Based on the book Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, this 94 minute looong pedestrian look at Alfred Hitchcock’s life should have been called “Hitchcock really relied on his wife, Alma!” Anthony Hopkins does a passible Hitchcock impression and Helen Mirren probably does a good Mrs. Hitchcock, having never heard the real one speak, but instead of really getting details on how he made his most successful movie, Psycho, it is mostly comprised of his married life and the emotional insecurity he brought to relationship.
Based on the book Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, this 94 minute looong pedestrian look at Alfred Hitchcock’s life should have been called “Hitchcock really relied on his wife, Alma!” Anthony Hopkins does a passible Hitchcock impression and Helen Mirren probably does a good Mrs. Hitchcock, having never heard the real one speak, but instead of really getting details on how he made his most successful movie, Psycho, it is mostly comprised of his married life and the emotional insecurity he brought to relationship.
This movie is a lesson on which actor has the most powerful agents and legal team, because even though Hopkins is the guy in the title, it is cut to favor Helen. She must have had some pull in the final cut. Plus, big name actors have one or two scenes and some show up in a scene as a background extra, clearly having weeks of their work left on the cutting room floor. Pay or play contracts for everyone!
There must have been a movie that went to all the minutiae of how Hitch self-financed the famous horror film and the deals that he had to make. I would have loved hearing these stories, but, clearly, everyone else behind this movie thinks I only want to hear how Alma gave up co-writing with a dashing screenwriter and come into the editing room to save Psycho and thus save their house and their marriage. Oh brother!
I would like to get the rejected footage and cut it into a story that doesn’t included the marriage stuff but just the details of how a horror movie was made on next to nothing by using the crew from his anthology TV series. That way it would not give me narrative whiplash. Some scenes collide so abruptly as to make your head spin. In one scene, the young agent Lew Wasserman is not sure how they can raise the budget and the next scene they are writing a check to Paramount to start production. I bet THAT missing footage would have been a good movie.
It would probably also solve the mystery as to why Paramount was the distributor and yet he shot it on the Universal backlot. Also, how would a Paramount boss even come on set if it was over budget when it was self-financed. Why would he care? All of these moments happen without context or explanation.
This thing is skimpy on the details, but the acting is fine, and I still think Mr. Hopkins did a better Nixon than his Hitch, but if he keeps at this pace he will have a slew of impressions just like every hack comic.
The biggest irony of this mess is that Hitch would have hated this version that made it to screen. The horror.
Dean Haglund
