Book Review: Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie

Alfred Hitchcock Master

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Release Date: October 1, 2011

Nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category of Best Critical/Biographical, 2012.

Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick’s Scripting Hitchcock explores the collaborative process between Alfred Hitchcock and the screenwriters that he chose to write the screenplays for Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie. Drawing from extensive interviews with the screenwriters and other film technicians who worked for Hitchcock, Raubicheck and Srebnick illustrate how much of the filmmaking process took place in the scripting phase of production.

One might assume that the book simply treads a path that is covered in detail by Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Tony Lee Moral’s Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie, and Moral’s follow-up The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds. However, Scripting Hitchcock proves to have much to…

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Book Review: Hitchcock’s British Films

Alfred Hitchcock Master

Publisher: Wayne State University Press (2nd Edition)

Release Date: October 11, 2010

In 1977 (when this book was first published), critics tended to overlook (and even discount) the films from Alfred Hitchcock’s British period. This tendency seems especially short sighted. The formative years of any creative artist deserves analysis and in-depth study. Yacowar was a single voice of reason. Hitchcock’s British Films challenged popular critical rhetoric and provided a resource for the further study of this important period in Hitchcock’s career.

This second edition has brought a pioneering text that was out of circulation for decades into the hands of scholars and film fans alike. While Yacowar’s essays are mostly concerned with theoretical analysis, there is the occasional nugget of ‘behind the scenes’ information. The text is essential because many of these films are so often neglected. For instance, Waltzes from Vienna is given its own essay. How many essays…

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Book Review: Alfred Hitchcock Interviews

Alfred Hitchcock Master

Publisher: The University of Mississippi Press

Release Date: April 15, 2003

“He is one of the most over-interviewed people imaginable…” –Janet Maslin (Boston After Dark, 1972)

Janet Maslin’s statement has the ring of truth. Hitchcock had even developed a repertoire of standard answers to feed journalists. Of course, certain interviewers caught the director in a more articulate frame of mind than others would. Journalists certainly didn’t make this difficult for Hitchcock. Why should Hitchcock have to provide original answers if journalists weren’t willing to provide original questions?

Luckily, Sidney Gottlieb’s collection of interviews provides readers with some rare nuggets of information. Many of the interviews were from the 1970s (a period not covered by the Truffaut book). This isn’t to say that some of these selections don’t tread the same territory as Truffaut’s book. Actually, there are moments of repetition within the 20 interviews in this volume. One simply…

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Book Review: Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles Bennett

Alfred Hitchcock Master

Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Release Date: Mar 24, 2014

It would be rather short sighted to assume that Alfred Hitchcock’s creative evolution wasn’t altered by the various individuals that collaborated with him. Out of all the screenwriters that Hitchcock worked with, Charles Bennett likely had the most impact upon the director’s cinematic approach to suspense. When one looks at the director’s filmography, it becomes immediately clear that the director’s talents matured during his association with Bennett. After adapting Bennett’s play, Blackmail (1929) into Britain’s first feature length ‘talkie’ (an incredible artistic and commercial success), he went on to make a string of mostly forgettable films. The quality of his films improved exponentially once he teamed up with Bennett to create the screenplay for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Hitchcock certainly realized this since he continued to work with Bennett on The 39 Steps (1935),

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Book Review: Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class

Alfred Hitchcock Master

Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions

Release Date: May 1, 2013

There have been countless books devoted to Alfred Hitchcock. Most are film theory, many are biographies, and others are detailed accounts of the making of a specific Hitchcock film. Nearly every theoretic angle has been covered in meticulous detail. However, Tony Lee Moral had something very different in mind for “Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class.” This book is not intended for scholars. It does not delve into theory, biography, or detail any film’s creation. Moral prefers to offer future filmmakers a text for using the films of Alfred Hitchcock as a tool for learning the filmmaking process. It is really a superb idea. Could there be a better tool for teaching young filmmakers the craft of filmmaking? It is certainly difficult to think of one. The book covers the entire filmmaking process (writing, planning, shooting, editing, and marketing) using easy to…

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