It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock

With special appreciation

P
at Hitchcock-O’Connell, Alma Reville Hitchcock, Chuck Adams, and Bob Bender.

With appreciation

Michael Accordino, Jan Anderson, Judith Anderson, Claudio Angelini, Enrica Antonioni, Michelangelo Antonioni, Amelia Antonucci, Dennis Aspland, Linda Ayton, Diane Baker, Roy Ward Baker, Charles Bennett, Marcella Berger, Ingrid Bergman, Sidney Bernstein, Robert Boyle, David Brown, Kevin Brownlow, Henry Bumstead, Bob Calhoun, Jack Cardiff, Fred Chase, Larry Cohen, Herbert Coleman, Wilkie Cooper, Rusty Coppleman, Warren Cowan, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Hume Cronyn, George Cukor, Tony Curtis, Georgine Darcy, Marlene Dietrich, Karin Dor, Mitch Douglas, Lisa Drew, Jean-Louis Dumas, Laura Elliott, C. O. “Doc” Erikson, Ray Evans, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Rudi Fehr, Jean Firstenberg, Henry Fonda, Joan Fontaine, Barry Foster, Joe Franklin, John Emmanuel Gartmann, Bob Gazzale, Anthony Gentile, John Gielgud, Lillian Gish, Milton Goldman, Elliott Gould, Farley Granger, Cary Grant, Hilton Green, Dick Guttman, Dolly Haas, Robert Haller, Peter Handford, Curtis Harrington, Robert A. Harris, Harry Haun, Edith Head, Tippi Hedren, Audrey Hepburn, Bernard Herrmann, Arthur Hiller, Thurn Hoffman, John Houseman, Evan Hunter, Peter Johnson, James Katz, Howard G. Kazanjian, Fay Kanin, Grace Kelly, Theodore Kheel, Alexander Kordonsky, Martin Landau, John Landis, Ted Landry, Fritz Lang, Bryan Langley, Henri Langlois, Robert Lantz, Arthur Laurents, Ernest Lehman, Johanna Li, Janet Leigh, Norman Lloyd, Joshua Logan, Sirio Maccioni, Shirley MacLaine, Karl Malden, Groucho Marx, James Mason, Mary Merson, Ray Milland, Ruth Anna Millman, Laurent Momméja, Thom Mount, Dieter Mueller, Reggie Nalder, Ronald Neame, Paul Newman, Arthur Novell, Eileen O’Casey, Maureen O’Hara, Laurence Olivier, Robert Osborne, Jerry Pam, Gregory Peck, Anthony Perkins, Vlada Petric, Jay Presson Allen, Dan Price, Michael Redgrave, Claude Reininger, Robert Rosen, David Rosenthal, Eva Marie Saint, Sandra Seacat, Daniel Selznick, Peter Shaffer, Sidney Sheldon, Sylvia Sidney, Martin E. Segal, Walter Slezak, John Springer, June Springer, Jeff Stafford, Michael Starr, Gary Stevens, James Stewart, Roy Thinnes, Richard Todd, François Truffaut, John Vernon, King Vidor, Lew Wasserman, Cheryl Weinstein, Billy Wilder, Emlyn Williams, Paul Wilson, Teresa Wright, Jane Wyman.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute, Anthology Film Archives, the British Film Institute, the Cinémathèque Française, Film Forum (New York), The Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Italian Cultural Institute, New York, The Leytonstone Alfred Hitchcock Society, the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Plaza Athénée Hotel (Paris), The Potsdam Museum, The Royal Lancaster Hotel (London), the Savoy Hotel (London), Turner Classic Movies, UCLA Department of Theater, Film, and Television.

I
REMEMBER
I
NGRID
B
ERGMAN
coming up to me in a terrible state,” Alfred Hitchcock told me. “Worried, miserable, high-strung, romantic, idealistic, sensitive, emotional. Dear Ingrid. She took life very seriously, and fiction even more seriously. She said, her voice pregnant with feeling, almost trembling, ‘Hitch, there’s something I must ask you about my part. I don’t feel it. I can’t find my motivation…’

“I said to her, ‘Ingrid, fake it. It’s only a movie.’

“That seemed to satisfy her, but then, a few weeks later, Ingrid was back standing to the side, shyly waiting for me to be free. I turned to beckon her over. It was interesting, because Ingrid is many things, but shy isn’t one of them. I asked her what was bothering her.

“‘Oh, Hitch, I’ve been thinking…’

“I thought, ‘Oh, dear.’ I said, ‘Please go on.’

“She did. I couldn’t have stopped her.

“‘I’ve been feeling that what I do isn’t worthwhile. Movies. Being an actress. I’m not doing enough to help people. Of all the worthwhile things you can do with your life, I feel I should be doing something more.’

“‘Well, Ingrid,’ I said, ‘have you thought about going to a hospital and emptying bedpans?’

“When the actors were taking themselves too seriously,” Hitchcock told me, “I hoped the light touch would give them some perspective. I found it rather successful. There was only one person on whom my little diversionary technique didn’t work.

“Whenever I found myself getting overwrought over problems with one of my films, I would say to myself, ‘Remember, it’s only a movie.’ It never worked. I was never able to convince myself.”