“It’s Only a Movie…”

Just when I thought I'd seen every Hitchcock publicity photo ever, I stumbled across this one. Taken to promote "The Birds", it shows Hitchcock and Suzanne Pleshette…

Not too sure how much truth there is in this story, as the Daily Mail seems to be the only source, but…

Playboy boss Hugh Hefner, 82, has donated $120 million towards a new School of Cinematic Art, to be built in Hollywood in memory of Alfred Hitchcock. Why? Hef declares that he wished to honour Hitchcock as "he managed to work with the three women I most wanted to pose nude for me, and who all refused to do so – Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren." What a forgiving soul!
(Daily Mail, 26th August 2008)

Quite a few people have already blogged about this, but toy manufacturer Mattel are releasing a Barbie doll of Tippi Hedren's character from "The Birds" in time for Halloween…

More details are available on the Entertainment Earth web site.

Of course, this isn't the first time that Hedren has been turned into a doll. Hitchcock had makeup artist Robert Dawn create a lifelike doll of the actress, which was presented to her young daughter (Melanie Griffith). Unfortunately, Hitchcock didn't quite get the reaction he was expecting — the following is an extract from a 1999 interview with Hitchcock's leading ladies…

GREG GARRETT: Miss Hedren, there's a story about the little coffin that was supposedly sent to you by Hitch. Did it contain a little doll with a noose around the neck? What did that mean? Was that a joke?

TIPPI HEDREN: This is the first time I've heard about the noose around the neck. I was called in to do — have a mask made of my face. And I really didn't think anything of it, because at the make-up facility at Universal there are faces of every actor up on the wall. So I thought, well, gee, I'm just going to join all that. That's fine, that's wonderful. It's a rather painful experience to go through this, with the plaster on your face and the straws up your nose and that sort of thing. However, I weathered it through.

The outcome of that was a doll that was made for my daughter [Melanie Griffith] for a Christmas present. And the difference in this little doll was that most of the time when a doll is made of a celebrity or whatever, it's sort of a caricature of that person. This was an absolute replica of my face. Bob Dawn, who was absolutely brilliant in his field of prostheses and that sort of thing, had taken that mask and taken it down to this tiny little face, and it was absolutely perfect. The doll was then dressed in the green outfit that I wore in The Birds for six months.

Unfortunately, they put the doll in a pine box. And then it was presented to my daughter for Christmas. And my little girl, Melanie, looked at it and just blanched white, and we had to put the doll away.

Now this was not — and I truly believe this — this was not an intentional thing for Hitch to hurt my daughter. She was hurt by it. But this was not intentional on his part. I mean, he did a lot of really weird things, but this was not intentional, and there was no noose, believe me. No noose.

GARRETT: Was it a joke?

HEDREN: No, it really wasn't a joke, either. It was supposed to be a very, very, kind of wonderful, thoughtful gift. And one that had taken great thought, great effort, great expense, I'm sure. So it wasn't — I can't say that he was trying to hurt anybody. It was just unfortunate.

"Naturally, the knife never touched the body; it was all done in the montage."
(Hitchcock talking to Truffaut about the shower scene in Psycho)

However, when analysed frame by frame, one of the short segments does appear to show a knife piercing Marion's flesh. It's only 8 frames in length (or 1/3 of a second) and the final frame is this:

At first glance, the knife does appear to have cut into the belly. However, I think the darkness we see on the left of the end of the blade is shadow (the light source is away to the left of the frame). In this image, the edge of the blade is highlighted in green, and it's shadow outlined in blue. What we're seeing is the tip of the blade against the skin.

The 7 previous frames show the knife swooping downwards quickly into the frame. How could they ensure the person holding the knife stopped in time to avoid stabbing Marion (it's not certain if we're seeing Janet Leigh's midriff or her body double, Marli Renfro)?

I've spent a good hour or so this evening watching those 8 frames over and over again…

I think the sequence was achieved quite simply — what we're seeing in the final film is reversed footage. What was actually shot begins with the knife held against the flesh, and then it's pulled away (up and out of frame).

Don't believe me? Then have a play with this web page which lets you run the sequence both ways at two different speeds.

There's 2 things which I think give it away:

• as the knife is pulled away, it leaves behind a steam of small water droplets
• the motion of the shower spray seems more "natural" in the version where the knife is pulled away

Also, on the final frame, I think we can see the impression on the skin of where the knife was resting.

Finally, the movement of the midriff again seems more natural when the frames are shown in reverse. As the knife is pulled back, Marion moves her body away.

Whilst we're on the subject of the shower scene, there is some obvious nudity as Marion's hand reaches out (presumably we're seeing Marli Renfro's breasts here)…

…and as Janet Leigh tumbles forwards, the moleskin she wore during filming is just visible across her chest for a single frame…

And just to wrap things up, here are a couple of magazine covers featuring Miss Renfro…

…Renfro was a professional glamour model who, according to those on set, was more than comfortable with being nude in front of the crew. Renfro certainly does appear in the sequence where Norman lifts Marion's body onto the shower curtain and a couple of the frames give away the fact that she was wearing underwear (visible on her hips)…

News is starting to spread that actress Suzanne Pleshette, who played the role of Annie Hayworth in "The Birds", died yesterday (19/Jan/2008).

• US actress Suzanne Pleshette dies (BBC News)
• Actress Suzanne Pleshette Dies (Time)
• Suzanne Pleshette, Co-Star of TV's `Newhart Show,' Dies at 70 (Bloomberg)
• Suzanne Pleshette dies at 70 (CNN)

Suzanne Pleshette in "The Birds"…

It's that time of the year when we look back at the Hitchcock collaborators who passed away. In 2007, the following people died…

• Roscoe Lee Browne (Topaz)
• Lonny Chapman (The Birds)
• Laraine Day (Foreign Correspondent)
• Ray Evans (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
• Hansjörg Felmy (Torn Curtain)
• George Grizzard (Alfred Hitchcock Presents)
• Peter Handford (Under Capricorn & Frenzy)
• Teddy Infuhr (Spellbound)
• George Tabori (I Confess)
• William Tuttle (North by Northwest)
• Peter Viertel (Saboteur)
• Jane Wyman (Stage Fright)

…further details are available here.

News is starting to spread that actress Laraine Day, who starred in "Foreign Correspondent", died on Saturday (10/Nov/2007).

Curiously, the news reports are split on Day's year of birth — some list it as 1917 and others as 1920. IMDB, which is often used as a source by journalists, says 1917.

The results from the first mini poll are in…

…and the winner was Hitchcock's own favourite blonde, Grace Kelly…

Don't forget to vote in the current poll ("Hitchcock baddies")!

I've been adding the odd name to the Frequent collaborators section on the Alfred Hitchcock article on Wikipedia for a while now, so I decided recently to do the job properly and analyze the "Complete Cast and Crew" pages on IMDB for the 53 major Hitchcock films.

The final data showing everyone who appears 3 or more times can be seen in this Excel spreadsheet.

Quite often, Leo G Carroll is named as being the actor to appear most frequently in Hitchcock's films, but that honour actually goes to Bess Flowers who appeared in uncredited roles in 7 Hitchcock films. Flowers was an incredibly prolific actress with over 700 roles in just 43 years (according to her entry on the IMDB), which earned her the nickname of "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras".

Most of the other actors who frequently worked with Hitchcock did so in his British films (i.e. up to "Jamaica Inn"), with Clare Greet, John Longden, Hannah Jones, and Frederick Piper all appearing in at least 5 of the major films.

It's 25 years today since Grace Kelly, one of the two actresses most closely associated with Hitchcock (the other being Ingrid Bergman), died as a result of a car accident in Monaco. Curiously, Bergman herself had died just 2 weeks before from cancer.

Kelly appeared in 3 Hitchcock films (the same number as Bergman):

• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• To Catch a Thief (1955)

Speaking about Kelly in "To Catch a Thief" and comparing her to Bergman, Hitchcock said:

Francie [Grace Kelly] has a "don't-muss-my-hair" quality, Ingrid had a "muss-my-hair" quality. Francie doesn't have Ingrid's kind of vulnerability nor her warmth. She's accustomed to getting what she wants. She acts differently at the end when she is getting what she wants. She and her mother are ready to take over our hero's house and life."

According to Charlotte Chandler's biography of Hitchcock, when Hitchcock offered Kelly the role of Lisa Fremont in "Rear Window", she had already planned to accept the female lead in "On the Waterfront" (opposite Marlon Brando). She heard through her agent that Hitchcock wanted her to go to Los Angeles for wardrobe fittings…

It was a big surprise, because I was just ready to accept another role in a major film. I read the script, and I knew that Rear Window was for me.

The role Kelly was to have played went instead to Eva Marie Saint, who herself would star in "North by Northwest" a few years later.

Costume designer Edith Head once said of Kelly that she had the perfect figure…

Grace had nothing to hide. She was perfect in her clothes because what was underneath was perfect. Even the beautiful stars who had to look perfect onscreen, they all had something to cover, all but Grace.

After "To Catch a Thief", Kelly starred in just two more films. By then, she had met and married Prince Rainier of Monaco. Hitchcock tried to tempt Kelly back to take the lead role in "Marnie", but it eventually came to nothing.

random selection of Grace Kelly film frames, click to enlarge…

random selection of images from the Hitchcock Gallery, click to enlarge…

articles about Grace Kelly…

• Princess Grace to set up fund (The Times, 23/Mar/1962)
• Princess Grace film delayed (The Times, 24/Apr/1962)
• Princess Grace's film plans off (The Times, 08/Jun/1962)
• Obituary: Princess Grace of Monaco (The Times, 15/Sep/1982)
• The world mourns with Monaco (The Times, 16/Sep/1982)
• State of Grace: Grace Kelly (The Guardian, 27/Jul/2007)