Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho

30. Psycho (#34)

Posted on May 27, 2017 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Marion Crane has lived her life by the rules, until one day she takes a chance. Leaving town with $40,000 of her employer’s money, Marion embarks a journey westward into criminality. Along the way, she makes a stop at the Bate Motel.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 34th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Watch! Hitchcock Trailer!

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Darren

I must have missed it, but the screen adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock & The Making of Psycho has now been officially titled the much blander (but more accessible) Hitchcock. It doesn’t really matter, though, as the new trailer has arrived and it’s really quite wonderful. I’m a massive Hitchcock fan, so recruiting Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren to headline a film about the making of one of his most high-profile works is certainly fascinating. Looking forward to this one. It’ll start a limited release in the States in late November, but we’ll be waiting until February to see it over here.

Ah well. At least they can’t spoil they ending.

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The Death of the Author: The Impact of Off-Screen Behaviour on On-Screen Antics…

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Darren

The rather convolutedly-titled Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho will be arriving soon, the director’s Vertigo was recently named by Sight & Sound as the best film of all time and the British Film Institute is running a season of the director’s films. (There’s even a nice blu ray box set being released in October.) However, this focus on Alfred Hitchcock has, naturally, brought some focus on to the less pleasant aspects of his character. October, for example, will also see HBO airing The Girl, a documentary exploring his relationship with Tippi Hedren. She has some choice words on his character.

“I think he was an extremely sad character,” she said during a panel discussion of HBO’s upcoming The Girl, which recounts her troubled relationship with the director. “We are dealing with a brain here that was an unusual genius, and evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting.”

Of course, such accusations and allegations are by no means new, but it does raise an interesting question about those masters of cinema. Even for those of us who resist the supermarket tabloid gossip about engagements and break-ups and cute-sounding-couple-nicknames, is it ever possible to divorce filmmaking from the person either in front or behind the camera?

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Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Lamb to the Slaughter (Review)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Darren

As part of the “For the Love of Film” blogathon, I’ll be taking a look at Alfred Hitchcock’s contributions to his celebrated anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I’ll be looking at some of the episodes of the classic show that he directed. The “For the Love of Film” blogathon this year is raising money to keep one of Hitchcock’s earlier works, The White Shadow (which he wrote, edited, designed and assistant-directed), available on-line and streaming for free. It’s a very worthwhile cause and you can donate here.

It’s amazing to think of the talent involved in some of these Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. Obviously the director himself was the host and directed seventeen episodes, but he also had a star-studded cast on hand for a great many installments. That said, there was just much talent behind the camera. Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack and William Friedkin were among the other directors to work on the series, and author Roald Dahl contributed some episodes as well. Dahl contributed the much-loved Man From The South, featuring Peter Lorre and Steve McQueen, but he also offered this wonderful little murder tale about an especially inventive killing.