at every crucial juncture, rewriting James Bridie’s script, vetoing Hitchcock’s ideas for shooting the crucial courtroom scenes, and excising roughly an hour from Hitchcock’s cut. It was one of the most stressful and chastening experiences of Hitchcock’s career.

The movie was the last he was obliged to make under the terms of the Selznick deal, and it was with relief and excitement that he went on to his next project. Rope was produced by Transatlantic Pictures, a production company newly established by Hitchcock and his old friend from London, Sidney Bernstein. To underline his sense of agency, Hitchcock made a radical departure from his familiar shooting and editing techniques in favor of a series of unbroken long takes, artfully cut to make it appear as one fluid, unbroken piece of film. It was an exceptionally ambitious scheme, which pushed the technology of the day to its limits, and the merits of which are keenly debated. To some, Rope is a technical masterstroke. Others think of it as a moment when Hitchcock betrayed the principles of his art. “It’s inherently uncinematic” is the implacable opinion of fellow director David Fincher. “It’s not a movie.”

Hitchcock’s other major production decision was to shoot in color for the first time, a visual leap perfectly suited to the film’s content. Rope centers on Phillip and Brandon, a couple of dandies who attempt to execute the perfect murder for the aesthetic pleasure it will bring them. They are two of Hitchcock’s murderers as artists, for whom everything in life—including the effectuation of death—is an opportunity for creative perfection. “I’ve always wished for more artistic talent,” says Brandon. “Well, murder can be an art, too. The power to kill can be just as satisfying as the power to create.”

All the action takes place in their beautifully appointed Manhattan apartment, a place that can only be understood in color. Theirs is a world of