Hitchcock

  A.H.  If you examine the history of the cinema, you will see that the art of film-making was often held in contempt by the intellectuals. That must have been true in France, and it was even truer of the British. No well-bred English person would be seen going into a cinema; it simply wasn’t done. You see, England is strongly class-conscious. When Paramount opened the Plaza Theatre in London, a few members of the upper classes began to go to the movies. The management set up four rows of seats in the mezzanine which were very expensive, and they called that section “Millionaires’ Row.”

  Prior to 1925, English films had been very mediocre; they were mostly for local consumption and were made by bourgeois. Then, around 1925-26, certain young university students, mostly from Cambridge, began to take an interest in the cinema, particularly in the Russian films or such foreign pictures as René Clair’s Italian Straw Hat. Out of this was born the London Film Society, which put on special show’s on Sundays for a coterie of intellectuals. Their enthusiasm, somehow, didn’t project them into the creative end, but they were film fans, particularly in respect to foreign films.

  Even today, foreign films get the largest coverage in the Sunday papers, while the Hollywood product is relegated to the bottom of the page. You must remember also that British intellectuals traditionally spend their holidays on the Continent. They go into the slums of Naples to take pictures of the starving kids. They love to look at the wash hanging out between the tenements, the donkeys in the cobblestone streets. It’s all so picturesque!

  Today, the young British film-makers are beginning to show that sort of thing in their pictures. The social angle is in fashion. I never thought of it while I was living in England, but when I went back there, after living in America, I noticed all of these differences and I realized that the general attitude in Britain is an insular one. Outside of England, there is a much more universal concept of life, which one gets by talking with people and even by the manner in which they tell a story.

  British humor is quite superficial and it’s also rather limited. The British press raised violent objections to Psycho; there was hardly a critic who had any sense of humor about the picture. Anyway, you have a point. I certainly was deeply entrenched in American cinema. This dates back to the time when I was reading the film trade papers at the age of sixteen. They were full of material on the American pictures, and I used to compare the photography of the English and American films. I wanted to work in the medium, and I succeeded in doing just that by the time I was eighteen. While I was a student in the engineering school, I was drawn to design and then to photography. It never occurred to me to go and offer my services to a British company, yet, as soon as I read that an American company was going to open a studio, I said to myself, “I want to do their titles.” So I went to work there; the American actors and writers came in and I learned from them. You might say I had an American training. This doesn’t mean that I was a devotee of everything American. But I did regard their movie-making as truly professional and very much in advance of that of the other countries. In actual fact, I started out, in 1921, in an American studio that happened to be located in London and never set foot in a British studio until 1927. In between those years there was an interval in German films. But even when the British came into Islington and gradually took over its studio facilities, the cameras we used were American, the lights were American, and the film we used was Kodak.

  Later on I often wondered about the fact that I made no attempt to visit America until 1937; I’m still puzzled about that. I was meeting Americans all the time and was completely familiar with the map of New York. I used to send away for train schedules—that was my hobby—and I knew many of the timetables by heart. Years before I ever came here, I could describe New York, tell you where the theaters and stores were located. When I had a conversation with Americans, they would ask, “When were you over there last?” and I’d answer, “I’ve never been there at all.” Strange, isn’t it?

  F.T.  It is and it isn’t; it might be explained by a mixture of love and pride. You didn’t want to come here as a tourist, but as a film director. You didn’t want to try to make a picture here; you wanted to be asked to make one. Hollywood or bust!

  A.H.  That’s true. But I wasn’t in the least interested in Hollywood as a place. The only thing I cared about was to get into a studio to work.

  * * *

  I. In fact, I was mistaken on this point. It wasn’t the hero who was shot down in the end, but Peter Lorre, who played his accomplice. Alfred Hitchcock apparently forgot that this picture ended in the traditional way. In the light of his interesting comment on happy endings,’ I’m allowing this excerpt of our conversations to stand as is.—F.T,

  II. Oscar Homolka plays the saboteur, Verloc. He maintains a front as the friendly manager of a small movie house and lives with Sylvia Sidney, his young wife, and her little brother. John Loder is cast as the handsome detective who courts Mrs. Verloc to keep an eye on the theater. One day Verloc, who suspects he’s under surveillance, gives the little boy a package, asking him to carry it to the other end of town. It’s a time bomb. The boy is delayed and he is killed when the bomb explodes in a bus. When she learns the truth, the wife avenges her brother’s death by stabbing Verloc with a knife. Her crime remains undiscovered, thanks to a propitious explosion of the movie house, and the picture winds up with her finding consolation with the detective.

  III. In a train on her way home from a vacation in the Balkans, Iris, a young English girl (Margaret Lockwood, becomes acquainted with a charming old lady. Miss Froy (Dame May W’hitty). When the old lads mysteriously vanishes during the journey. Iris sets out to find her. To her surprise, all the passengers deny ever having seen the missing woman.

  As it happens, the people she turns to are part of a spy ring, and Miss Froy is a counterespionage agent. Iris is mystified and the gang docs everything to give her the impression she is losing her mind. Fortunately, a young musician (Michael Redgrave! believes the girl’s story and helps her with her search. When the train is shifted to a sidetrack and then besieged by the local agents of the spy ring. Miss Froy, who has been bound and gagged in cine of the compartments, manages to contact the young couple before making a clean getaway. The three Britishers will wind up safe and sound in Scotland Yard, where Miss Froy delivers the secret message for which they’ve all risked their lives—the message, incidentally, turning out to be a few bars of a popular folk song.

  * * *

  “REBECCA”: A CINDERELLA-LIKE STORY ■ “I’VE NEVER RECEIVED AN OSCAR” ■ “FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT” ■ GARY COOPER’S MISTAKE ■ IN HOLLAND, WINDMILLS AND RAIN ■ THE BLOOD-STAINED TULIP ■ WHAT’S A MacGUFFIN? ■ FLASHBACK TO “THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS” ■ “MR. AND MRS. SMITH” ■ “ALL ACTORS ARE CATTLE” ■ “SUSPICION” ■ THE LUMINOUS GLASS OF MILK

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  6

  FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT.  I take it, Mr. Hitchcock, that you came to Hollywood expecting to do a film on the Titanic, but instead you made Rebecca. How did that happen?

  ALFRED HITCHCOCK.  David O. Selznick informed me that he’d changed his mind and had acquired the rights to Rebecca. So I said, “All right, let’s switch!”

  F.T.  I thought you might have had something to do with that switch. Weren’t you already interested in filming Rebecca before coming here?

  A.H.  Yes and no. I had an opportunity to buy the rights while I was shooting The Lady Vanishes, but the price was too high.

  F.T.  The name of Joan Harrison appears on the credits of Rebecca and on several of your British movies. Did she actually work on the screenplay or was that simply a way of representing you on the credits?

  A.H.  At one time Joan was a secretary, and as such she would take notes while I worked on a script, with Charles Bennett, for instance. Gradually she learned, became more articulate, and she became a writer.

  F.T.  Are you satisfied with Rebecca?

  A.H.  Well, it’s not a Hitchc
ock picture; it’s a novelette, really. The story is old-fashioned; there was a whole school of feminine literature at the period, and though I’m not against it, the fact is that the story is lacking in humor.

  F.T.  Maybe so, but it does have the merit of simplicity. Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, and Judith Anderson were an interesting trio: A young and shy lady’s companion miraculously marries the handsome master of Manderley, whose first wife, Rebecca, has died in mysterious circumstances. When they get to the grandiose family mansion, the young bride feels inadequate to her new situation. Increasing her lack of self-confidence is the sinister, domineering housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, whose obsessive devotion to Rebecca is manifested in active hostility to her new mistress. Then a new investigation into Rebecca’s death brings out some unpleasant facts that cause Mrs. Danvers to set fire to the house and commit suicide. With the destruction of Manderley and the death of her tormentor, the heroine’s sufferings come to an end.

  Anyway, this was your first American project and I imagine you must have felt a little intimidated at the idea of undertaking it.

  A.H.  Well, not exactly, because in fact it’s a completely British picture: the story, the actors, and the director were all English. I’ve sometimes wondered what that picture would have been like had it been made in England with the same cast. I’m not sure I would have handled it the same way. The American influence on it is obvious. First, because of Selznick, and then because the screenplay was written by the playwright Robert Sherwood, who gave it a broader viewpoint than it would have had if made in Britain.

  F.T.  It’s a very romantic theme.

  A.H.  Yes, it’s romantic. Of course, there’s a terrible flaw in the story, which our friends, the plausibles, never picked up. On the night when the boat with Rebecca’s body in it is found, a rather unlikely coincidence is revealed: on the very evening she is supposed to have drowned, another woman’s body is picked up two miles down the beach. And this enables the hero to identify that second body as his wife’s. Why wasn’t there an inquest at the time the unknown woman’s body was discovered?

  F.T.  Yes, that is a coincidence, but the whole story is so completely dominated by the psychological elements that no one pays any attention to the explanations, particularly since they don’t really affect the basic situation. As a matter of fact, I never completely understood the final explanation.

  A.H.  Well, the explanation is that Rebecca wasn’t killed by her husband; she committed suicide because she had cancer.

  F.T.  Well, I understood that, because it’s specifically stated, but what I’m not too clear about is whether the husband himself believes that he is guilty.

  A.H.  No, he doesn’t.

  F.T.  I see. Was the adaptation faithful to the novel?

  A.H.  Yes, it follows the novel very faithfully because Selznick had just made Gone with the Wind. He had a theory that people who had read the novel would have been very upset if it had been changed on the screen, and he felt this dictum should also apply to Rebecca. You probably know the story of the two goats who are eating up cans containing the reels of a film taken from a best seller. And one goat says to the other, “Personally, I prefer the book!”

  F.T.  There are many variations to that story. I must say that even today, twenty-six years after it was made, Rebecca is still very modern, very solid.

  A.H.  Yes, it has stood up quite well over the years. I don’t know why.

  F.T.  Making that picture, I imagine, was something of a challenge. After all, the novel itself was a rather unlikely one for you; it wasn’t a thriller, there was no suspense. It was simply a psychological story, into which you deliberately introduced the element of suspense around the conflict of personalities. The experience, I think, had repercussions on the films that came later. Didn’t it inspire you to enrich many of them with the psychological ingredients you initially discovered in the Daphne du Maurier novel?

  A.H.  That’s true.

  F.T.  The relationship of the heroine, for instance . . . By the way, what was her name?

  A.H.  She never had a name.

  F.T.  . . . anyway, her relationship with the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, was something new in your work. And it reappears time and again later on, not only in the scenarios, but even visually: two faces, one dead-still, as if petrified by fear of the other; the victim and the tormentor framed in the same image.

  A.H.  Precisely. In Rebecca I did that very deliberately. Mrs. Danvers was almost never seen walking and was rarely shown in motion. If she entered a room in which the heroine was, what happened is that the girl suddenly heard a sound and there was the ever-present Mrs. Danvers, standing perfectly still by her side. In this way the whole situation was projected from the heroine’s point of view; she never knew when Mrs. Danvers might turn up, and this, in itself, was terrifying. To have shown Mrs. Danvers walking about would have been to humanize her.

  F.T.  It’s an interesting approach that is sometimes used in animated cartoons. Incidentally, you’ve said that the picture is lacking in humor, but my guess would be that you must have had some fun with the scenario because it’s actually the story of a girl who makes one blunder after another. Recently, I saw the picture again, and I couldn’t help imagining the working sessions between you and your scriptwriter: “Now, this is the scene of the meal. Shall we have her drop her fork or will she upset her glass? Let’s have her break the plate . . .” Anyway, that’s the impression I got.

  A.H.  That’s quite true; it did happen that way and we had a good deal of fun with it.

  F.T.  The characterization of the girl recalls the little boy in Sabotage. When she breaks a statuette, she furtively hides the pieces in a drawer, although she’s the mistress of the estate. Something else: Whenever that home is mentioned, it’s as the Manderley mansion or the estate. Whenever it is shown there is an aura of magic about it, with mists, and the musical score heightens that haunting impression.

  A.H.  That’s right, because in a sense the picture is the story of a house. The house was one of the three key characters of the picture.

  F.T.  It’s the first one of your pictures that evokes a fairy tale.

  A.H.  It is. It’s almost a period piece.

  F.T.  This fablelike quality is of interest because it recurs in several of your works. It is suggested by the emphasis on the keys to the house, by a closet that no one has the right to open, or by a room that is sealed off.

  A.H.  Yes, we were aware of that aspect in our treatment of Rebecca. It’s quite true that children’s fairy tales are often terrifying. Take the Grimms’ “Hansel and Gretel,” for instance, in which two children shove an old lady into an oven. But I’m not aware of any of my other pictures resembling a fairy tale.

  F.T.  Well, it’s probably because you’re dealing with fear that many of your pictures have that quality. Anything connected with fear takes us back to childhood. All of children’s literature is linked to sensations and particularly to fear.

  A.H.  You have a point, there. You may remember that the location of the house is never specified in a geographical sense; it’s completely isolated. That’s also true of the house in The Birds. I felt instinctively that the fear would be greater if the house was so isolated that the people in it would have no one to turn to.

  In Rebecca the mansion is so far away from anything that you don’t even know what town it’s near. Now, it’s entirely possible that this abstraction, which you’ve described as American stylization, is partly accidental, and to some extent due to the fact that the picture was made in the United States. Let us assume that we’d made Rebecca in England. The house would not have been so isolated because we’d have been tempted to show the countryside and the lanes leading to the house. But if the scene had been more realistic, and the place of arrival geographically situated, we would have lost the sense of isolation.

  F.T.  Were the British cri
tical about the American aspects of Rebecca?

  A.H.  No, they rather liked the picture.

  F.T.  What about the whole mansion, as shown from the outside. Was that a real house or a miniature?

  A.H.  We built a miniature. Even the road leading up to the home was a miniature.

  F.T.  Plastically speaking, the use of miniatures resembling old woodcuts idealized the film and further strengthened the fairy-tale quality. Actually, the story of Rebecca is quite close to “Cinderella.”

  A.H.  The heroine is Cinderella, and Mrs. Danvers is one of the ugly sisters. But it was even closer to Pinero’s His House in Order. That’s a play in which the villain isn’t the housekeeper but the sister of the master of the house; in other words, she’s Cinderella’s sister-in-law.

  Hitchcock appears in Rebecca (1940), passing by the telephone booth being used by George Sanders.

  F.T.  The mechanism of Rebecca is remarkable. The sinister momentum is built up solely through references to a dead woman who is never shown. The picture won an Oscar, didn’t it?

  A.H.  Yes, the Academy voted it the best picture of the year.

  F.T.  I believe that’s the only Oscar you’ve ever won.

  A.H.  I’ve never received an Oscar.

  F.T.  But you just said that Rebeccu . . .

  A.H.  The award went to Selznick, the producer. The directing award that year was given to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath.

  * * *

  F.T.  Let’s get back to the American film scene. One of the more unfortunate aspects of Hollywood is that film-making is arbitrarily separated into distinct classifications. There are the directors who make what are rated as “A” pictures and the others who make the “B” and “C” films. And short of a sensational hit, it appears to be very difficult to switch from one category to another.