The Master of Suspense: A Tale of Two Hitches

In honor of Halloween, Cinema Style takes a look at director Alfred Hitchcock a.k.a. "The Master of Suspense" who happens to be the subject of not one but two films this fall.

The real Alfred Hitchcock

As gifted as he was, Hitch had a side as dark as his movies. HBO's The Girl explores his obsession with actress Tippi Hedren (played by Sienna Miller) during the filmmaking of The Birds. He gave the Nordic blonde model her start in films and when she spurned his advances, he terrorized her on the set. The infamous scene where Hedren opens the attic and is attacked by a flock of angry birds was shot in five long days (on purpose) when one day would do. (Rumors abound that the birds were fed whiskey to make them more aggressive and Hedren suffered countless nightmares after filming). Long before the days of sexual harassment suits, Hedren was powerless. Signed to a seven year contract, the director and his muse collaborated on his next film Marni and parted ways shortly after. Actor Toby Jones (who played Truman Capote in Infamous) nails the portly genius right down to his measured voice.

Jones and Miller as Hitch and Hedren

Miller in the Attic

Hedren in The Birds (1963)

The real Hedren and Hitch on set

Hitch's marriage to screenwriter Alma Reveille  is the focus of the upcoming Hitchcock. Starring Academy Award winners Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as the married Hitches, Scarlett Johansson as Vivien Leigh and  Jessica Biel as Vera Miles, the film covers the trials and tribulations of making one of the most popular horror films of all time, Psycho (1959).  Hitchcock (Fox Searchlight) premieres November 23rd  and early buzz is an Oscar nom for Hopkins.

Hopkins with the perfect profile as Hitch

Mirren as wife Alma -- note the menacing spider web design on her dres

Brilliant and complex,  his work was designed to scare, excite, titillate, and create a general level of anxiety.  Do yourself a favor, this Halloween forget Hostel one and two, Saw one through six and Halloween one through six and rent Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds. It's classic filmmaking and no one wears a mask and sports a chainsaw. And Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca is pretty creepy too.

Photo Credits: Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight, Universal Pictures, HBO Films

Horror Movies and Style

My favorite holiday of the year is this Saturday so I thought it would be an opportune time to visit a few of my favorite horror movies. According to the box office, most filmgoers would list Halloween (1-5), Hostel (1-2) or perhaps Saw (1-6) for sheer terror, blood and gore. For iconic moments in style (and something you don't equate with horror movies), these films would get my vote:

The Shining (1980): The highly stylized sets for the Overlook Hotel were the largest built in England. Director Stanley Kubrick and production designer Roy Walker modeled the men's room after one in the Biltmore in Phoenix and the Colorado lounge identical to the Ahwanee in Yosemite Valley. The magnificent hedge maze in the final scene was actually branches woven on chicken wire stuck in plywood boxes.

Rosemary's Baby (1968): I attended a party at the Dakota some twenty years after the filming and still could not shake the ghosts of the film even though the exterior of the building was only used. Known as the Bramford in the film, the building is as eerie as the story itself.

John Cassavettes, Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon

The Dakota on West 72nd Street

The film was also noteworthy in creating Mia Farrow's iconic pixie haircut, a classic coif of the sixties designed by Vidal Sassoon.

Sassoon and Farrow on set

Dracula (1931): Accept no imitiations (and many have tried), the original Dracula is the best. From the grainy crackling film, the atmospheric fog and Lugosi's hypnotic stare, this is true horror. And from the spider web filled castle of Transylvania to a London apartment (why do these women always leave the window open?), the sets are wonderful. Even Lugosi looks dapper in his cape -- and rumored to have been buried in it.

Transylvania set on the Universal lot

The Exorcist (973): If you have ever visited Georgetown and seen the famous steps on M Street, it's hard to shake the image from the film. The "McNeil" townhouse on 3600 Prospect Street where little Regan created havoc and stained the carpet with pea green soup is seen below.The interiors were actually shot in a studio and the bedroom scenes filmed in the basement of Fordham University.

Exterior for the McNeil House

The Birds (1963): Tippi Hedren never looked better despite the physical and mental wear and tear. (Hitchcock used actual seagulls trained to attack the actress, making the terror all the more real). Special effects and animated birds mixed with live ones were used against a backdrop of Albert Whitlock's (no relation!) matte paintings for many scenes and the technical feats were the real stars of the film.

Tippi Hedren and friend

Hitch on Set

Happy Halloween!

Header photo is Elsa Manchester in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Photo Credits: Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and Paramount.

Hitchcock Style

While it's often hard to equate the legendary rotund British director-auteur-master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock with the word style, his films certainly gave us some great moments in fashion, glamour and interiors.

His penchant for sophisticated blondes is the stuff of legends -- from the tortured Tippi Hedren in The Birds (1958) and Marnie (1961) , Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958) and The Wrong Man (1956) and Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) to Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954) , Dial M for Murder (1954)  and To Catch a Thief (1955), Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960) and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (1959) -- icy, cold, unattainable, chic and often heroines turned victims, he never met a blonde he didn't like. (One can look at  Suzanne Pleshette's fate in The Birds to see how brunettes fared).

Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren on the set of Marnie

Kim Novak in Vertigo who Hitch wanted to turn into "the new Grace Kelly"

Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Edith Head's designs  for the film To Catch a Thief

Que Sera Sera: Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day in The Man Who Knew too Much

Grace Kelly on set

Whether hero or cad or a combination thereof, Hitch liked his male characters handsome, dapper, and above all, well dressed.

Sean Connery takes a break in between Bond films to star in Marnie

Nothing says south of France like an Ascot in the fifties

Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief

The woman responsible for it all was Academy Award winning costume designer Edith Head who designed everything from Tippi's shredded suit in The Birds to Grace Kelly's memorable black and white cocktail dress in Rear Window. More on Ms. Head's contributions in a future post.

From Jimmy Stewart's studio apartment  in Rear Window, Norman Bates house to Rebecca's Manderlay, a Hitch set is designed for suspense, anxiety, action and danger.

The Psycho House on the Universal backlot

His set for the film Rope (1948) was ultra modern and would fit in with today's standards. With its panoramic windows, the Manhattan penthouse apartment was completely designed for city viewing  and the leather sofa  is custom made to fit the entire length of the windows. In a classic Hitch move, look for his profile on one of the illuminated signs.

Hitch with the cast of Rope

James Mason as Phillip Vandamm  in a Long Island for North by Northwest

Even Hitch's symbolism is stylish. The film Vertigo is of course, based on images of a swirl design. We see it in the various motifs... Jimmy Stewart/Scott McKittreck's office,         

the famous bell tower...

Movie Poster for Vertigo

and even Kim Novak's classic french twist has a swirl...

Hitch on set with a sense of humor

For the DEFINITIVE book on the subject, read French film critic Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style by Assouline, 2004. A must have for any Hitchcock fanatic.

Photo Credits: Hitchcock Style, Assouline, 2004.