My hero Hitchcock
Sir: The Spectator recently seems to be indulging in a spot of Alfred Hitchcock- bashing (Arts, 10 May; Diary, 31 May), so I feel obliged to speak up in favour of the old master who, for all his faults, does deserve his reputation. His best films amply repay endless viewings.
Some of the criticism is, of course, justi- fied. There is no point in pretending that Stage Fright, Jamaica Inn, Topaz, The Trou- ble with Harry and several others are any- thing other than duds. Nevertheless Barry Humphries's comments are so ludicrously over the top that they cannot go unchal- lenged.
The claim that `the acting is usually woe- ful' has a grain of truth, but looks silly when you consider the masterly performances of Joseph Cotten (Shadow of a Doubt), Robert Donat (The Thirty-Nine Steps), Cary Grant (North by Northwest), Anthony Perkins (Psycho), James Stewart (Rear Win- dow), Robert Walker (Strangers on a Train), Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains (Notorious) and Henry Fonda (The Wrong Man).
Even sillier is the claim that all(!) the 'big wildly acclaimed scenes' are played against badly painted backgrounds. Without any trouble I can list the following: the crop- spraying scene in North by Northwest, the tailing of Kim Novak round San Francisco in Vertigo, the brilliantly cut and pho- tographed tennis match in Strangers on a Train, the truly horrible sex murder in Fren- zy and the equally memorable killing in Torn Curtain, showing how difficult murder can be to commit, and, of course, the cele- brated shower scene in Pyscho. These are all deservedly honoured in the cinematic hall of fame with no painted backdrops in sight.
As for the scenes being 'badly planned' and the stories 'predictable', I would say that the opposite is the case. Hitchcock went to endless trouble planning his scenes, while predictability is just about the last charge one could make when considering the variety of his work as a whole.
Quite frankly, we would probably have had more sense if the article had been writ- ten by Dame Edna Everage. On second thoughts, perhaps it was.
John C. Williams
8 Sunningdalc Road, Wallasey, Wirral, Merseyside
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