It's Only a Movie
Alfred Hitchcock: A Personal Biography
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
In his films, Alfred Hitchcock found the perfect expression for his fantasies, and he shared those fantasies with the world in such classics as The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds. In It's Only a Movie, Charlotte Chandler draws from her extensive conversations with Hitchcock, frequently revealing unknown facts and unexpected insights into the man, the director, and his films.
Author of acclaimed biographies of Groucho Marx, Federico Fellini, and Billy Wilder, Charlotte Chandler spent several years with Hitchcock discussing his life and his amazing career. She also talked with his wife, Alma, and daughter, Pat, as well as many of the screen legends who appeared in his films, including Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Tippi Hedren, James Mason, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Novak, Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, and others. The result is an intimate yet expansive portrait of a unique artist who, from the 1920s through the 1970s, created many of history's most memorable films.
A quarter-century after his death, Hitchcock's distinctive profile remains an instantly recognizable icon to millions, while his films continue to grow in popular appeal and critical esteem. Chandler introduces us to the real Hitchcock: a devoted family man, practical joker, and Englishman of Edwardian sensibilities who was one of the great masters of cinematic art.
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As almost all of his actors and collaborators note in this well-reported biography, Hitchcock (1899 1980) was never particularly forthcoming on the subject of himself. Through canvassing a broad swath of now-deceased major stars (Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Cary Grant), Hitchcock's longtime technicians, his daughter, wife and the filmmaker himself, veteran Hollywood writer Chandler (Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder; etc.) quotes several insights into Hitchcock's technical genius, creative worldview and personality. Hitchcock meticulously planned each shot before filming began, but as his daughter recalls, "at home he said he was happy if he got 75 percent of what he'd seen in his head." Hitchcock's wife, Alma, emerges as the revered ultimate authority in her husband's life and creativity, managing and smoothing out his problems to a loving and remarkable degree (although when he proposed to her on a ship, she was "looking green" and burped instead of saying "yes"). Chandler allows her sources to reminisce at great length, and they tend to tell fascinating stories. The bio remains maddeningly inert, however, because despite the aper us Chandler gleans, she doesn't manage to tie them together into a cohesive portrait of the filmmaker or offer any analysis of Hitchcock's personality despite her access to him. The book may be categorized as a personal biography, but its subject remains a cipher.
