Two films about Hitchcock. What a treat!

[Graybeard]

I just watched "The Girl", an HBO made for TV movie about the relationship between Tippy Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). Toby Jones is wonderful as Hitch. He looks and sounds exactly like him. (I once saw Hitchcock in person and was surprised how small in stature he was. Very much like Toby Jones.)

Now I'm awaiting the theater release of "Hitchcock" with Anthony Hopkins as Hitch during the filming of Psycho (1960). For someone who can't get enough of everything Hitchcock this is a feast.

[CorBlimeyGuvnor]

1. Wow - you are lucky !

I think this is a BBC co-production - they have been running trailers for it for weeks here in the UK, and I can't wait to see it. Toby Jones is an astonishing actor - have you seen Berberian Sound Studio - a bizarre little film starring Jones as a sound effects man who travels out to Italy to work on an Italian "giallo" horror film?

Have to agree, can't get enough about Hitch.

[frogmarch]

2. I watched "The Girl" last night,

or should I say, I watched part of it. I was totally creeped out by the Hitchcock portrayal and couldn't stick with the movie to the end. I've always thought Hitchcock was way creepier than any of his movies, and the Hitchcock portrayal was creepy too.

ewwww :shudder:

Edited to change "That" to "The" in my post title. I watched the movie about Tippi Hedron and Hitchcock, not a show in the old TV series starring Marlo Thomas. Sheesh.

[CorBlimeyGuvnor]

3. I think he had some serious fetishes...

I remember being shocked when I read that he sat and watched just 2 or 3 feet away (just out of shot) when Barry Foster strangled another victim in Frenzy.

[nolabear]

4. Jamie Lee Curtis tells a story about him

giving her a doll in the image of her mother (Janet Leigh) when she was a little girl. The box was a coffin.

I love him, but he was a weird, weird little man.

[frogmarch]

5. Bill Mumy had this to say

about Hitchcock’s treatment of him when Mumy, then a child, starred in the episode “Bang! You’re Dead” (1961):

This was one of 17 episodes directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself. Bill Mumy, who was about age 7 when the episode was filmed, related in an interview that he had trouble hitting his mark so that he stayed within the key lighting on the set. According to Mumy, Hitchcock became so frustrated that he took Mumy aside and quietly said words to the effect of, "If you can't stay in your proper place on the set, we'll get a nail and put it through your foot, and blood will come pouring out like milk."

www.imdb.com/title/tt0508131/trivia

Yes, Hitchcock was a strange person, all right. It’s easy to believe he had some serious fetishes. He watched the strangulation scene up close? As the director, I suppose he wanted to make sure it was perfect, but eww.

[Myrina]

12. The Mumy story is funny

But I've got the same perverse sense of humor in that I love to scare the crap out of kids. I really dislike children, especially other people's, and would have done the same thing.

Oh and Hitch and I share the same birthdate. Wonder if that accounts for our matching senses of humor?

[UTUSN]

6. Favorite quote

An interviewer said, "Mr HITCHCOCK, your movies have scared so many people. What scares YOU?" And he replied, "The po-LEESE."

Given his compulsions, he had reason to look over his shoulder.

[CorBlimeyGuvnor]

7. He was possibly alluding to a story (probably apocryphal)

that he told in interviews dozens of times over the years about his father taking him to the local police station in East London when he was about 5 or 6 and having one of the sergeants lock him in a cell for an hour. When he was let out the officer allegedly whispered in Hitch's ear "That's what we do to bad boys".

[edbermac]

8. I read the Rebello book about making Psycho.

So the Hopkins-Mirren film will be interesting inasmuch Mirren is playing Hitch's wife and she looks prominently featured, though in the book she's barely mentioned as I recall.

[CorBlimeyGuvnor]

9. I read an article in Films and Filming magazine some years back.

Apparently Hitchcock always called Psycho his "little joke" and the writer of the article wondered if this had something to do with the fact that although the film is set during the days leading up to Christmas, the holiday itself isn't mentioned throughout (and there's no sign of anything that would suggest the season at all). Ever since I've regarded it as a very dark Christmas movie indeed.

[edbermac]

10. According to Rebello that was an filming accident.

Shooting began on Nov 30 1959 and Hitch sent a crew to Phoenix for some second unit street shots. He had to put the opening titles FRIDAY DECEMBER THE ELEVENTH because he felt the audience would be curious seeing Christmas decorations all over the street.

[Myrina]

11. Ugh, the actor in "The Girl"

Made Hitch look like a hydro-enceph/alien mutant. Horrible! It was, however, interesting to see "Delores Umbridge" in a different character (Alma).

I've seen snips of Hopkins' appearance & he looks more like the real deal. Can't wait to see that one!