Hitchcock Chronology: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Entries in the Hitchcock Chronology relating to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...

1935

April

• 8th - In Hollywood, Michael Balcon announces that he has signed deals to sell 13 Gaumont-British films in America, as well as agreeing a reciprocal contract player loan scheme with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

1957

February

• Hitchcock, still recuperating at home from colitis, holds initial face-to-face meetings with Samuel A. Taylor to discuss the script for Vertigo. Hitchcock also reads The Wreck of the Mary Deare, a property MGM are interested in adapting.

October

• 14th - Journalist Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. writes to Hitchcock handing over his idea of a innocent man who is mistaken for a fictional spy. Together with screenwriter Ernest Lehman, the director expands the concept into the screenplay for North by Northwest. Guernsey receives $10,000 from MGM for the transfer of story rights.

1958

July

• 28th - MGM location manager Charles Coleman arrives at Mount Rushmore, accompanied by Larry Owen of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce, to talk to the National Park Service about using the monument in North by Northwest.

September

• 16th - Filming at Mount Rushmore begins and is completed the following day. With shooting limited to the parking lot, the park cafeteria and an adjoining terrace, much of the final footage for North by Northwest's iconic climax will be completed back at the MGM studios on sets designed by Robert Boyle.
• 18th - Production on North by Northwest returns to MGM in Los Angeles for studio work.

1962

March

• 23rd - MGM president Joseph R. Vogel writes to Hitchcock claiming that Princess Grace is still under contract to the studio and that MGM would have to be a partner in the production of Marnie. Hitchcock rejects the claim.