Agronsky At Large; 129; Alfred Hitchcock

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Marshall Plan, a gronsky at large, tonight a conversation with Alfred Hitchcock. This is the self-portrait of a great artist, Alfred Hitchcock. The caricature he is drawing is familiar to just about everyone in the world who goes to the movies. And this is the set here at the Universal Studios in Hollywood of Psycho, one of the best-known creations of that artist, a film about a psychopathic murderer. Mr. Hitchcock is acknowledged as one of the great stylists of filmmaking. And many see in his work to a persistent moralistic quality, as well as a belief that humankind is somehow irredeemably evil, the victim of original sin, and yet whatever the sin his villains always are brought to justice.

They pay for their transgressions. Mr. Hitchcock, what critics read into your work and what you intend may be very different things. Do you believe in original sin? Oh, I don't really think so, I'm not sure. There are certain things that I was educated by the Jesuits, and really there were terribly stripped. One had a miserable time as a child, and then there was the confessional which bothered me. Hell, it bothered me because it was to some extent a mechanical that you confess to the priest certain omissions, and I have done this, or I have done this, and always the priest would say, how many times my son, and it often made me wonder if I'd have said, Father,

I have murdered my mother, and would come how many times my son. I never really cared for that end. I never, you know, I was always bothered by certain rules in the church that a morphal sin was not going to mass on Sunday, but a murder, that was a morphal sin as well. So it was very hard to weigh the two side by side. I would have reckoned so, absolutely. You know, it's got, again, critics contend, and by the way, I would not regard myself as a critic. I'm an enormous admirer of your work, and I've always felt in your work. There was the quality, though, of a feeling that we're also vulnerable, that in ordinary

things, in ordinary circumstances, evil may intrude. And that somehow or other, the moralistic quality emerges, in that the villain does meet his just desserts. Transgressor is a pay for their sins. You know, is that a deliberate quality, does a reflective turn of mind of it? Well, if you examine a lot of one's films, you'll find that they consist of ordinary moldfuls, a businessman, or a housewife, get involved in bizarre situations, through no fault of their own. No fault of their own, but on the other hand, you involve the audience, because they're represented by the person on the screen. They'll illustrate that from one of your films. So I'll give you a carry grant in the picture called North by Northway.

Here is an ordinary businessman, minding his own business, is picked up, put into a limousine and taken to a house on Long Island, and from that point on, he escapes, but he's on the run. He didn't harm a soul. Well, it ends up on Mount Rushmore. You know, that's where I ran into trouble. You know, the Department of the Interior, who were very reluctant for me to use Mount Rushmore, because they said, I mustn't have any fighting or movement on the faces of the various presidents, because after all, this was the shrine of democracy. Did you intend, at one point, as I understand, to have carry grant hide in the nose of my life?

Oh, the idea was that carry grant should slide down Lincoln's nose away from his pursuer, and hide in the nostril, and then get a sneezing fit. But you never were allowed to pull that out. We're allowed to do it now. Do you know, another thing that's always interested me in your films, and I'd like to relate to the kind of films that are being done now, you sought, I always felt, to trigger the imagination. Not so much with the explicit thing, for example, in Psycho, we're sitting out of the, outside the house of Psycho. One never really sees the body in the bathtub, and you've remarked yourself, that you shot it in black and white, so that you would not see the blood in living colors. Absolutely correct. What is your thinking on that? My thinking was that blood is very unpleasant. And you know in that scene, that famous shower scene, at no time did a knife touch the body. As a matter of fact, the property men made me a beautiful pink torso.

This pink torso was tubed inside with blood. So anywhere a knife stuck, blood would spurt out, and I never used it, never used it at all. It was purely an illusion. The knife came down, I cut to the girl's face. Do you know in that scene, it lasted 45 seconds, and there were 78 pieces of film glued together, and ran through the projection machine, but the normal rate. Well, do you know films now are so different, and I wonder how you would think about them. One sees so often, truly, the brutal, the sadistic, the beating up, the crunch of a weapon against the person's body, the violence, the shooting, the knife and why did you always avoid that, and what do you think of it?

Because I felt one could arrive at the same result in an indirect way, in a more subtle way. You know, after all, a cloud, a baseball bat hitting somebody on the head is hardly what you would call imaginative. It's what it is, it's what it's being photographed. It's not film, pure film are pieces put together to create an illusion, just as I've described, in the bathtub scene. In psycho. In psycho. Now, I don't know whether you remember a French film called Diabolique, an anime in the bathtub, and he's supposed to be dead and he rises up. It's a horror effect. Well, I had a letter from a man, he said, after my daughter had seen the French film Diabolique, she would never take a tub.

Now she has seen psycho with its shower scene. She won't take a shower and is getting very unpleasant to be seen with, or be around. What should I do? I wrote back and I said, yes, send it to the dry cleaners. You know, you're recognized all over the world, really, as a master filmmaker and director. And yet, you know, and I know this point has been raised so often that I fear it may bore you. Many people ask, why is it that you've never chosen really to use your talents for, perhaps some epic theme, some political theme? Why? You've never been interested in doing such things. I think, for example, of the Chaplin's use of Hitler and his portrayal of the dictator. Well, that's sort of... I'm afraid in this country and in Japan or France, if my name is on my film, they expect a certain type of film.

If I don't do it, then they're very disappointed. But you yourself keep pointing out that you avoid always the cliché you try to be different. Sure. I always wondered why you didn't break the pattern and do something different. Well, as I say, if I did do something different, hey, I might not be good at it. They say the cobbler should stick to his laugh, and I think audiences would be disappointed. I remember years ago, I made a film with Ingrid Bergman, and in it was a shrunken head, tossed onto a bed. And I remember a review, said, we had to wait 104 minutes for the first thrill. Well, you know, you often quote Samuel Goldman, I don't know if it's a pocryphal, that message is for Western Union.

Do you feel that way? I mean, is it really the function of a creative artist who is, as it's an extraordinary talent for using film and for using cameras and actors, actresses, the way you do, to entertain to amuse, to shock? I think that's the first essential. And not to? And not to? Well, you know, they make a lot of films, especially Central European films, which I call Sink to Sink Pictures, meaning the husband comes home, he sees his wife toiling at the sink, the baby's in the high chair, and he takes pity on her, he says, look, take the apron off, go upstairs, put on a nice dress, we'll get a baby sitter in, and we'll go out, have dinner, and we'll take it in a movie. How would you like that? He said, tremendous. He said, well, let's get going.

Well, finally they get there, they get the sitter, and they go to the restaurant, they have dinner, go in and see the movie, and the woman sits in the seat, looks at the screen, what does she see? A woman washing dishes at the sink. You want to save her from the sink picture? Of course, that's what I want to go out for. How different are movies now, do you think? I often have the feeling when I see movies that, so often there is no coherent plot, so often the photography seems deliberately vague and mystic, romantic, or whatever they want to call it, and one feels that there is no string on which the producer, the director, the writer hangs his pearls. That's a new kind of a movie, do you think? I think they're pretentious, and not good. No, because you're supposed to go back to babyhood and tell a story.

I mean, we hear of these things against violence and what have you, well, if you looked at Hanson and Gretel, the two kids push an old lady into an oven. Red riding hood is a cannibalistic story. And who? And the three little pigs. Of course, and who writes them, the brothers grim. And so everybody's brought up to listen to, tell me a story, tell me a story. And you dealt with really most of the great actors and actresses contemporary. Who did you like to work with best? Which actors? Well, as I am in the past, cold acts as cattle, it's hardly possible for me to single out anyone, particular one.

There are those who say, I think I should do it this way. I said, you do it whatever way you want. But all we'll remember, there's the cutting room floor. Yeah. But you wouldn't single out any great actor that you thought was first class to work with, any actress that you particularly like to work with. Very grand, Grace Kelly. Yes, well, Grace was fine to better up in. Care is a pro, Jimmy Stewart is a professional, it's when you get the, the unprofessional ones, you know, the newcomers. You know, I remember having an actor come on the set with a scene read written by himself at 9 a.m., and I looked at it and I said, does it occur to you, there's an actress going

to play this scene with you, and she's never seen a line of it before, thank you very much. There's another thing that I find interesting today in looking at movies. Why are there so few great stars, actresses, in your time, I can, one could list any number of great actresses, a Garbo, a Marilyn Monroe, a, just any, any number up. Don't cross the street, but you see many more films were made in those days. See, one company would make 50 a year, now they make about 10 or 15. So you merely, you mean it's merely because they make fewer films that great stars are

not being produced? Many. There are many films that are made, and yet the only one who I would regard as, oh, having the kind of star quality that are read a hayworth, for example, would have had, would be perhaps Barbara Streisand. Yeah. But there are many men who are great actors who have star quality. Norman, Marvin Brando, Redford, why is that? Why the men are great? You only have about a half a dozen and about three women. They're really right down to rock bottom. I think a lot of it, you see, in the days of, we'll say, a firm like Metro, they could put about four stars in one picture. They had so many under contract, but we don't have that system today. You see, each star wants his own company, and that's caused by the agent.

The agent decides to be a producer. So he says to his client, the star, I've got a property I've heard of. How would you like to do it, and I'll produce it? No, then he goes to the studio and says, I've got a package, and we call them package deals. Well is the product better or worse, do you get better movies, or are they not as good? They are, they are either right up the top, or they are nothing. What would you regard as right up the top today? Well, he said your own work. You know, right up the top would be any big commercial success. Jaws? Oh, of course, but they, you see, that enables, it's like I had a man visit me, his name was the Earl of Lonsdale from England, and I said, what, what are you doing in the business

game lunch, he said, oh, I am in the financing of films. I said, but I always thought films were financed from the proceeds of the last film. Well, that's why you need a certain commercial attitude to provide you with the finance for the next picture. Where do they get the money to put such an enormous amount of dollars into films, 22 million dollars I believe? Well, you've got to remake of King Kong. Yes, but you see, you have to remember that the price of going to the movies is not $0.50 anymore, which is three and a half to four dollars, so the grosses are much bigger than they ever were before.

And yet curiously, films that are made with very small budgets, if they have quality still make it, we've just had the Academy Awards and the Rocky made it and made it big, a tiny film with a small budget. Well, let me give you, let's take Psycho as an example. Psycho costs $810,000, and it is gross to date, 17 million. This is a extraordinary financial success. How much did you get of that, Mr. Editch Cook? Not as much as you think. Not as much as I think. But you see, that big gross would have been treble, had the picture gone out with today's admission prices. Yeah. Now, you've worked in television as well as the moon, which medium interests you most. I mean, as a television is totally different.

How is it different? It's different in the speed with which you shoot, you shoot out of order. I once shot an hour show in five days, and it was a courtroom drama. So I analyzed the shooting, how this would be shot. What are the shots that are most consistent, witness and attorney? I put up two cameras, one on the attorney, and one on the witness. I went right through the whole trial without changing the light, without moving the camera. But that is a technique that you've become famous for, for example, in lifeboat. You never got out of the lifeboat. No, because it's, you know, it's like what we still put up with. We hear a symphony orchestra in the prairie. No, you couldn't get out of a lifeboat, because whose point of view is it?

You've got to put the audience in the boat with the people. You know, it was pointed out to me by a friend of yours, that you always said you never got out of the lifeboat, and that actually you did at one point. One shot only. Yes, underwater, when, who was it, no, no, I tell you what it was. It was one shot of the boat become. And how about when one of the actors was fishing for a fish with a diamond bracelet? Well, that was done from within the boat. Still from within the boat. Oh, that was too little of a pancake. Now you always get yourself in somehow or other, and I always wondered how in the world you'd manage to do it in lifeboat, and you did. Yeah, by a newspaper ad. I was reducing at the time. And it was before and after ad in the news for you? Yes. And I was taking off, at that time I took off a hundred pounds. I did say in my lifetime, I'd probably taken off about 600 pounds and put it back again.

Put it back again, of course. Tell me, to return to the TV versus the movie thing, does the size of the screen matter? No, except that you wouldn't indulge in very long shots for television. Figures would be too tiny. Its pace different, its development different. Well it's hard to say because when I did what they call the Hitchcock series, they were really based on short stories with a twist at the end. So the tempo was fairly rapid, you couldn't be too slow about it. Which is the more effective for the artist, for the man who does it, or can one make that comparison between film and television?

Yes, you can make it between film and television. First of all, television is much more straightforward. There isn't the cutting, there isn't the montage. You can't have the subtleties, no, because it takes too long to set up. You know, what I did at the opening of our scene here, we had four takes of my during the outline. That's right. Well that you can't allow in television. You have to move in very quickly, establish and go right in. Very quickly and get it over with. Because of the cost factory, you see. In terms of satisfaction, if one can look at it in that sense, is it a satisfying to work in television for you as a creative artist, as it is in movies, no? The opportunities aren't there.

You get more out of the movie. I'll give you an example. Yes. Let's go back to Psycho again. The film took about 35 to 41 days to shoot the whole picture. The shower scene took me a week. Yes. Because there were 78 setups. Yes. In other words, every time you move to the camera, it's got to be relit. I understand you see. What are your feelings since you are an effect and expert on violence about the kind of violence we have today in our society? It is a violent society. Well, as I said earlier, I'm not a believer in it. You know, blood and all that kind of thing. Now, of course, battle scenes where they do a lot of shooting are not too bad because

you don't ever see the blood anyway. Man spins around and folds down. Well, do you think the product that we get in any sense affects a feeling by those who do this violent stuff that they are murdering what goes on in our society should they? To some extent, it depends upon where, what the locale is in Westerns, we know. In New York, we know it's the Bronx or over on the east side. Mr. Hitchcock, the Caso had a blue period. You had a blue dinner I've heard about. Is it apocryphal? Can you tell me about it? No, it was just a practical joke. I gave it in a party. I think there are only about five to six people there.

Where? In London, Sir Gerald de Morrie, Gutrude Lawrence, and I think Benita Hume, Ronald Coleman's wife was there. And I organized the dinner because I knew the sound of the owner of this big multi-floor dresser. Why a blue dinner? What was it? Blue, there's no food that is colored blue. Blue berries, maybe. You had blue soup, blue soup, blue trout, blue chicken, blue peaches, blue ice cream. And when you broke open your bread, your brown roll, the bread was blue inside. Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock. I'll head to lighten. This program was produced by WETA, which is solely responsible for its content.

Major funding was provided by public television stations. Additional support was provided by the delegation of the Commission of the European Communities and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a memorial to the Marshall Plan. Thank you.