Hitchcock Bio Gives Reader Vertigo

“To interview me, you would have to interview my films,” Alfred Hitchcock tells author Charlotte Chandler in the introduction of It’s Only a Movie, the newest biography of the renowned director. “I already have,” she responds, “and they told me many of their secrets—but not all.” Chandler attempts to share these with her readers, but the result is disappointing—a flashy set of sound bytes without any real depth.

The book reads more like a series of interviews surrounding a common theme—the making of Hitchcock’s movies—than an account of the man’s life. Hitchcock’s personal life is only mentioned at its edges—before he began directing films and after he finished. Instead, Chandler ascribes Hitchcock’s theory that he was his movies, and responds accordingly.

The title is Hitchcock’s most oft-quoted quip, uttered in response to actors doubting their motivation or studio executives who don’t see the point of a particular scene. The “light touch” of the words is meant to give some perspective. Hitchcock notes in the book’s prologue that the only person on whom the technique did not work was himself.

It’s Only a Movie is divided into four main parts, each corresponding to a different section of Hitchcock’s cinematic career. Originally trained as an artist and engineer, Hitchcock began in the movie world writing scripts and designing intertitles for silent movies. He was soon directing, and by 1940 was England’s best known director.

Then, Hollywood beckoned, and Hitchcock moved to California for better weather and bigger budgets. It was here that his career blossomed for over three decades. It came to a close in the late 1970s, when he became too old to direct as he wished. He passed away in 1980, less than a year after officially retiring.

It is with Hitchcock’s movies, particularly those made in Hollywood, that Chandler concerns herself. Dull plot synopses are given for each film, along with whatever interesting anecdotes those involved can recall.

We learn how Hitchcock manipulates his cameras to make the indelible image of Norman Lloyd appearing to fall from the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur, and that many of the stage actors that worked with him, including Lawrence Olivier, Judith Anderson, and John Gielgud, originally disapproved of his stiff directing methods, but were later grateful for working with him on something so lasting.

The book also sheds light on some of the infamous rumors circulating around Hitchcock. He apparently never left Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat handcuffed together for a whole day while shooting The 39 Steps, nor his daughter Pat suspended on a ferris wheel in the dark for hours on the set of Strangers on a Train. It does appear however that he said, “Actors are cattle,” though he denies it, and that there was a great deal of tension between him and Tippi Hedren after filming The Birds and Marnie together.

Yet as charming as such anecdotes are, they leave the reader unsatisfied. It seems that Chandler was so intent on staying in the good graces of her interviewees that she never contradicts them or pushes them further than they wished. For example, Hedren’s daughter, actress Melanie Griffith, describes Hitchcock as “a motherfucker” because of how he treated Hedren. Chandler quotes the line, gold to any reporter, but never explores why it was said.

She treats Hitchcock as an almost saintly figure, prone to occasional disagreements with his cast, but never in the wrong. Nor is the allegation that Hitchcock was a homosexual—he has been quoted elsewhere as saying he would have been “a poof” had he not met his wife—ever mentioned, let alone addressed.

Contributors’ reflections seem to be presented almost entirely unedited. When Chandler’s prose does appear, it is often only to insinuate her intimacy with the glitzy figures she is quoting. Chandler is a skilled reporter, but many comments appear that should never have made it onto the page at all. The fact that Hitchcock drew out each of his shots beforehand may be interesting the first time we hear it, but not the fifth. It adds nothing.

Nor do we need to read about Chandler’s difficulty coaxing Marlene Dietrich out of her self-imposed hermitage, only to have her forget which films she had been in and say only that Hitchcock “was interested in cooking, but more in eating.”

The result of Chandler’s sloppiness is that all the insights and compelling information that do appear seems to be sheer accident rather than the work of a skillful writer. The interviews, though entertaining, do not give a complete portrait of Hitchcock, and the evidence surrounding them is not adequately investigated. We are asked to simply take people’s word for it, without any conclusions reached.

Hitchcock himself would probably have liked It’s Only a Movie. It brings an air of playfulness to its subject. But playfulness can only go so far, and in a book of over three hundred pages, the fluff eventually fizzles into a sticky mess.

—Staff writer Jayme J. Herschkopf can be reached at herschk@fas.harvard.edu.