The new biopic ‘Hitchcock’ takes voyeurs … um, viewers on a behind-the-scenes look at the making of ‘Psycho,’ and looks a little deeper into the life of the Master of Suspense.
Vertigo was a massive flop and Hitch was desperate to find his next project, something smaller, quick and dirty.
Alfred Hitchcock was known as “The Master of Suspense” because of his career directing a long list of thrillers – some serious, some humorous – that really began in his native England with The Lodger and continued after his arrival in America with such classics to his credit as Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and Vertigo. Today, Vertigo is considered a classic and was recently named the greatest motion picture of all time by Sight & Sound magazine, displacing Citizen Kane for the first time. But in 1959, Vertigo was a massive flop and Hitch was desperate to find his next project, something smaller, quick and dirty, to help him – and his studio, Paramount – recover from that box office disaster.
In the new film Hitchcock, based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of “Psycho,” we learn that the next picture Hitch wants to make is, indeed, Psycho, based on the novel by Robert Bloch that was in turn inspired by the true life case of Ed Gein (who was also the inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). No one but Hitch thinks this is a good idea, for a director of his stature to degrade his reputation by making a tawdry horror film. Paramount head Barney Balaban (actor Bob’s father) is adamant that the studio will not fund such a film, so Hitch and his agent (Lew Wasserman, who went on to head Universal Studios, Hitchcock’s home after his tenure at Paramount ended) concoct a plan to finance the film by mortgaging the Hitchcock home, much to the dismay but with grudging support from Hitchcock’s wife and creative muse, Alma.
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Photo Credit: Fox Searchlight
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