Hitchcock

François Truffaut (1932–1984) was an award-winning film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. Regarded as a founder of the French cinema’s New Wave, some of his works include The 400 Blows, Day For Night, and The Wild Child.

CONTENTS Preface to the Revised Edition Introduction 1: Childhood Behind prison bars "Came the dawn" Michael Balcon Woman to Woman Number Thirteen Introducing the future Mrs. Hitchcock A melodramatic shooting: The Pleasure Garden The Mountain Eagle 2: The first true Hitchcock: The Lodger Creating a purely visual form The glass floor Handcuffs and sex Why Hitchcock appears in his films Downhill Easy Virtue The Ring and One-Round Jack The Farmer's Wife The Griffith influence Champagne The last silent movie: The Manxman. 3: Hitchcock's first sound film: Blackmail The Shuftan process Juno and the Paycock Why Hitchcock will never film Crime and Punishment What is suspense? Murder The Skin Game Rich and Strange Two innocents in Paris Number Seventeen Cats, cats everywhere Waltzes from Vienna The lowest ebb and the comeback. 4. The Man Who Knew Too Much When Churchill was chief of police M From "The One Note Man" to the deadly cymbals Clarification and simplification The Thirty-nine Steps John Buchan's influence Understatement An old, bawdy story Mr. Memory Slice of life and slice of cake 5. The Secret Agent You don't always need a happy ending What do they have in Switzerland? Sabotage The child and the bomb An example of suspense The Lady Vanishes The plausibles A wire from David O. Selznick The last British film: Jamaica Inn Some conclusions about the British period. 6: Rebecca: A Cinderella-like story "I've never received an Oscar" Foreign Correspondent Gary Cooper's mistake In Holland, windmills and rain The bloodstained tulip What's a MacGuffin? Flashback to The Thirty-nine Steps Mr. and Mrs. Smith "All actors are cattle" Suspicion The luminous glass of milk 7: Sabotage versus Saboteur A mass of ideas clutters up a picture Shadow of a Doubt Tribute to Thornton Wilder "The Merry Widow" An idealistic killer Lifeboat A microcosm of war Like a pack of dogs Return to London Modest war contribution: Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. 8: Return to America Spellbound Collaboration with Salvador Dali Notorious "The Song of the Flame" The uranium MacGuffin Under surveillance by the FBI A film about the cinema The Paradine Case Can Gregory Peck play a British lawyer? An intricate shot Horny hands, like the devil! 9: Rope: From 7:30 to 9:15 in one shot Clouds of spun glass Colors and shadows Walls that fade away Films must be cut How to make noises rise from the street Under Capricorn Infantilism and other errors in judgment Run for cover! "Ingrid, it's only a movie!" Stage Fright The flashback that lied The better the villain, the better the picture 10: Spectacular comeback via Strangers on a Train A monopoly on the suspense genre The little man who crawled A bitchy wife I Confess A "barbaric sophisticate" The sanctity of confession Experience alone is not enough Fear of the police Story of a ménage á trois 11: Dial M for Murder Filming in 3-D The theater confines the action Rear Window The Kuleshov experiment We are all voyeurs Death of a small dog The size of the image has a dramatic purpose The surprise kiss versus the suspense kiss The Patrick Mahon case and the Dr. Crippen case To Catch a Thief Sex on the screen The Trouble with Harry The humor of understatement The Man Who Knew Too Much A knife in the back The clash of cymbals 12: The Wrong Man Absolute authenticity Vertigo The usual alternatives: suspense or surprise Necrophilia Kim Novak on the set Two projects that were never filmed A political suspense movie North by Northwest The importance of photographic documentation Dealing with time and space The practice of the absurd The body that came from nowhere 13: Ideas in the middle of the night The longest kiss in screen history A case of pure exhibitionism Never waste space Screen imagery is make-believe Psycho Janet Leigh's brassière. Red herrings Directing the audience How Arbogast was killed A shower stabbing Stuffed birds How to get mass emotions Psycho: A film-maker's film 14: The Birds The elderly ornithologist The gouged-out eyes The girl in a gilded cage Improvisations The size of the image The scene that was dropped An emotional truck Electronic sounds Practical jokes 15: Marnie A fetishist love The Three Hostages, Mary Rose, and R.R.R.R. Torn Curtain The bus is the villain The scene in the factory Every film is a brand-new experience The rising curve The situation film versus the character film "I only read the London Times" A strictly visual mind Hitchcock a Catholic film-maker? A dream for the future: A film showing twenty-four hours in the life of a city 16: Hitchcock's final years Grace Kelly abandons the cinema More on The Birds, Marnie, and Torn Curtain Hitch misses the stars The "great flawed films" A project that was dropped Topaz made to order for the front office Return to London with Frenzy The pacemaker and Family Plot Hitchcock laden down with tributes and honors Love and espionage The Short Night Hitchcock is ill, Sir Alfred is dead The end The Films of Alfred Hitchcock Selected Bibliography Index of Film Titles Index of Names