Alfred Hitchcock All The Films.
The story behind every movie, episode and short by Bernard Benoliei, Gilles Esposito, Murielle Joudet and Jean-Francois Rauger (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers) 2024 £40 ISBN 9780762488681
The first thing to do with a book like this is to check that all of Hitchcock’s films have been covered. And not just the well known titles but lesser known works too. Yes, a 1957 TV film called Four O’clock and the documentary Memory of the Camps (1945) have been included.
Before the Alfred Hitchcock Hour TV series there was a series called Suspicion for which Hitchcock directed a 50 minute episode called Revenge based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. In the two pages on that relevant links are made with the similarly trapped protagonists of Rear Window and Vertigo. Also, Woolrich wrote the story that was adapted for Rear Window and many of his stories became Hitchcock TV films as well.
Memory of the Camps / German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945) were documentaries made just after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and other camps. Hitchcock’s role was as an advisor on how the footage should be filmed. Bodies being buried in the camps are also given tangential references – the corpse disposal business in The Trouble with Harry (1955) and the sordid body images in the film tests that Hitchcock made for a film to be called Kaleidoscope (1990) that was never made.
I’ve dived into these two items first because some Hitchcock film lovers are probably unaware of them. To see them discussed in Alfred Hitchcock All the Films indicates how comprehensive this book is.
It’s especially pleasing to have all the Hitchcock directed television films included as they include gems that don’t usually attract much critical commentary. Rather than detailed analysis, not required here, the book is filled with brilliantly concise summaries of them and Hitchcock’s acknowledged film masterpieces, experiments (Rope) many successful entertainments, a few failures and the occasional mistake (e.g. Waltzes From Vienna). Its four authors have digested everything Hitchcockian and pinned down his achievement with judicious information, impressive research, insight and often new facts about a movie.
In Vertigo, a Paramount set was built to resemble a real bookshop in San Francisco where a studio effect of fading daylight is made to look so real. It repeats what Hitchcock achieved in “real time” in Rope. In Marnie photographer Robert Burks dulled the colours to suggest that life had been drained out of Tippi Hedren by the power of her repression. When making Foreign Correspondent (produced by Walter Wanger) Hitchcock did a favour for him and shot an airplane scene in another Wanger film, The House Across the Bay (1940). Just three new things I learnt about Hitchcock from this big, beautifully illustrated book running to 647 pages.
Interspersed with all the films are pieces called Portrait and Focus. Here we find fascinating examples of Hitchcock’s use of storyboards; an examination of the importance of the Saul Bass credit sequences; unrealised projects – especially failing to get Universal to authorise a Hitchcock favourite ”horror story” project, the haunting play Mary Rose by J.M.Barrie; an appreciation of Edith Head who was responsible for the costumes on eleven Hitchcock films; Hitchcock’s genius for promoting his image and much, much more.
Finally there’s the visual appeal of this book. The publishers have gone for a matt finish, instead of gloss, for the photographs. For me this works, giving a pleasing texture and depth. And pictorially there’s an abundance of imagery balanced with well written and intelligent text.
My shelves are already groaning delightedly with many books about Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock All the Films shouldn’t be passed over as some vacuous coffee table book but a rich trove and compendium of information on Hitchcock’s remarkable artistry.
This huge, splendidly readable publication has to join my library. It’s one of the best film books of 2024 and goes without saying that all Hitchcock enthusiasts deserve to be given it as their present for Christmas.
Alan Price©2024
Alfred Hitchcock All The Films.
The story behind every movie, episode and short by Bernard Benoliei, Gilles Esposito, Murielle Joudet and Jean-Francois Rauger (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers) 2024 £40 ISBN 9780762488681
The first thing to do with a book like this is to check that all of Hitchcock’s films have been covered. And not just the well known titles but lesser known works too. Yes, a 1957 TV film called Four O’clock and the documentary Memory of the Camps (1945) have been included.
Before the Alfred Hitchcock Hour TV series there was a series called Suspicion for which Hitchcock directed a 50 minute episode called Revenge based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. In the two pages on that relevant links are made with the similarly trapped protagonists of Rear Window and Vertigo. Also, Woolrich wrote the story that was adapted for Rear Window and many of his stories became Hitchcock TV films as well.
Memory of the Camps / German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945) were documentaries made just after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and other camps. Hitchcock’s role was as an advisor on how the footage should be filmed. Bodies being buried in the camps are also given tangential references – the corpse disposal business in The Trouble with Harry (1955) and the sordid body images in the film tests that Hitchcock made for a film to be called Kaleidoscope (1990) that was never made.
I’ve dived into these two items first because some Hitchcock film lovers are probably unaware of them. To see them discussed in Alfred Hitchcock All the Films indicates how comprehensive this book is.
It’s especially pleasing to have all the Hitchcock directed television films included as they include gems that don’t usually attract much critical commentary. Rather than detailed analysis, not required here, the book is filled with brilliantly concise summaries of them and Hitchcock’s acknowledged film masterpieces, experiments (Rope) many successful entertainments, a few failures and the occasional mistake (e.g. Waltzes From Vienna). Its four authors have digested everything Hitchcockian and pinned down his achievement with judicious information, impressive research, insight and often new facts about a movie.
In Vertigo, a Paramount set was built to resemble a real bookshop in San Francisco where a studio effect of fading daylight is made to look so real. It repeats what Hitchcock achieved in “real time” in Rope. In Marnie photographer Robert Burks dulled the colours to suggest that life had been drained out of Tippi Hedren by the power of her repression. When making Foreign Correspondent (produced by Walter Wanger) Hitchcock did a favour for him and shot an airplane scene in another Wanger film, The House Across the Bay (1940). Just three new things I learnt about Hitchcock from this big, beautifully illustrated book running to 647 pages.
Interspersed with all the films are pieces called Portrait and Focus. Here we find fascinating examples of Hitchcock’s use of storyboards; an examination of the importance of the Saul Bass credit sequences; unrealised projects – especially failing to get Universal to authorise a Hitchcock favourite ”horror story” project, the haunting play Mary Rose by J.M.Barrie; an appreciation of Edith Head who was responsible for the costumes on eleven Hitchcock films; Hitchcock’s genius for promoting his image and much, much more.
Finally there’s the visual appeal of this book. The publishers have gone for a matt finish, instead of gloss, for the photographs. For me this works, giving a pleasing texture and depth. And pictorially there’s an abundance of imagery balanced with well written and intelligent text.
My shelves are already groaning delightedly with many books about Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock All the Films shouldn’t be passed over as some vacuous coffee table book but a rich trove and compendium of information on Hitchcock’s remarkable artistry.
This huge, splendidly readable publication has to join my library. It’s one of the best film books of 2024 and goes without saying that all Hitchcock enthusiasts deserve to be given it as their present for Christmas.
Alan Price©2024
By Alan Price • books, film, year 2024 • Tags: Alan Price, books, film