Hitchcock Chronology: Month of December

Entries in the Hitchcock Chronology for the month of December...

1900

• 1st - The first electric tram service runs through Leytonstone.

1910

• 12th - Alfred Hitchcock's father, William Hitchcock, dies from chronic emphysema and kidney disease.
• 5th - Ellen Kathleen Hitchcock marries licensed victualler Harry Lee, whose family runs the Copenhagen Tavern at 183 Salmon Lane, in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church of St Mary & St Michael, Lukin Street, East London. The couple have at least three children before Harry dies in 1924, aged only 31.

1920

• The December 1920 issue of The Henley Telegraph contains contributions from Hitchcock entitled "What's Who?" and "The History of Pea Eating".

1925

• The Picturegoer trade journal carries a full-page feature about Alma Reville, titled "Alma in Wonderland".
• Gainsborough Pictures announce that, upon his return from Munich where he is filming The Mountain Eagle, Hitchcock will direct The Lodger.
• With filming completed on The Mountain Eagle, Hitchcock returns to London and begins post-production editing.

1926

• 2nd - Alfred Hitchcock marries Alma Reville at Bromptom Oratory, South Kensington, London. Alfred's older brother, William, is the best man and Alma's younger sister, Eva [born Eveline], is the maid of honour. The Reverend J.J. Bevan presides over the marriage service.
• The newly married Alma and Alfred Hitchcock spend their honeymoon at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz and at Lake Como in Italy, travelling via Paris where they spend a day with actress Nita Naldi.

1927

• Mrs Lucy Baldwin, wife of the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, visits British International Pictures' Elstree Studios and watches Hitchcock at work filming The Farmer's Wife.

1929

• The filming of Juno and the Paycock is completed.
• The week before Christmas, Hitchcock directs the linking sequences for Elstree Calling.

1931

• Rich and Strange is released in British cinemas.
• 14th - Rich and Strange is reviewed negatively by The Times — "Mr. Hitchcock is clearly out of form".

1933

• 16th - The Picturegoer magazine carries an article written by Hitchcock titled "Are Stars Necessary?".
• 19th - Variety reports that Gaumont-British has signed Hitchcock on a three-picture deal.

1934

• 10th - The Man Who Knew Too Much is reviewed by The Times who states that Hitchcock "has a rare gift for the macabre" and that "with the aid of a few shadows, a dozen stairs or so, and a sinister-looking figure, he manages to keep his audience in a suspended state of expectation."
• 13th - The Kinematograph Weekly reviews The Man Who Knew Too Much, saying that "This is glorious melodrama ... It is artless fiction, staged on a spectacular scale ... Alfred Hitchcock has obviously learnt by past experience that the real money lies only in mass appeal, and with this wise thought in mind he has given us a picture of first-class melodrama."
• The Hitchcocks and Joan Harrison spend Christmas holidaying in St. Moritz.

1936

• Filming on Sabotage is completed.
• Gaumont British announces a series of cost cutting measures, resulting in the firing of Hitchcock's friends Ivor Montague and Michael Balcon. Edward "Ted" Black is brought in to replace Balcon.
• The Hitchcocks, along with Joan Harrison and Charles Bennett, spend Christmas holiday in St. Moritz. Whilst they are there, a telegram arrives from Myron Selznick offering Bennett a job in Hollywood and he accepts.

1938

• The New York Film Critics name Hitchcock as "Best Director of 1938" for The Lady Vanishes in their annual poll. The news alarms Selznick, as his own vagueness about the actual start date for Rebecca could give Hitchcock the opportunity to make his debut US film for another studio. Selznick quickly renegotiates the contact and gives Hitchcock better terms whilst ensuring that he has the final say-so over any projects for other studios.

1939

• Filming on Rebecca is completed and Hitchcock hands the footage over to David O. Selznick. The lack of coverage and alternative takes frustrates Selznick as he oversees the editing the film.
• Shortly after Christmas, a preview cut of Rebecca is shown a test audience, who react postively to the film.

1940

• 12th - Loew's Grand Theatre, Atlanta, hosts the "anniversary premiere" screening of Selznick's Gone With the Wind. A plane carrying Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Hitchcock to Atlanta is unable to land due to fog and diverts to Augusta (150 miles away). Leigh, Olivier and Hitchcock miss the screening and fly back to Los Angeles the following day.
• 18th - Variety names Hitchcock as the second highest grossing director of 1940, behind Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind).

1941

• 3rd - Variety reports that Hitchcock is travelling from Los Angeles to New York.
• 7th - The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the US entry into World War II allows Hitchcock to be more explicit about the war as he completes the pre-production of his new film, Saboteur. The director is in a meeting with Robert F. Boyle when they hear news of the attack.
• 12th - The shooting script for Saboteur is completed.
• 12th-13th - John P. Fulton spends 2 days in New York City with a second unit shooting footage and background plates of the Statue of Liberty for Saboteur. However, strong winds mean that the top of the statue moves around too much for the footage to be used in the final film and a matte paintings are used instead.
• 15th - Second unit footage of the ferry trip to Bedloe Island and the Statue of Liberty is shot. A double stands in for Priscilla Lane but Norman Lloyd is in New York City and takes part in the filming. The sequence is supposed to take place on a sunny spring day, so extras have to wear light summer clothes despite the bitterly cold weather.
• 17th - Hitchcock commences filming Saboteur for Universal, starring Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane.
• 31st - Variety reports that Alma Reville and Patricia Hitchcock are travelling from Los Angeles to New York.

1942

• Keen to attach a big-name writer to Lifeboat, Hitchcock telegrams Ernest Hemmingway at his winter home in Cuba — "THE WHOLE STORY TAKES PLACE IN THE LIFEBOAT WITH THE CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES, THE DISINTEGRATION OF SOCIAL INEQUALITIES THE DOMINANCE OF THE NAZI, ETC"

1944

• Hitchcock returns from London in time for Christmas. David O. Selznick gives the go-ahead for Notorious to be Hitchcock's next film. During Hitchcock's absence, Selznick hired William Cameron Menzies to reshoot some of the scenes in Spellbound's dream sequence — when Salvador Dalí finally saw the finished film, he was reportedly very disappointed with the changes made to his designs.
• Hitchcock and Ben Hecht continue working on Notorious.
• 26th - Hitchcock and Ben Hecht arrive in Washington and spend the evening "roughing out a script" for Watchtower Over Tomorrow.

1946

• In early December, David O. Selznick and Hitchcock work for two weeks with Ben Hecht on finishing The Paradine Case screenplay.
• 6th - At 9:30pm, BBC Radio North broadcasts "Continuous Performance: The Silent Film", an hour-long documentary which features a contribution by Hitchcock. Stewart Granger is the narrator.
• 19th - Principal photography begins on The Paradine Case, starring Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Alida Valli and Charles Laughton. The start of production was delayed by two months due Selznick's decision to close his studios during a Hollywood strike.
• 24th - Ben Hecht's Christmas radio play Miracle of a Bum is broadcast during the evening on the ABC network. According to several contemporary sources, Hitchcock directed and provided a narration.

1947

• 6th - To celebrate the imminent start of filming on the first Transatlantic Pictures production, Rope, Hitchcock hosts a party at his Bellagio Road home. Among the guests are Sidney Bernstein and his wife, Arthur Laurents, Whitfield Cook, John Hodiak, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant.
• Technical meetings begin for Rope with key crew personnel.
• 31st - The Paradine Case premieres at the Bruin Theater in Westwood Village, Los Angeles.

1948

• The Hitchcocks spend Christmas at their Scotts Valley ranch. Their daughter Patricia has flown back to join them for the holiday season. Among their guests on Christmas Day are Whitfield Cook, Arthur Laurents and Joan Harrison.
• 31st - Whitfield Cook hosts a lavish New Year's Eve party in Hollywood. Among the many guests are the Hitchcocks, Sally Benson, Farley Granger, Arthur Laurents, Charlie Chaplin, Shelley Winters and director Joseph Losey.

1950

• With filming on Strangers on a Train completed, the Hitchcocks celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary by spending Christmas at St. Mortiz.

1952

• The Hitchcocks celebrate their wedding anniversary at the Palace Hotel, St. Moritz.

1953

• Screenwriter John Michael Hayes and his wife spend two weeks at the Hotel Carlton in Cannes researching the area in preparation for starting the screenplay for To Catch a Thief.

1954

• 1st-2nd - The opening title sequence for To Catch a Thief is reshot. Footage of an open jewel case in a moonlit hotel room, with black-gloved hands reaching into frame to steal them, is dropped and new footage of a New York travel agent's window ("If you love life, you'll love France") is filmed.
• With the filming of The Trouble with Harry complete, Alma and Alfred Hitchcock travel to St. Moritz for their annual Christmas holiday. On route to Switzerland, they stop off for a week in London where they take in several West End plays. Asked by the press if he intends to ski, he replied "I hope not. No, definitely no. I'll watch some skiing but I just like sitting in my room at the hotel and looking at the snow."

1955

• 3rd - Concerns start to grow after the aircraft the Hitchcocks are travelling on from India to the Far East fails to arrive in Singapore. There are fears that it may have crashed into the Bay of Bengal. The Hitchcocks were due to be the guests of Singaporean businessman Loke Wan Tho, who had organised a cocktail party and formal dinner. Still no news had arrived the following day and Loke commented to the press, "I am completely baffled."
• 4th - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Case of Mr. Pelham", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.
• 5th - The mystery of Hitchcock's disappearance is resolved when newspapers report that the plane he was travelling on from India to the Far East was delayed leaving Calcutta due to engine problems. Not long after take-off, a re-occurrence of the problem forced the flight to turn back over the Bay of Bengal and return to Calcutta. Issues around the complex Indian customs and immigrations procedures meant that the passengers were forced to remain on the aircraft until repairs were completed. Speaking to the press, Hitchcock said, "Let's put it this way. It's the strangest flight I've ever been on."
• 16th - The Hitchcocks depart from Tokyo, Japan, aboard Pan Am flight 856/16, bound for Honolulu. They land on the 17th at 2:30am.
• 22nd - The Hitchcocks, with their daughter Patricia, and Joan Harrison depart at 9pm from Honolulu to Los Angeles aboard Pan Am flight 510/22

1956

• 22nd - The Wrong Man premiers in New York. On the 27th, a pipe bomb planted by the "Mad Bomber" explodes during a presentation of the film. Asked for a comment, Hitchcock replies that the bomber must be "a man with a diabolical sense of humor."
• 23rd - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Mr. Blanchard's Secret", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.

1957

• 16th - Hitchcock shoots Vertigo's famous "revolving kiss" scene. On the second take, James Stewart slips and falls -- filming is interrupted for an hour whilst Stewart visits the studio doctor.
• 18th - Hitchcock shoots Vertigo's opening rooftop chase sequence.
• 19th - Around lunchtime, Hitchcock shoots his cameo scene for Vertigo.
• With filming on Vertigo completed, Alfred Hitchcock and Alma spend Christmas holidaying in Miama and Montego Bay, along with a brief trip to Cuba. They are accompanied by Lew Wasserman and his wife.

1958

• 17th - Production on North by Northwest is completed.
• 19th - Motion Picture Daily reports that Hitchcock has arrived into New York.
• 20th - Hitchcock departs New York for London.

1960

• 29th - Novelist Eden Phillpotts, whose play The Farmer's Wife was adapted by Hitchcock in 1928, dies aged 98.

1961

• Hitchcock turns down the offer of a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's New Year Honour's List for 1962.
• 14th - Evan Hunter sends Hitchcock 52 revised pages for the second draft of The Birds screenplay.
• 21th - Hitchcock sends Evan Hunter 4 further pages of notes based on the second draft of The Birds screenplay. He signs off by saying "I pray I'm not giving you too much to think about over the Christmas holidays... P.S. People are still asking, 'Why did the birds do it?'"
• The Hitchcocks spend Christmas in St. Moritz. Hitchcock invites Evan Hunter and his wife to join them, but they decline.
• 27th - Having included a scene in which school children sing a song, Evan Hunter writes to Peggy Robertson to confirm the song's title ("Risseldy Rosseldy") and asks her to check that the song is in the public domain. After timing the song and finding it too short, Robertson telephones Hunter and asks him to come up with extra lyrics. Hunter obliges but finds he must join the American Society of Composers and Publishers before the extra lyrics can be used in the final film. Much to his amusement, the Society then begins to send him regular royalty payments.

1962

• By early December, special effects departments at Disney, MGM, Film Effects of Holluwood and Universal are all busy working on the optical and special effects for The Birds. At Universal, artist Millie Weinbrenner is close to completing 3 months work of painstakingly rotoscoping gulls for the "God's Eye" shot of the fire at the gas station — a sequence that lasts for only 10 seconds.
• 14th - Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann leave Los Angeles to travel to Berlin to oversee the progress of Remi Gassmann and Oskar Sala's electronic tratonium soundtrack for The Birds. En route, they lunch with Anny Ondra in Hamburg.
• 20th - Please with the progress made by Remi Gassmann and Oskar Sala on the electronic score for The Birds, Hitchcock cables Peggy Robertson "WORK IN BERLIN COMPLETED TO MY SATISFACTION". Joined by his family, including his three granddaughters, the Hitchcocks then travel on to Paris and then St. Moritz for their Christmas vacation.

1964

• Hitchcock approaches Italian writing team Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli to work on his Italian crime caper project R.R.R.R..

1965

• 16th - Playwright and novelist W. Somerset Maugham, writer of the novel "Ashenden" which Hitchcock adapted into Secret Agent, dies in Nice, France, aged 91.

1966

• Together with Samuel A. Taylor and his wife, the Hitchcocks spend Christmas in St. Moritz. Hitchcock begins to plan his next project, the tale of a necrophiliac serial killer.

1968

• 12th - Actress Tallulah Bankhead, who starred in Lifeboat, dies aged 66.

1969

• Topaz is released in cinemas to disappointing reviews and a lacklustre box office. The film fails to recoup its $4,000,000 budget and is never re-released theatrically by Universal during Hitchcock's lifetime.
• 30th - Hitchcock appears on the KYW-TV television show The Mike Douglas Show, alongside James Brown and Joan Rivers.
• 30th - BBC Television broadcasts Bryan Forbes' interview with Hitchcock, which was recorded at the National Film Theatre in October.

1970

• 10th - Hitchcock meets with Universal heads Lew Wasserman and Edd Henry to pitch Frenzy as his next project, based on Arthur La Bern's 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. Wasserman and Henry agree, but with a budget cap of $2.8m.
• 21st - Paving the way for pre-production on Frenzy to begin, Universal's Vice President Edd Henry succeeds in acquiring the film fights to Arthur La Bern's Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square for $25,000.
• 22nd - Universal Studios staff writer Estelle Conde provides Hitchcock with a 42 page synopsis of Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. Conde's more concise 3 page précis of the novel's plot and main characters is delivered to Hitchcock on the 30th.
• Hitchcock sends a copy of Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square to playwright Anthony Shaffer in New York, hoping to tempt him into writing the adaptation for Frenzy. Shaffer responds quickly to say that he "likes the story".
• 31st - Hitchcock telephones Anthony Shaffer on New Years Eve and the playwright agrees to write the screenplay for Frenzy.

1971

• 12th - Henry Mancini's score for Frenzy is recorded in London over four days.
• 14th - Hitchcock arrives in London, accompanied by Alma, to attend the remainder of Henry Mancini's Frenzy recording sessions. After hearing the completed score, Hitchcock decides to reject it and subsequently hires Ron Goodwin to compose a new one. As usual, Hitchcock, who hated confrontations of any kind, asks a studio executive to convey the news to Mancini.
• 17th - The Hitchcocks fly out of London to spend the rest of December holidaying in Marrakech.
• 18th - Henry Mancini flies back to Los Angeles.

1975

• With Family Plot nearly complete, the Hitchcocks make their final trip to Europe and spend Christmas at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz.
• 24th Composer Bernard Herrmann, who created many of the most iconic Hitchcock film scores, dies in his sleep after completing the recording sessions for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver in New York.

1978

• Writer David Freeman begins working with Hitchcock on the script of The Short Night.

1985

• Universal Studios names a street on the studio lot "Alfred Hitchcock Drive".
• 8th - Jack H. Skirball, who produced Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt, dies aged 89.
• 12th - Actress Anne Baxter, who appeared in I Confess, dies of a brain aneurysm whilst walking down Madison Avenue in New York City, aged 62.

1990

• 2nd - Actor Robert Cummings, who starred in Saboteur and Dial M for Murder, dies aged 80.

1991

• 6th - Rodney Ackland, who worked with Hitchcock on The Skin Game (1931) and Number Seventeen (1932), dies aged 83.

1998

• 5th - BBC Radio broadcasts an adaptation of Josephine Tey's novel A Shilling for Candles.

1999

• 26th - BBC Radio broadcasts an adaptation of Noël Coward's play "Easy Virtue". Among the cast are Anna Massey and Jimmy Gardner, who both appeared in Frenzy (1972).

2001

• 15th - Cinematographer Wilkie Cooper, who worked with Hitchcock on Stage Fright, dies aged 90.

2002

• 17th - Playwright Frederick Knott, who wrote the screenplay for Dial M for Murder, dies aged 83.
• 31st - Actor Desmond Tester, who appeared in Sabotage, dies aged 83.

2006

• 1st - French actress Claude Jade, who appeared in Topaz, dies aged 58.

2009

• 3rd - Actor Richard Todd, who appeared in Stage Fright, dies in his sleep, aged 90.
• 18th - Film critic Robin Wood, influential author of Hitchcock's Films and Hitchcock's Films Revisited, dies aged 78.

2012

• 28th - Actor Jon Finch, who starred in Frenzy, is found dead in his flat in Hastings, East Sussex. He was aged 71.

2013

• 15th - Actress Joan Fontaine, who starred in Rebecca and Suspicion, dies aged 96.

References

Hitchcock Chronology
1890s	1890	1891	1892	1893	1894	1895	1896	1897	1898	1899
1900s	1900	1901	1902	1903	1904	1905	1906	1907	1908	1909
1910s	1910	1911	1912	1913	1914	1915	1916	1917	1918	1919
1920s	1920	1921	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929
1930s	1930	1931	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939
1940s	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949
1950s	1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959
1960s	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
1970s	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979
1980s	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
1990s	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
2000s	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
2010s	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
months	-	-	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	-	-
months	-	-	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	-	-