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?
70 years after his death, Eliot Stannard remains an enigma. No-one knows how many films he wrote scenarios or screenplays for — the Internet Movie Database currently lists 168 writing credits, other sources state around 80, whilst an advertisement for Filmophone Limited which appeared in The Times on 19 December 1928 stated Eliot had by then “written over 400 scenarios”. Whatever the true figure, he was one of the most prolific British film writers of… (read more)
The list of Hitchcock projects that failed to move into production (or even pre-production) is long and relatively well documented. However, I believe this is one which has been missed by Hitchcock scholars — a project to film John Buchan’s Huntingtower. It’s well known that Hitchcock was a fan of Buchan’s novels and he would eventually adapt The Thirty-Nine Steps in 1935. It is also well-known that he considered adapting two other Richard Hanney novels… (read more)
