Authors: Patrick McGilligan
Truffaut astutely described it as combination of two kinds of Hitchcock films: one half of
Frenzy
traced “the itinerary of a killer,” the other “the troubles of an innocent man who is on the run,” both set in a “nightmarish, stifling Hitchcockian universe” with “a world made up of coincidences so systematically organized that they cross-cut one another vertically and horizontally.
Frenzy
is a crossword puzzle on the leitmotif of murder.”
“
Frenzy
isn’t just a Hitchcock film,” Jonathan Jones wrote in the
Guardian
almost thirty years later, on the occasion of the director’s centenary. “It’s Hitchcockian, a pastiche and reprise of his work, especially his British films, and a coded autobiography. London is the city of Hitchcock’s imagination, and
Frenzy
is his last visit. It’s Hitchcock’s most insidiously personal film, the Catholic director’s final confession.”
Despite “up to the minute” violence, Jones wrote, the Hitchcock film was also “flamboyantly old-fashioned” both in its dialogue and its ways of depicting London, which harked back to the director’s boyhood. Jones also saw it as two films—“an emigrant’s view of home, at once nostalgic and angry,” in his words; “what could be perceived as an old man’s nostalgia,” he added, “could equally be a disciplined and self-conscious piece of artistry.”
Although in 1972 there were year-end plaudits from some critics,
*
Hitchcock’s genuinely disturbing, pessimistic film was nevertheless ignored for Oscar nominations. He had always swung back and forth between styles and subjects, and prided himself on his body of work more than individual films. He disliked naming favorite pictures, or explaining symbolic ones. He already had ideas for future works that would further complicate his legacy. Although
Frenzy
resurrected his reputation in the twilight of his career, still Hitchcock would wince to hear it described—as critics routinely do—as his last dark testament.
After the East Coast publicity grind, Hitchcock’s first appointment was with Dr. Walter Flieg; then his activity was scaled back for the summer, in preparation for the equally grueling push in Europe in the fall. In September, Hitchcock hosted similar events and press conferences in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, giving numerous interviews along the way. This time he was accompanied by Alma, whose health once again had rebounded, although now there were weekly checkups for both husband and wife. Their nearly two months of travel and promotion was broken up twice by long interregnums at the Villa d’Este.
Back in Hollywood, on November 16, 1972, Hitchcock attended George Cukor’s luncheon honoring the visiting Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Cukor threw such luncheons to bring together members of the directing profession, and he had remained friendly with Hitchcock since their Selznick days. Buñuel, who had just finished
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
(which would win the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar in 1973), was a rare filmmaker for whom, backed into a corner, Hitchcock admitted grudging admiration. (“He can barely speak the titles, but he manages to let
Tristana
and
That Obscure Object of Desire
pass from his lips,” recalled writer David Freeman, who worked with Hitchcock in 1978-79. “He’s a hard man. As far as I can see, no one else’s work interests him.”)
Dutifully, Hitchcock screened Buñuel films for weeks beforehand. The two aging provocateurs had several things in common: though Buñuel was a year younger, both were in their seventies, and still active. Both were educated by Jesuits. Both had worked with Salvador Dalí. Both liked subjects that undressed women, mingled fear and desire, dreams and reality. Yet Hitchcock scoffed at any deeper meaning in his films, while Buñuel was an intellectual who prided himself on his savaging of government, society, and the Church.
It’s hard to imagine what some of the other Hollywood guests present might have had to say to Buñuel. “Cukor’s famous charm glossed over the awkward pauses,” wrote John Baxter in
Buñuel.
“Hitchcock in particular was genial, chuckling to Buñuel about Tristana’s artificial leg.”
*
In a photograph taken that day, Hitchcock is seated next to Buñuel among the group that included Rouben Mamoulian, George Stevens, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and Cukor. John Ford was too ill to stay for the photo, and Fritz Lang also left early. Unlike Cukor and Wilder, who were the only others still active as directors, Hitchcock and Buñuel had started out in the silent era; indeed, Hitchcock had preceded Buñuel in film by several years. For a man of his age, whose health was steadily deteriorating, Hitchcock looks almost serene, even radiant, in the picture.
The studio, the director’s staff, and his close friends secretly believed that
Frenzy
would be the last Hitchcock film. But throughout the global publicity campaign, whenever journalists asked him if he was on the verge of retirement, his shock and displeasure were unfeigned. “Retire?” Hitchcock would protest. “What would I do? Sit in a corner and read a book?”
By now, however, his world was shrinking to include only his home and his office, and very often he did just that, stay home and read. Dr. Flieg didn’t encourage travel, except for his annual vacation to Hawaii. He didn’t go out at night, except for special occasions. Alma’s health had stabilized, but her heart was weak, and Dr. Flieg ordered occasional bed rest for Mrs. Hitchcock. Thus, the Hitchcocks’ Thursday nights at Chasen’s became a special occasion, and it was a big deal when Alma came to lunch or showed up for the afternoon screening.
“Home reading” was what Hitchcock’s logbook reported, increasingly, in 1972 and 1973. He had always prided himself on getting up early in the morning and going to work; now he showed up in the office most days after 10 A.M. Some days it wasn’t until 12:30, and then the only thing on the schedule might be lunch with his agents, or with old friends like Norman Lloyd. Or it might be just him and Peggy Robertson. In the afternoons there were often showings of films by young directors, foreign and American, but just as often it was the latest musicals, Walt Disney, or James Bond.
He browsed crime and spy books forwarded by Universal’s story department. Now his idée fixe became to do another realistic cold war thriller, to expunge the dishonor of
Torn Curtain
and
Topaz.
One day the studio arranged a lunch for Hitchcock with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin.
Hitchcock told Dobrynin he aspired to make a film set entirely in the Kremlin. He insisted such a film would be a “formidable success,” recalled Dobrynin. Dobrynin probably wasn’t aware of the anti-Soviet drift of
Torn Curtain
and
Topaz
, but nonetheless voiced “doubts that the Moscow leadership would fully appreciate the depth and originality of the idea.”
The right spy thriller eluded him, and shortly after the Buñuel luncheon Hitchcock had another studio lunch with two young television writers on the lot, William Link and Richard Levinson, who had written for
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
and wanted to spend time with the great man. Over lunch the director talked about his ongoing search for story material, and afterward the writers recalled a book they had read that they thought might be of interest. It wasn’t a political thriller—it was in a more familiar Hitchcock crime mode. They had it shipped up to Mrs. Hitchcock at the Santa Cruz house, which the couple was selling. Alma read
The Rainbird Pattern
by Victor Canning first, and recommended it to her husband.
Victor Canning was a thriller writer of considerable distinction (V S. Pritchett was quoted on his dust jackets, hailing him as “a master of his craft”). Published in 1972,
The Rainbird Pattern
was a suspenseful double chase that on the surface seemed made to order for Hitchcock. One of the chases is quasi-comic, involving an oddball bunco clairvoyant and her out-of-work boyfriend, who are searching for a missing heir on behalf of a wealthy spinster (whose nickname in the book, oddly, is Tippy). The other chase pits hapless police against an archfiend who is plotting a high-level kidnapping. A stark climax, with the archcriminal revealed as the long-lost heir, unites the two story threads.
The novel takes place entirely in England, and involves the ransom of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although the police bungle along, chasing the wrong couple (an element Hitchcock must have enjoyed), in the end they manage to trap their man, and the archcriminal and his wife meet an ugly demise. So do all the other main characters: the clairvoyant, the boyfriend, the elderly heiress. A chilling coda demonstrates the triumph of evil, fulfilling the genealogical “pattern” of the book’s title.
After deciding on
The Rainbird Pattern
, the director offered the script assignment to Anthony Shaffer, who read the book but balked at “the sort of version that Hitch was describing—a sort of light, Noel Coward-Madame Arcati thing with Margaret Rutherford.” (Thus, already, before there was any script, he was describing a Hitchcock film quite different from the book.) Shaffer agreed to think about it, but he had flashed the wrong signals, and Hitchcock phoned him a week later to say that his agent had made excessive
demands. Shaffer felt Hitchcock was dissembling in order to avoid a later confrontation over his approach.
In September 1973, Hitchcock recruited another familiar face: Ernest Lehman. Since
North by Northwest
, Lehman had written some of Hollywood’s most prestigious films:
From the Terrace, West Side Story, The Prize, The Sound of Music, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
, and
Hello, Dolly!
He had produced the latter two films, as well as
Portnoy’s Complaint
, his debut (and swan song) as a director.
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Except for
Sweet Smell of Success
, which was adapted from his novel (and coscripted by Clifford Odets),
North by Northwest
was the only original script on Lehman’s filmography. But
The Rainbird Pattern
would also be an original once they had finished revamping the novel, Hitchcock assured him. With more than a touch of resentment—after all, he’d been stung by Arthur La Bern’s poisonous “Letter to the Editor,” and disapproved of the steep price he had had to pay for rights to Canning’s novel—Hitchcock told Lehman, “I don’t have any regard for the book. It’s
our
story, not the book’s. Canning’s a very lucky man.”
“What’s he going to get out of this?” Lehman asked.
“A lot,” Hitchcock replied rather uncharitably. “These fellows … you know what happens. They rerelease the book with our new title.”
**
The director told Lehman that he intended to keep Canning’s basic premise, but part of their job would include moving the whole shebang to California because of Hitchcock’s health concerns as well as budget considerations. Another part would be giving the material the Noel Coward tone Hitchcock envisioned.
The September 1973 start of Hitchcock’s work with Lehman on “Deceit” (the first thing junked was Canning’s title) came fifteen months after the release of
Frenzy
, and those months had been hard on Hitchcock. In January 1973 he spent two weeks in the hospital, fighting gout. In the spring he struggled with the flu. In June he attended the funeral of Dave Chasen, owner of his favorite restaurant. August brought a heart scare, a flurry of tests, and days at home.
There was something sad and beautiful about these two old warhorses reuniting, fifteen years after
North by Northwest
, each past his prime. “By now he was a legendary figure to me, too,” recalled Lehman, “yet at first I felt very comfortable being back with him. However, before long I realized
that our relationship was quite different. Many years had passed. We had both had successes and failures. We were different people now.”
At first the Hitchcock who rolled up his sleeves for work seemed almost unchanged from the practical artist Lehman knew from long before—the man who had worked with writers on scripts for fifty years, in much the same way. No matter how early the writer arrived for their morning sessions, Hitchcock was already there waiting, sitting in “his favorite red leather chair beside the red leather sofa surrounded by beige and mahogany and brass in the tasteful, soothing, orderly office … smiling, hopeful, expectant, hands folded over a navy worsted suit and black tie.”
“Good morning, old bean.”
“Morning, Hitch.”
Lehman arrived about ten, but by the time they started talking about the script it was getting close to eleven. “The first forty-five minutes,” said the writer, “are always warm-up time, during which neither of you would dare commit the gross, unpardonable sin of mentioning the work at hand. There are more attractive matters to be discussed first… what dinner parties, if any, have been attended the night before, who was there and said what to whom? … or, if not a party, what about the movie that was seen last night and was now to be dissected, or how about those reviews in the morning trades, weren’t they shocking? … and let’s not forget the morning headlines and the stock market and the president and the secretary of state and Lew Wasserman and the Middle East and the sagging U.S. economy.
“How much more pleasurable, this sharing of the problems of others, than to have to sit there, sometimes in terribly long silences, trying to devise Hitchcockian methods of extricating fictional characters from the corners into which you painted them the day before.”
Inevitably it fell to the writer to launch into script issues, usually by starting off with the previous day’s problem—suggesting a solution he had cogitated overnight. With Hitchcock, that was often like loading a bullet into a revolver for a friendly game of Russian roulette.
“He looks at you with hope, or is it pity, and murmurs. Really?
“And you begin to talk, and he watches you, and he listens, and you watch him carefully, and you continue, and finally you’ve said it all. And then he does one of several things. His face lights up with enthusiasm. Good sign. Or his face remains unchanged. Question mark. Or he says absolutely nothing about what you have just told him, and talks about another aspect of the picture. Pocket veto. Or he looks at you with great sympathy and says, But Ernie, that’s the way they do it in the
movies.
”