| What a wonderful experience this film was! It's too bad whoever else was responsible for the marketing of this film did not have the same magic of Hitch himself, as unfortunately only a few people are going to see this film, unfortunately released in the blitz of the Holiday Season deluge. Director Sacha Gervasi's film deserves a better fate. Set in 1959, Hitch Anthony Hopkins was now 60, and many of the studio heads and reporters think his best days are behind him. He picks "Psycho" as his next project; Paramount won't fund it, so Hitch and his wife Alma Helen Mirren <more> mortgage their house to make the film on a relatively low budget. In a wonderful bit of dialogue from screenwriter John J. McLaughlin, Alma asks Hitchcock to explain to her one time and one time only why he feels like they must bet everything they have in order to make this particular film: ALFRED HITCHCOCK Remember the fun we had when we started out and there was so little money and time? We took risks, we experimented. We invented new ways of making pictures because we had to. I want to feel that kind of freedom again.Hitchcock always had an eye for the beautiful women who appeared in his films, much to the chagrin of Alma. The tension in their relationship is at the center of the film "Hitchcock"; a contributor to Rotten Tomatoes suggested that this film could even be called "Dial M for Marriage." This marital tension is exacerbated by the flattery shown Alma by another writer, Whitfield Cook Danny Huston , which transforms Hitchcock into the same kind of maniac as Norman Bates. When Hitchcock is directing and providing verbal motivation to Janet Leigh played by the wonderful Scarlet Johannson in the scene where she is driving down the road to meet her boyfriend after she has stolen $40,000 in cash from the real estate firm she worked for, he lets loose with this vicious barrage of venom: ALFRED HITCHCOCK You could return the money secretly, but what would be the point? You, Marion Crane. The prim and proper girl who's always been so tight and respectable. So perfect and untouchable. Well, they know all about your dirty little secret, don't they? Your messy, sticky lunchtime trysts. Yes, your boss Mr. Lowery could even smell the sex on you—There is another particularly creepy scene where Hitch spies on Vera Miles on the film set in exactly the same way that Norman Bates spies on Marion Crane in "Psycho", almost what you could call life imitating art. And another brilliant moment comes at the premiere screening of the film during the famous shower scene where Marion gets murdered; Hitch stands outside in the foyer, directing the screams from the audience as if he were conducting a symphony of horror, which I guess he was.Alma was always fiercely loyal to Hitchcock, despite having to always be a second fiddle to her gregarious spouse in public and despite having to apparently deal with a lack of physical affection. When he accuses her of being unfaithful, she stands her ground and really dresses him down, in the kind of scene that is generating Oscar talk for the actress Helen Mirren: more great dialogue from screenwriter John J. McLaughlin ALMA Might I remind you that I have weighed-in on every aspect of this film so far, as I have done on every picture you've done in the last three decades. And the first time you show the film, it will be my notes that you want. I celebrate with you if the reviews are good and I cry for you if they are not. I host your parties and put up with those fantasy romances with your leading ladies. And when you're out promoting this film around the world, I will stand beside or, rather, slightly behind you, smiling endlessly for the press even when I'm ready to drop, being gracious to people who look through me as if I were invisible because all they can see is the grand and glorious "Alfred Hitchcock."I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes where Hitchcock was doing battle with the MPAA Censorship office; before 1965, this office had the power to prevent any nudity, profanity, overt violence, interracial romance, homosexuality, and anything they deemed offensive from appearing in Hollywood films, because their seal of approval was required for exhibition. "Psycho" trivia nuts like me know that this film had the first scene ever of an actual toilet in a film; a scene in this film accurately relates Hitch having to convince the MPAA Board that such a scene was necessary for the film because of the clues it presented that were critical to the plot. But Hitchcock was also battling with them over the possibility of any nudity in the shower scene and with the theme of Norman being a transvestite.GEOFFREY SHURLOCK The Code will absolutely not permit you to show a knife penetrating a woman's flesh. ALFRED HITCHCOCK I assure you, Geoffrey, my murders, are always models of taste and discretion. GEOFFREY SHURLOCK Is there any improper suggestion of nudity in this murder scene in the shower? ALFRED HITCHCOCK She won't be nude. She'll be wearing a shower cap.There are some problems with the script, particularly with the unnecessary dream sequences involving Hitchcock and the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, whose story inspired the book "Psycho." But all in all, this was a delightful look inside the life of the most influential director in Hollywood between 1940 and 1960. "Psycho" was his most successful film, and the experience seems to have also given him a new appreciation of the invaluable role that Alma had played in both his personal and public lives. <less> |
