Explore the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock’s leading ladies—their iconic roles, unforgettable costumes, and complicated relationships with the man behind the camera. Whether she is played by Tippi Hedren, Grace Kelly, or Ingrid Bergman, the heroine of an Alfred Hitchcock picture is always the same: stylish, regal, with an elegant yet icy demeanor that masks a fire inside. From his early days as a director in the 1920s to his heyday as the Master of Suspense in the 1960s, Hitchcock had a complicated and controversial relationship with his leading ladies. He supervised their hair, their makeup, their wardrobe, pushing them to create his perfect vision onscreen. Yet these women were also style icons in their own right, and the clothes they wore imbued the films with contemporary glamour. From Kim Novak’s gray suit in Vertigo to Janet Leigh’s thematically symbolic lingerie in Psycho, these actresses and their clothes broke barriers, made history, and transfixed audiences around the world. In this book, Caroline Young chronicles six decades of glamorous style, exploring the fashion legacy of these amazing women and their experiences working with Hitchcock. Meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated with studio pictures, film stills, and original drawings of the costume designs, this book offers revealing insight into a fascinating period of movie history and the relationships between one of its leading directors and his female stars.
Among the abundant Alfred Hitchcock literature, Hitchcock's Motifs has found a fresh angle. Starting from recurring objects, settings, character-types and events, Michael Walker tracks some forty motifs, themes and clusters across the whole of Hitchcock's oeuvre, including not only all his 52 extant feature films but also representative episodes from his TV series. Connections and deeper inflections that Hitchcock fans may have long sensed or suspected can now be seen for what they are: an intricately spun web of cross-references which gives this unique artist's work the depth, consistency and resonance that justifies Hitchcock's place as probably the best know film director ever. The title, the first book-length study of the subject, can be used as a mini-encyclopaedia of Hitchcock's motifs, but the individual entries also give full attention to the wider social contexts, hidden sources and the sometimes unconscious meanings present in the work and solidly linking it to its time and place.
Although he was a visual stylist who once referred to actors as cattle, Alfred Hitchcock also had a remarkable talent for innovative and creative casting choices. The director launched the careers of several actors and completely changed the trajectory of others, many of whom created some of the most iconic screen performances in history. However, Hitchcock’s ability to fit his leading men and women into just the right parts has been a largely overlooked aspect of his filmmaking skills. In Hitchcock’s Stars: Alfred Hitchcock and the Hollywood Studio System, Lesley L. Coffin looks at how the director made the most of the actors who were at his disposal for several decades. From his first American production in 1940 to his final feature in 1976, Hitchcock’s films were examples of creative casting that strayed far from the norm during the structured Hollywood star system. Rather than examining the cinematic aspects of his work, this book explores the collaboration the director engaged in with some of the most
In Hitchcock's Appetites, Casey McKittrick offers the first book-length study of the relationship between Hitchcock's body size and his cinema. Whereas most critics and biographers of the great director are content to consign his large figure and larger appetite to colorful anecdotes of his private life, McKittrick argues that our understanding of Hitchcock's films, his creative process, and his artistic mind are incomplete without considering his lived experience as a fat man. Using archival research of his publicity, script collaboration, and personal communications with his producers, in tandem with close textual readings of his films, feminist critique, and theories of embodiment, Hitchcock's Appetites produces a new and compelling profile of Hitchcock's creative life, and a fuller, more nuanced account of his auteurism.
The films of Alfred Hitchcock are appreciated for a variety of reasons, including the many memorable villains who menace the protagonists. Unlike so many of cinema’s wrongdoers, the Hitchcock villain was often a complex individual with a nuanced personality and neuroses the common person might not be able to relate to, but could at least understand. If such figures did not always elicit sympathy from the audience, they still possessed characteristics that were oddly appealing. And frequently, viewers found them more likable than the heroes and heroines whom they victimized. In Hitchcock’s Villains: Murderers, Maniacs, and Mother Issues, authors Eric San Juan and Jim McDevitt explore a number of themes that form the foundation of villainy in Hitchcock’s long and acclaimed career. The authors also provide a detailed look at some of the director’s most noteworthy villains and examine how these characters were often central to the enjoyment of Hitchcock’s best films. Whether discussing Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt or Norman Bates in Psycho, the authors consider what attracted Hitchcock to such characters in the first place and why they endure as screen icons. Intended for both casual and ardent fans of Hitchcock, this book offers insight into what makes villainous characters tick. While serious students will appreciate observations in Hitchcock’s Villains that will enhance their study of cinema technique and writing, general fans of the director will simply enjoy delving further into the minds of their favorite villains.
In its ten-year history, the Hitchcock Annual has established itself as a key source of historical information and critical commentary on one of the central figures in film history and arguably one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Fans of Alfred Hitchcock-both scholars and general readers alike-will be entertained and informed by this selection of writings, which offers an overview of the current thinking on the filmmaker and his work. The articles span his career and cover a wide range of topics from archeological investigations uncovering new details about his working methods and conditions to incisive analyses of the films themselves. The collection begins with rare insights into Hitchcock's early years, including his work in Germany and his silent film Easy Virtue, which, with its metaphoric play on the concept of "being framed," dramatizes aspects of the human condition to which Hitchcock returned repeatedly. Commentators explore a variety of themes, including the centrality of kissing shots and sequences in nearly all the films, and images of women's handbags as elements of suspense and sexual tension in such films as Dial M for Murder and Psycho. Other essays examine the influence of Vertigo, The Birds, and Frenzy on Fran'ois Truffaut, the remaking of Psycho, and feminist interpretations of Shadow of a Doubt. Interviews with Jay Presson Allen and Evan Hunter illuminate Hitchcock's working relationship with screenwriters, actors, and actresses. Written by established as well as emerging critics of Hitchcock, this fascinating collection will help shape future appreciation and interpretation of an enormously important and influential filmmaker.
The most comprehensive volume ever published on Alfred Hitchcock, covering his career and legacy as well as the broader cultural and intellectual contexts of his work. Contains thirty chapters by the leading Hitchcock scholars Covers his long career, from his earliest contributions to other directors’ silent films to his last uncompleted last film Details the enduring legacy he left to filmmakers and audiences alike
*Includes pictures *Includes quotes and summaries of the famous Hitchcock movies *Includes bibliographies for further reading *Includes a table of contents Considering that her film career lasted just six years, it would seem as though the reputation of Grace Kelly far outweighs her actual output. Indeed, from the time of her arrival in Hollywood in 1951 through her final film, High Society, in 1956, Kelly acted in just 11 films, leaving viewers to wonder whether Kelly was still in the beginning of her career or whether High Society was a proper culmination to an extraordinarily brief stay in the film industry? Ultimately, it is might be most accurate to state that Kelly was still in the prime of her career, but it's unclear what direction her career would have taken, as well as who inherited the void she left. Despite the short resume, Kelly is one of America's most famous actresses, and she left an indelible impact on Hollywood. Kelly brought a well-heeled, almost regal quality that deviated from the film noir roles and musical showgirls who had populated the screen during the 1930s and 1940s, and it is this new identity Kelly brought to the motion picture industry that remains her overriding trademark. Ingrid Bergman's fame cannot be doubted, but the international quality of her career has prevented most people from gaining a complete understanding of her filmography. Moreover, the immense success of her most famous films obscured her other achievements; one of Bergman's persistent lamentations late in her career was that even though she appeared in other films she deemed more significant, the only film of hers that people wanted to discuss was Casablanca. As a result, her early films in Sweden, the Italian Neorealist films she made with famous director and future husband Roberto Rossellini, and her French film with Jean Renoir have all been relegated to the margins. Bergman is thus recognized as a Hollywood star rather than an actress who should be identified with an array of different film industries, reducing the enormous scope of her career to a relatively small proportion of her filmography. In 1939, Olivia de Havilland had her most memorable role as Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in American history, but Hollywood legend has it that she only got the role because her own younger sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and recommended Olivia instead so that she could audition for Scarlett O'Hara. Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" De Havilland herself once said, "Joan is very bright and sharp and can be cutting." An art student in her early 20s, Novak found herself in Los Angeles by chance and appeared as an extra in a 1954 film to earn money, only to be almost immediately discovered by Columbia and turned into a star when she appeared in Picnic (1955). Picnic began a 10 year run that witnessed Novak become one of the biggest names in Hollywood, starring in major hits like Pal Joey (1957), Middle of the Night (1959), The Notorious Landlady (1962), and Of Human Bondage (1964). However, Novak's most famous role was as one of Alfred Hitchcock's legendary "icy blondes" in Vertigo (1958), beguiling Jimmy Stewart's character to the point of madness in what is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. In addition to being one of the country's most recognizable and alluring sex icons, the girl who originally wanted to be an artist had reached the upper echelon of Hollywood itself, all before she turned 30.
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0 (B), LMU Munich (American Studies Institute), course: Hauptseminar: Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture in Twentieth Century America, language: English, abstract: Thesis Statement: Hitchcock's Blondes were a formation of the director's own creative vision, the image of women in film during the Monroe Era did not influence him in his depiction of women Without question, Alfred Hitchcock is considered one of the most important and most influential film directors of the Twentieth Century. Throughout his career, which lasted more than 50 years, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are now considered classics. Interestingly, he directed his most critically acclaimed movies during the relatively short life and career of one distinctive actress: Marilyn Monroe. It is a striking fact, however, that Marilyn Monroe never starred in a Hitchcock film, although it seems that her blond hair and her star-status would have made her the perfect 'Hitchcock Blonde'. In this paper I will attempt to compare Hitchcock's female characters during the Monroe Era with the image of women in film and how they differed from each other. For this purpose, it is necessary to first take a closer look at Marilyn Monroe and the image she embodied as well as women's role in general during that period. In addition, Hitchcock's background, education and attitude towards his leading ladies must also be examined. In my analysis I will focus on three films by Hitchcock: Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). I chose these films in particular because they not only show a certain progression in Hitchcock's work in the way he treats and presents his female characters, but also because these films were highly successful. Granted Hitchcock's rich body of work has been analyzed under various points of view by many scholars, I have not been able to locate a work solel
Is Hitchcock a superficial, though brilliant, entertainer or a moralist? Do his films celebrate the ideal of romantic love or subvert it? In a new interpretation of the director's work, Richard Allen argues that Hitchcock orchestrates the narrative and stylistic idioms of popular cinema to at once celebrate and subvert the ideal of romance and to forge a distinctive worldview-the amoral outlook of the romantic ironist or aesthete. He describes in detail how Hitchcock's characteristic tone is achieved through a titillating combination of suspense and black humor that subverts the moral framework of the romantic thriller, and a meticulous approach to visual style that articulates the lure of human perversity even as the ideal of romance is being deliriously affirmed. Discussing more than thirty films from the director's English and American periods, Allen explores the filmmaker's adoption of the idioms of late romanticism, his orchestration of narrative point of view and suspense, and his distinctive visual strategies of aestheticism and expressionism and surrealism.
