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From the Publisher
Scenes from The Young Alfred Hitchcock's Moviemaking Master Class
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Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) are chased across the faces of Mount Rushmore in North by NorthwestAlthough many of Hitchcock's stories had a clever twist, he often used people in ordinary commonplace situations and then something very unusual creeps in. . .Screenwriter Ernest Lehman was originally contracted to write a screenplay from the novel The Wreck of the Mary Deare, but couldn't find the inspiration to do it. Instead he said to Hitch, "I want to do the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. It has to have glamour, wit, sophistication, and move all over the place with suspense." Hitch's response was, "I always wanted to do a scene on Mount Rushmore, where the hero hides in Abraham Lincoln's nose." This scene got both Lehman and Hitchcock thinking in a Northwesterly direction, but it took them almost a year to write North by Northwest because it was an original idea. |
Hitchcock at work in his study with AlmaFor Hitchcock, the most enjoyable part of making a movie was being in his office with his writer, discussing the storylines and deciding what they were going to put on the screen. He didn't allow the writer to go off and just write a script that he would later interpret - he stayed involved, and included the writer in directing choices. . . Usually the writing of a Hitchcock movie was a two month job and a highly important stage to which a full understanding of the general plan was essential to the writer involved. |
Ingrid Bergman filming the famous crane shot in NotoriousA famous and elaborate crane shot occurs in Notorious which starts from high above during a party, down a staircase and keeps moving in on Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) at the bottom, going right into her hand, which is holding a key. "That's using the visual, that's a statement," says Hitchcock. "In this crowded atmosphere there is a very vital item, the crux of everything. So taking that sentence as it is, in this crowded atmosphere, you go to the widest expression of that phrase, so you go down to that vital thing, a little tiny key in the hand. That's the visual expression to say that everyone is having a good time, but you don't realise it, and there is big drama going on here and that big drama is epitomised itself in that tiny key." |
Storyboard for the jungle gym in The BirdsStaying with one party and not cross-cutting is a technique that Hitchcock uses to great effect in The Birds. Melanie (Tippi Hedren) is seated in front of a schoolhouse smoking, and when she sits down there's a jungle gym behind her and one crow lands on it. The camera is placed on her and never shows what's going on behind, until eventually she follows one bird in the sky and when she turns around there's a mass of them waiting to attack. The old technique would have been to cross-cut between the crows gathering on the jungle gym and the smoking Melanie. When the last crow lands on the climbing frame, the audience discover the menacing crows at the same time as Melanie. After she goes to warn Annie, the schoolteacher, about the crows gathering outside, Annie devises a plan for the kids to leave the school in a fire drill. Instead of cross-cutting between the children leaving and the birds on the jungle gym, the camera now stays with the birds. That's the power of not cross cutting." |
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