Alfred and Edgar
(or, why short story writers love movies)
In a 1950 interview for the New York Times Magazine,
Hitchcock explains why he sees "the chase" (which he defines broadly)
as "the final expression of the motion picture medium." For one thing,
as a visual medium, film is ideally suited for showing cars "careening
around corners after each other." Perhaps even more important, "the
basic film shape is continuous." "Once a movie starts," Hitchcock says,
"it goes right on. You don't stop it for scene changes, or to go out and
have a cigarette."
Some of Hitchcock's most memorable movies--Rear Window, The Birds--are
based on short stories, and I think they do benefit from the sort of
concentrated focus Poe describes. But I wouldn't want to argue that
Hitchcock movies based on plays or novels are less focused, not if
writers and director have done a good job of adapting them to their new
medium.
Columbo's Uncle?
Speaking of Dial M for Murder,
when my husband and I were watching the final scenes, he commented that
Chief Inspector Hubbard reminded him of Columbo--the determined police
detective who gets a strong hunch about who the murderer is and won't
give up until he confirms it. Like Columbo, Hubbard pretends to be
sympathetic and self-effacing while setting up a clever trap to catch an
arrogant, socially superior villain. And he wears a raincoat (which
makes more sense in London than it does in Los Angeles). The thing that
really caught my husband's attention, though, was that at one point
Hubbard says, "Just one other thing" as he questions the person he
rightly suspects to be guilty. That made the similarities too striking
to ignore. True, Hubbard is more elegant and fastidious than Columbo.
It's hard to imagine Columbo whipping out a tiny comb to smooth his
mustache. (For that matter, it's hard to imagine Columbo with a
mustache.) But did this supporting character from a 1954 Hitchcock movie
inspire one of America's most beloved television detectives?
I
have no idea. I wasted a couple of delightful hours Googling about and
found many intriguing hints but no definite link (an inside joke for Columbo
fans). The information I did find wasn't completely consistent--one
site says one thing, another says something slightly different--but
apparently the Columbo character first showed up in a 1960 short story
written by Richard Levinson and William Link and published in--where
else?--Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The character next appeared on the television program Chevy Mystery Show, in a 1960 episode called "Enough Rope." Levinson and Link later reworked that into a stage play called Prescription: Murder, which eventually became the pilot for the Columbo series. The titles recall Hitchcock titles, and the plot and form of Prescription: Murder bear significant similarities to the plot and form of Dial M for Murder.
A suave, nearly emotionless husband schemes to get rid of his wife and
get his hands on her money; he underestimates the police detective
assigned to the case; the audience knows from the outset that the
husband is guilty. Maybe all that is coincidence. Or maybe not. Here's
something that's almost certainly coincidence, but I find it charming:
John Williams, who played Chief Inspector Hubbard both on stage and in
the Hitchcock movie, is featured in the 1972 Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind," playing murder victim Sir Roger Haversham.
Alfred and Edgar, Part 2
(or, not taking suspense too seriously)
In
a 1960 article called "Why I Am Afraid of the Dark," Hitchcock comments
on ways in which he and Poe are similar, and also on ways in which
they're different. Hitchcock was sixteen, he says, when he read a
biography of Poe "at random" and was moved by the sadness of his life: "I
felt an immense pity for him because, in spite of his talent, he had
always been unhappy." Later, when Hitchcock was working in an office,
he'd hurry back to his room to read a cheap edition of Poe's stories.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" got him thoroughly scared, he says, and
he thoroughly enjoyed it.
The
experience led him to an important discovery: "Fear, you see, is a
feeling that people like to feel when they are certain of being in
safety." A "gruesome story" can be terrifying, but "as one finds oneself
in a familiar surrounding, and when one realizes that it's only
imagination which is responsible for the fear, one is invaded by an
extraordinary happiness." Hitchcock compares the sensation to the relief
we feel when we're very thirsty and then take a drink. It's an
interesting idea. When we scream through the shower scene in Psycho,
is it the fear itself we enjoy? Or do we enjoy the relief we feel when
we stop screaming, look around, and realize we're still in a dark but
safe theater (or, these days, when we realize we're still in our
well-lit family rooms, with our cats dozing in our laps)?
Hitchcock
acknowledges a kinship with Poe. "We are both," he says, "prisoners of a
genre: suspense." Further, "I can't help but compare what I try to put
in my films with what Poe puts in his stories: a perfectly unbelievable
story recounted to readers with such a hallucinatory logic that one has
the impression that this same story can happen to you tomorrow." Even
so, he says,
You probably already know what poete maudit means. Despite five years of high-school and college French, I had to look it up. According to the Merriam Webster website, a poete maudit is an "accursed poet," a "writer dogged by misfortune and lack of recognition."I don't think that there exists a real resemblance between Edgar Allan Poe and myself. Poe is a poete maudit and I am a commercial filmmaker. He liked to make people shiver. Me too. But he didn't really have a sense of humor. And for me, "suspense" doesn't have any value if it's not balanced by humor.
I find these comments fascinating. I don't know enough about either Hitchcock or Poe to speak with any authority--I don't know how honest Hitchcock is being, or how accurate his views of Poe may be--but he seems to present himself as a happy, successful artist who has won the sort of recognition that eluded Poe. He creates terrifying movies but stands at a distance from them, well balanced enough to realize the stories he tells are "perfectly unbelievable." Does Hitchcock imply that Poe lacked such balance, that the nightmares he created reflect his own experience of life? Perhaps. At any rate, Hitchcock presents himself as someone who makes scary movies because he enjoys making people "shiver," not because he shares the sorts of torments he depicts. So no matter how horrifying the visions on the screen become, he can see the humor in the situation.
Many would challenge the idea that Hitchcock was happy and well balanced. His sense of humor seems hard to deny. In a 1963 Redbook interview, Hitchcock comments, "In producing the movies that I do, I find it would be impossible without a sense of humor." And in the New York Times Magazine interview mentioned earlier, he says comic relief can be effective even during a chase, as long as the humor isn't too broad and doesn't make the hero look foolish. We probably all have favorite examples of comic relief in Hitchcock movies, of moments when we laugh out loud even while cringing in fear. For example, there's the climax of Strangers on a Train. (If you haven't seen the movie, please skip the rest of this paragraph, and the next paragraph, too. Then please go see the movie.) Hitchcock cuts from one frightening image to another as hero and villain grapple, as people on the carousel scream, as an old man crawls slowly toward the off switch, in danger of being crushed at any moment. It's terrifying.
But it's funny, too. The old man looks like a comic figure, not a tragic one--he's chewing on something as he inches forward, and at one point he pauses to wipe his nose. And amid all the screaming, scrambling people on the carousel, one little boy sits up straight on his horse, smiling broadly, clearly having the time of his life. Maybe he's unaware of the danger. Or maybe he's enjoying it.
That brings us to "The Enjoyment of Fear," an article Hitchcock published in Good Housekeeping in 1949. (Remember when women's magazines used to include some articles with real substance?) It echoes some ideas I've already mentioned, but I can't resist the temptation to quote a passage that, I think, gives us an additional insight into Hitchcock's technique, and into the nature of literary suspense. He says again that viewers can enjoy the fear of watching a frightening movie because they know they're safe--they're not on that madly careening carousel in Strangers on a Train. Then he takes things one step further:
But the audience must also be aware that the characters in the picture, with whom they strongly identify themselves, are not to pay the price of fear. This awareness must be entirely subconscious; the spectator must know the spy ring will never succeed in pitching Madeleine Carroll off London Bridge, and the spectator must be induced to forget what he knows. If he didn't know, he would be genuinely worried; if he didn't forget, he would be bored.Over the years, I've gotten addicted to several television dramas that kill off secondary characters at a sometimes alarming rate. Whatever dangers they may face, we know Tony Soprano, Jack Bauer, and Carrie Mathison will survive more or less intact, at least until they reach the final show of the final season. Even then, if there's any chance of a follow-up movie or a reunion show, we know the protagonist is safe. But we also know their friends, co-workers, and lovers are fair game at any moment. That's one way to keep the audience in suspense. Hitchcock describes a more delicate approach: Deep down, we know the protagonist is safe, but the suspense reaches such a height that we forget. That sounds almost impossible, but I think it happens. Think of a moment when a Hitchcock protagonist seems to be in mortal danger. Don't we forget, just for a moment, that Hitchcock wouldn't really kill Jimmy Stewart?
Last Thoughts
As
I said, when I started work on this post, I decided to get a little
help from my friends. A birthday tribute should include some sort of
biographical perspective, but I didn't feel up to doing the necessary
research myself. So I turned to a promising young scholar, Shlomo
Mordechai Gershone (a.k.a. my ten-year-old grandson, Moty). He
contributed these insights:
I read Who Was Alfred Hitchcock? and learned a lot. Alfred Hitchcock was a very interesting person. He was big, loud, and funny, but also wrote things that were full of suspense and mystery. He told stories about being locked in a jail cell at the age of five. He would say that five minutes felt like five years to the young Hitch. That suspense was expressed in his movies, his television shows, and the stories in his magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. (Where have I heard that before?) He spent his whole life talking and writing about mystery, but passed away peacefully in his sleep. (Anticlimax)
Also, I thought it would be fun to do a quick survey of my Facebook friends (mostly mystery readers and writers), asking them to name their favorite Hitchcock movies. Obviously, there's nothing scientific about this survey, but perhaps it points to at least some of the Hitchcock movies that are standing the test of time.
Finally, I'll add a couple of personal notes. As I said, thirty-nine of my stories have been fortunate enough to appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. One of them, "A Joy Forever," is a Macavity finalist this year. If you'll be voting on the Macavity awards, and even if you won't, perhaps you'd like to read the story. You can find it on my website, at http://www.bkstevensmysteries.com/book/a-joy-forever/.
And two nights ago, when I took a break from working on this post and checked my e-mail, I learned that AHMM has accepted a fortieth story, "Death under Construction." I've been watching my e-mail for some time, hoping for this news. Thank goodness the suspense has ended.
(I won't be able to respond to comments on Saturday,
but I'll respond to every comment on Sunday. I promise.)
