It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock: A Personal Biography (Applause Books) - Softcover

Chandler, Charlotte

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557836922 ISBN 13: 9781557836922

Publisher: Applause, 2006

Synopsis

“It's Only a Movie is the best book ever written about my father. It really is amazing.” –Patricia Hitchcock

North by Northwest. Psycho. Rear Window. The Birds. Vertigo. When it comes to murder and mayhem, shock and suspense, the films of Alfred Hitchcock can not be surpassed. For this book, Charlotte Chandler interviewed Hitchcock, his wife, daughter, film crew members, and many of the stars who appeared in his films, including Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, Cary Grant, Tippi Hedren and James Stewart.

Throughout the book, Chandler shares Hitchcock's wit and wisdom. When actors took themselves too seriously, he would remind them, “it's only a movie.” Chandler introduces us to the real Hitchcock, a devoted family man and notorious practical joker, who made suspenseful thrillers mixed with subtle humor and tacit eroticism.

About this title

About the Author:

Charlotte Chandler's first book, Hello, I Must Be Going, was a national bestseller about Groucho Marx. She lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

As almost all of his actors and collaborators note in this well-reported biography, Hitchcock (1899–1980) was never particularly forthcoming on the subject of himself. Through canvassing a broad swath of now-deceased major stars (Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Cary Grant), Hitchcock's longtime technicians, his daughter, wife and the filmmaker himself, veteran Hollywood writer Chandler (Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder; etc.) quotes several insights into Hitchcock's technical genius, creative worldview and personality. Hitchcock meticulously planned each shot before filming began, but as his daughter recalls, "at home he said he was happy if he got 75 percent of what he'd seen in his head." Hitchcock's wife, Alma, emerges as the revered ultimate authority in her husband's life and creativity, managing and smoothing out his problems to a loving and remarkable degree (although when he proposed to her on a ship, she was "looking green" and burped instead of saying "yes"). Chandler allows her sources to reminisce at great length, and they tend to tell fascinating stories. The bio remains maddeningly inert, however, because despite the aperçus Chandler gleans, she doesn't manage to tie them together into a cohesive portrait of the filmmaker or offer any analysis of Hitchcock's personality despite her access to him. The book may be categorized as a personal biography, but its subject remains a cipher. (Mar.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Applause
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1557836922
• ISBN 13: 9781557836922
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 382