In an exclusive interview before he died, Norman Lloyd tells all about working with Alfred Hitchcock. He knew the man behind the camera. At 100 years old, Norman Lloyd shares the secrets NO ONE ELSE WILL. You won’t believe what Hitchcock said behind the scenes during the making of Marnie and what he saw between Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren.
In a stunning and explosive interview, acclaimed stage actress Louise Latham gave a candid and revealing insight about filming with her co-star Tippi Hedren on the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. Her interview will be featured in a new book “100 Years of Hitchcock” coming soon. And you can hear a trailer for the interview on Youtube:
In anticipation of a new book “100 Years of Hitchcock” which debunks the myths about Alfred Hitchcock, here are Top 10 Things the HBO movie The Girl Got Wrong about Alfred Hitchcock.
A major new book is on its way with conclusive evidence that Hitchcock was framed by a vengeful biographer. Watch the Youtube video to discover more and check back for more updates on publication.
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Happy 95th Birthday to the legendary Tippi Hedren!
A true Hitchcock Blonde, Tippi has captivated audiences for decades with her unforgettable performances in The Birds and Marnie—two of Alfred Hitchcock’s most memorable films.
To celebrate this special milestone, dive into the fascinating world of Tippi Hedren’s career in Tony Lee Moral’s two books on the making of The Birds and Marnie. Learn about the stories behind these iconic films, her collaboration with Hitchcock, and her lasting impact on cinema. 📚✨
Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie celebrates its 60th anniversary this month. It was released in the US on July 22nd 1964 in New York and also in the UK on July 9th 1964, buoyed by the presence of international star Sean Connery who was garnering great reviews in the James Bond series. Sixty years on how has Marnie fared? As Mark Rutland would say, surprisingly well “Old Girl”.
Marnie has become a time capsule for gender representations, and psychoanalytical ideas of key traumas and events. The power of Hitchcock within the medium of cinema, is his ability to create iconic characters who remain indelible in our culture, like murdering psychopaths played by Robert Walker and Anthony Perkins, or ice heroines personified by Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Furthermore, Hitchcock’s ability to create alternative realities within familiar settings, such as the haunting, urban landscape of San Francisco, or the imposing, granite faces of Mount Rushmore, remain in our consciousness as a world existing somewhere between reality and illusion. In Marnie, such images are represented by the shooting of the horse Forio, and the infamous Baltimore backdrop of the looming ship. The fact that these images linger long after we have seen the film, and have been influential to a vast array of other artists, is testimony to Hitchcock’s power as a film maker.
Hitchcock’s very popularity has made him a continual source of fascination for critical writing, from Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s to Lacanian champion Slavoj Zizek, who himself observes: “Hitchcock as the theoretical phenomenon that we have witnessed in recent decades – the endless flow of books, articles, university courses, conference panels, is a ‘postmodern’ phenomenon par excellence.” What makes Hitchcock’s work so enduringly and eminently accessible, is the presentation of fundamentally significant human issues in an entertaining and provoking manner. Hitchcock’s films have captured the realm of popular imagination, suffused our culture and continue to remain an engaging critique of male and female sexual relationships. A panel of top directors including Martin Scorsese, Atom Egoyan and Bruce Robinson, assembled by the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine, voted for the ten greatest Hitchcock works. They chose; 1. Psycho, 2. Vertigo, 3. Notorious, 4. The Birds, 5. North by Northwest, 6. Shadow of a Doubt, 7. Foreign Correspondent, 8. Frenzy, 9. The Lady Vanishes and 10. Marnie.
A film that was universally scorned when first released, Marnie has grown tremendously in popularity and has now become a time capsule for gender representations and psychoanalytical ideas for key traumas and events. The film may well be Hitchcock’s testament in which his signature is left on every shot. The fact that these images linger long after we have seen the film, and have been influential to a vast array of other artists, is testimony to Hitchcock’s power as a film maker.
The new play “Double Feature” about the working relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren has premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in London and is already perpetuating the myth about the famous director and his protege.
While scriptwriter John Logan in The Times says he believes Hedren’s story that Hitchcock assaulted her, many of the cast and crew interviewed deny the veracity of the allegations, especially physical abuse. You can read many of their interviews on this site and in Tony Lee Moral’s books The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds and Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie.
Hitchcock did believe that actresses under contract should be committed to their craft which may be an old school way of thinking under the studio system, but cast and crew deny witnessing any physical abuse during the filming of The Birds and Marnie. All due care was given to Hedren during the filming of The Birds according to bird handler Gero Gerry, hairdresser Virginia Darcy and wardrobe mistress Rita Riggs.
The myths were also perpetuated by Donald Spoto, biographer of The Dark Side of Genius, whose research and motivations have come into question, not only in his biography on Hitch, but also James Dean, Audrey Hepburn and others.
Official Hitchcock biographer John Russell Taylor who knew both Hitchcock and Hedren in the 1970s, describes the allegations and dramatisations as “a tissue of melodramatic invention”.
It also just been reported that Tippi Hedren, 94, is battling dementia according to Spanish Media Reports. Apparently Tippi can’t remember her career.
Donald Spoto, the unauthorised biographer of “The Life of Alfred Hitchcock: The Dark Side of Genius” died last week at the age of 81 as reported in The New York Times. May he Rest In Peace.
His first book “The Art of Alfred Hitchcock” was published in 1976 and was a coffee table book on Hitchcock’s work. But as esteemed Hitchcock critic Robin Wood, author of the seminal book “Hitchcock’s Films” stated, Spoto quickly turned from reverence to rape with the publication of his next Hitchcock book, “The Dark Side of Genius”.
Many Hitchcock collaborators went on record to say they did not recognise the man Spoto portrayed in his book, while others such as Patricia Hitchcock, Herbert Coleman and Norman Lloyd actively defended the director with alternative sides of the story.
Following the publication of his Hitchcock books, Spoto made a name for himself as a celebrity biographer with often sensational accounts on the likes of Joan Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman and James Dean among others.
He published his third and final book on Alfred Hitchcock in 2008 titled “Spellbound by Beauty” which catalogued Hitchcock’s predilictions with blondes and his alleged obsession with Tippi Hedren. Spoto and Hedren collaborated as advisers on the BBC’s and HBO’s drama “The Girl” which was released in 2013. Again more controversy ensued, and defendants such as Kim Novak, Doris Day and Barbara Leigh-Hunt spoke out to defend Hitchcock as the man they did not recognise in the television movie.
Spoto’s allegations were also refuted in two books by author Tony Lee Moral, “Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie” in 2002 and “The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds” in 2013.
While Save Hitchcock disputed The Girl’s allegations and contradicted many of those in Spoto’s biography, we will be addressing some of those claims in the coming months on this site.
Spoto leaves behind his husband Ole Flemming Larsen who he married in 2003 where they lived together in Denmark.
The reason for Hitchcock’s enduring influence on Directors and Critics today.
Alfred Hitchcock has a reason to dance. Four of Hitchcock’s Films have made the Top 100 films of all time list in the recent British Film Institute Sight and Sound Poll. Although Hitchcock’s Vertigo is down only one place to Number 2 having beaten Citizen Kane to the top spot in the last poll, Hitchcock is only rivalled by Jean Luc Goddard in having the greatest number of films on the list, with Psycho, Rear Window and North by Northwest.
While cinematic greats like Bergman with only film, Persona, and Renoir have slipped or fallen out of the top, which testifies Hitchcock’s enduring appeal as a master storyteller and giant of cinema.
You can read about Hitchcock’s legacy in a new book The Young Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class available on Amazon.
The Sight and Sound Directors’s and Critic’s Polls for the Best Film of All Time will be published on Friday December 2nd 2022, every ten years since its inception. In 2012, Vertigo gained the top spot, dethroning Citizen Kane.
Will it retain the Number 1 position this year? Rumour has it that another film like 2001 will take the title.
Find out why Vertigo is held in such high esteem in a new book The Young Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class which is published in 2022.
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