1947: Mr. Hitchcock and his partner, Sidney Bernstein, have a deal with Warner Bros. for distribution of product from their independent unit, Transatlantic Pictures. To produce the films, though, they needed ample financing, and to make this endeavor work they also needed (a) big stars, and (b) inexpensive story properties. They took care of (a) with verbal commitments from Hitchcock friends Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman; floating their names around got bankers' attention. For (b), a variety of novels and plays whose rights could be obtained cheaply were under consideration. The first Transatlantic production was always slated to be Under Capricorn, a return to the Romantic suspense motif of Rebecca, starring Miss Bergman, based on a novel by Helen Simpson. Alas, Ingrid was unavailable; also free of her Selznick contract, she was in demand, and had already signed on to do Arch of Triumph and Joan of Arc for other independent producers. Under Capricorn would have to wait its turn.

The other properties Transatlantic optioned (all with Warner approval, although mostly reluctantly; they trusted Hitch more than they were enthused about the choices) included the play Rope, which had been a success in London and New York but had proven an unsuccessful sell in Hollywood due to its homosexual characters; a 1902 play called Our Two Consciences, with a priest condemned to death because he can't reveal the identity of a killer whose secrets were told in a confessional; and Running Man, a British novel about a young woman trying to clear her lover of a false charge of murder. This latter one was the only one which enthused the brothers Warner, but Rope was first in line.

The play was a 3-character study in perversity, based on the notorious Leopold-Loeb case of the 1920s: two brilliant college students kill a young acquaintance to prove their Nietzsche-inspired superiority. Cary Grant would be the college professor who untangles the threads of his students' insanity. Montgomery Clift and Farley Granger would be the students. Hitch brought in friend Hume Cronyn to adapt the play, to Cronyn's surprise; he hadn't written much. He surmised later that Hitch wanted someone familiar with New York and New Yorkers, where the play was set; and that Hitch wanted a friend he could trust for the first Transatlantic picture. For censorship reasons, the homosexuality of the characters had to be toned way down, but it was enough to say that 'one character wears heavy cologne' to get the point across.

Apparently, it wasn't subtle enough. Both Clift and Grant were horrified when they received the intended screenplay, and backed off the project as quickly as they could. Granger was in; John Dall, Oscar nominee for The Corn is Green, assumed the role intended for Clift. That left the college professor, who - with Farley and Dall, not top-shelf box office draws, heading the cast - needed to be a Big Star. A Big Star who would play a college professor dealing with two homosexual psychotic killers?

Enter Mr. James Stewart.

Stewart, like Hitchcock, was represented by MCA, the new super talent agency formed, in large part, from the ashes of the late Myron Selznick's representation empire. Stewart had been unhappy with the roles offered him since returning from the war, and was considering giving up Hollywood altogether. A meaty part in a suspenseful Hitchcock production appealed to him, and he waived his usual fee, accepting a portion up front and a percentage of the film. The fact that in the script, the professor is not explicitly gay made the whole thing a lot easier.

The film Rope is famous (or infamous) for several reasons; it was Hitchcock's first self-produced film, his first in Technicolor, and his first with Jimmy Stewart. Mostly, though, it's famous because Hitch filmed it in real time in a series of 9 1/2 minute takes, moving the camera across someone's back when a 'cut' was needed to change the reel of film. It's a gimmick, and nobody's really sure why he did it: he told Truffaut, 'I undertook Rope as a stunt; that's the only way I can describe it. I really don't know how I came to indulge in it.'

One of the true stars of the film is the set, full of moving walls and doors to allow the camera to zig and zag around. Despite attempts to quiet the moving pieces of the set, much of the sound had to be redone later; in fact, several more days of filming (and a new cinematographer) were required because Hitch decided the sunset (the sun goes down in a huge window in the back of the room) looked 'too orange.' The film itself, in fact, is rather dark and muted, grays and browns. I always thought the film had faded with time, but no, the new Blu-ray shows it off very well: the somber colors were obviously what Hitchcock wanted.

Stewart is excellent, John Dall and especially Farley Granger are very good, Cedric Hardwicke and Constance Collier are terrific as the murdered boy's father and aunt; the young 'lovers' who round out the party are rather forgettable, although Joan Chandler (as the fiance of the guy in the trunk) is rather fetching.

There are several nice touches; the housekeeper (no Thelma Ritter, alas) has some nice bits of business, one scene of which takes place as the kitchen door swings back and forth; there's a very Hitchcockian scene in which Stewart (the boys' former headmaster) uses a metronome to drive pianist Granger to distraction; and, while serving champagne, when asked if they're celebrating a birthday, Dall remarks dryly, 'Just the opposite.'

The morbid idea of two college boys murdering a kid and serving dinner over his corpse was too much for audiences, who stayed away from it. It got scant promotion from distributor, Warners, and ended up with mixed reviews.

To prove the 'trans-Atlantic' in Transatlantic Pictures meant alternating productions between Hollywood and England, Hitch and his family were off to his native land with an international cast (a Swede, an American, and a Brit, all playing Irishmen) for his next film, Under Capricorn, an adaptation of a book none of the production crew (besides Alma) seemed to like very well. Once again, Hitchcock was intent on making the film in long takes, and so the massive set (much larger than Rope) was created with moving walls and furniture and a mobile camera. Nobody was very happy with the script, and the cast disliked the long takes immensely, with Ingrid Bergman blowing up on the set one day and Hitchcock retaliating by going home. She had demanded - and got - a huge salary for the picture, so Hitchcock gave himself a hefty raise to better her, and in the end the film cost about .5 million and was a box-office failure. The bank ended up repossessing it, and it was difficult to see until a 1968 release for television. It's still one of Hitchcock's lesser-known works.

The story is this: Michael Wilding is the ne'er-do-well cousin of the new Governor of Australia, and he arrives in the mid-19th-century, immediately getting himself involved in a shady land deal with ex-convict Joseph Cotten, who has a drunken wife, Ingrid Bergman, who pretty much stays upstairs all the time, but who knew Wilding when they were children. He tries to help her sober up, but the wicked housekeeper, Margaret Leighton, doesn't want to lose her hold over the house and interferes.


Rebecca redux with secrets revealed and skeletons in closets. And shrunken heads in the bed once in a while.

In general, the film is interesting, and the Technicolor is gorgeous, unlike the rather drab Rope. The long takes are extremely impressive this time; with larger space to work from, the camera zooms upstairs and down, around and in and out, and the effect is not distracting, it's marvelous. Hitchcock looks very dapper in Dickensian togs in his cameo appearances (he pops up twice in the film, milling about the Governor's entourage). And there is a genuine shock in Miss Bergman's bedroom.

That said, the casting is...weird. The housekeeper is young and beautiful and carries no weight as the villain of the piece. Cotten doesn't work, not as an Irishman and not as his character. Hitchcock - as he had with The Paradine Case - wanted a much tougher, low-life sort of chap to play the part, and had envisioned Burt Lancaster in the role, which he couldn't afford after writing Ingrid's check; so once again we see the more refined would-be lover (Wilding) thwarted by a woman who is desperately in love with a coarse, cheap man. (Cotten comes across whinier than anything when he complains about the class system keeping him out of New South Wales' upper caste.) Cotten is actually good in this film, he's just wrong for it. Casting Ingrid Bergman as an Irish woman is...Well, not as bad as casting her as Joan of Arc, I guess.

Nobody much liked Under Capricorn, and Hitch blamed himself for indulging Miss Bergman (they never worked together again, although they remained friends), for hiring Hume Cronyn to adapt the novel, and for making the film in the first place. Alma blamed herself for pushing the novel onto her husband. Warners was extremely worried but gratified that, to save costs, Hitchcock was going to make his next film a much less expensive B&W whodunit in England dealing with a theatrical mystery. After two money-losers, Transatlantic Pictures needed a hit badly.

Stage Fright (1950) offers Marlene Dietrich, who's murdered her loutish husband; her lover, Richard Todd, helps her cover it up but is accused of the crime himself. A young actress friend who secretly loves him, Jane Wyman, helps him hide out and then disguises herself as (a) a cockney maid to spy on Dietrich, and (b) an innocent, charming young woman to romance young police detective Michael Wilding on the trail of Mr. Todd, to figure out what HE knows. She's abetted in all this by her father, Alastair Sim.

Casting was simple: Miss Wyman had just won the Oscar (for Johnny Belinda) and Todd had been a nominee in '49 for The Hasty Heart; Warners insisted on them. Wilding was a holdover from the just-finished Under Capricorn. Hitch wanted Tallulah Bankhead for the part of the diva; Warners nixed her, so he corralled Marlene Dietrich in what was considered quite the coup.

In hindsight, Hitch thought Todd dull and chastised Wyman for attempting to be too glamorous in the part once she saw Dietrich's rushes. Marlene is beautiful and sings two songs, highlights of the film. Stage Fright ended up not being a success, though, a crushing disappointment to everybody, so Hitchcock knocked it in later years. Truffaut remarked, nonchalantly to Hitchcock, that this film 'added nothing to your prestige.'

It's not a bad film, though, and the notorious flashback sequence that EVERYBODY hated so much doesn't bother this reporter, because there's so much to enjoy here...Hitch had given up his 10 minute takes, but watch the long take of the man entering the house; the camera zooms over the taxi and follows the man into the house, through a door as it's being closed, and up a staircase - everything on the set must've been breakaway. It's one of the great signature takes in all of Hitchcock.

There's also a great deal of humor in the film, funny dialog, wacky characters, and a nice performance by Sim, who chews scenery like a receptionist chews gum. (Nobody much seemed to like him because he was such a ham in front of the cameras, but he comes off quite well.) Dietrich's closing speech is so beautifully lit - she seldom looked so glamorous in her entire career - touching, and dramatic...it's such a beautiful speech, you hardly notice that she's describing how she shot her dog for biting her (she adds that people do the same thing).

Hitch's daughter Patricia, a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, has a small part as one of the students (and, if you look closely, you'll see her doubling for Miss Wyman in the beginning of the film, driving the automobile). There are some nice montages in the film, Hitch's cameo is funny (he turns around and stares at Wyman as she's talking to herself while walking down the street), the closing sequence with Wyman and Todd is absolutely frightening, and the safety curtain - which nicely opens the film, raising to surprisingly reveal all of London - ending our little story is a nice touch. I also enjoyed the film's score, by Leighton Lucas. It's really good and adds a lot to the proceedings.

I'm sorry this film has such a bad reputation; I suspect it's mainly because of Miss Wyman, who simply has no business being the leading lady in a Hitchcock film, good as she could be in the right role.

The film wrapped, Hitchcock turned to promotion of Under Capricorn - and did it alone, because its big star, Ingrid Bergman, had gotten herself in trouble (and how) with a man not her husband, and was hiding out in Europe with Roberto Rossellini, refusing to give interviews. That film, too, would be a flop. Transatlantic Pictures was in trouble, and Warner Bros. - putting up much of the financing - was extremely reluctant to take on I Confess, thinking that a film about a troubled priest would be box-office poison.

Alfred and Alma traveled to New York to attend a preview of Stage Fright, and took a nice, leisurely train home, enjoying the scenery of their adopted country. Amongst their reading material was the galley of a soon-to-be published first novel by a woman named Patricia Highsmith; the book was about a psychopath who suggests to a random stranger that the two 'swap murders' and commit the perfect crime.

Clifford Weimer is a writer and film historian in Sacramento, CA. He can usually be found lurking about the dark corners of a movie theatre at inthebalcony.com.