From the Los Angeles Times (02/Dec/1951): CAN YOU TAKE A JOKE? by Alfred HitchcockMOTION-PICTURE DIRECTOR DEAR MR. HITCHCOCK: Is it good manners to indulge in practical joking? ANSWER: There are some, I am well aware, who look upon practical jokes as a particularly low form of humor, and the practical joker as a menace to polite society. I must, in self-defense, come to the rescue of the practical joke, inasmuch as I seem to have… (read more)
I guess it’s fairly well known that François Truffaut’s 1968 film The Bride Wore Black was part homage to Hitchcock. It also marked the second time that Truffaut hired Bernard Herrmann to score one of his films — the first time being Fahrenheit 451 (1966). In one of those odd little coincidences, I stumbled across an advertisement for the publication of Cornell Woolrich’s novel from the New York Times (13/Feb/1941)… …ironic, huh?
I was very fortunate to receive a pre-publication copy of Alfred Hitchcock, the new biography by Peter Ackroyd, which is released in the UK tomorrow. As noted on Wikipedia, Ackroyd is a noted “biographer, novelist, and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London”. As discussed in a previous blog post, there are no shortage of books about Alfred Hitchcock and Ackroyd is the latest to provide a biographical overview of… (read more)
