CHRIS NEUMER: I don’t normally talk to people who are relatives of famous people, but since you’re not only related to Alfred Hitchcock, but one of the most knowledgeable Hitchcock historians I got very excited about our interview. You are the best possible relative to whom I could speak. Really, who better to ask questions of than you?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Thank you.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve been on this kick lately where I’ve been seeing some of the “classic” films like The Maltese Falcon, The Godfather. Films like that. One of these was Notorious. I hadn’t seen it until probably about a month ago. I found this film interesting because of how much the conventions and ability for an audience to accept certain story points has changed. I read somewhere that you are a particular fan of that one?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Oh yes, absolutely. It’s one of his best pictures.

CHRIS NEUMER: It was well made and I could see the professionalism behind the project, but I was thinking about the difference in audiences. I was thinking that audiences today might write off the film because one scene features secret agents hiding a key on a hook in a house basement. That would never happen today! While people might think, I don’t buy it now, in reality, it was a finely constructed work of the day.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, to start off with I think it’s the actors that he had. They were all perfect for their parts, and that’s what he did, he didn’t use somebody just to use them. They had to be absolutely perfect for the part that he was considering them for.

CHRIS NEUMER: Are you suggesting that in certain cases it is easier to appreciate a certain film because of the actors who were in it rather that for the other qualities of the film?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, it all has to work together. It wasn’t using somebody… and changing the plot around to fit them better. He never did that.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. It’s funny how I couldn’t see some of the scenes in the movie ever being put in anything created today. That one scene where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman were in a car, and even though he’s in love with her, she’s telling him about her plan to go undercover and seduce another man and I was yelling at the T.V. screen going, “No! Step up, Cary! Don’t let her do it! Just say ‘Don’t do it!’” Of course, he didn’t say anything. Do you think that the audience back then was significantly different from the audience of today?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. I think audiences are the same. Doesn’t matter what year it is, it’s the plot and the characters. It has nothing to do with what year it is.

CHRIS NEUMER: Really? I remember one of the very first films ever projected on screen was just a film of a train that was coming at a camera, and when the audience saw it on the screen they’d duck. They’d never seen anything like that. Do you think the audiences were merely more, uh, naïve back then?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, I think it’s all the same. It’s in the story. It’s in the suspense. It’s in the actors. It’s all meshed together, perfectly. That’s what he was so good at.

CHRIS NEUMER: [Pauses] What you’re saying is true… The King Kong film that was made in 1933, is another “classic” films that I’ve gone back to watch…

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I didn’t see that so, I don’t know it.

CHRIS NEUMER: … It really does look like a clay ape, climbing up a building, and doing very awkward things. It’s hard for me to watch that film and the special effects that were in that film and take it seriously. Some of your father’s movies had fantastic special effects that stand up today. They were fantastic movies then, and they’re fantastic movies now. Some, not so much. But, you don’t think the audience’s ability to tolerate certain features has changed over the years?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, No, I don’t.

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you think that, if you’re into the movie, you don’t notice those things?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: If the story is good enough, and if the actors are good enough.

CHRIS NEUMER: One of the things that I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is how my taste in film has changed as I’ve gone through life. When I was sixteen and in high school, I liked the worst movies. I look back now and wonder, “Oh my God, what was I thinking?” As you’ve gone through life, has your opinion of some of your father’s films changed? From good to bad, or from bad to good?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, I don’t think so.

CHRIS NEUMER: It just remains static?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, if I saw the movie and liked the movie, I didn’t wait fifteen years to go back and see it and say, “No, I don’t like it anymore.” That doesn’t make any sense.

CHRIS NEUMER: I would argue that you’re right. It makes perfect common sense. But it doesn’t take into consideration certain cases like Vertigo. When it came out, it wasn’t just panned; it was ripped apart and critically defiled. People didn’t want to touch it. Yet, now it’s viewed as one of you father’s most triumphant achievements. Somewhere along the line, people began revisiting it, and I’ve never understood that. I wasn’t around back then to understand what the prevailing notion was. Do you feel it got a fair shake when it originally came out? I mean, to what do you attribute the 180 on the critical feelings about Vertigo?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, I have no idea. Sometimes you see a picture when it first comes out, and you don’t like it. A couple of years later, you go back and you see things in it and wonder why you didn’t like it.

CHRIS NEUMER: But, you don’t do that… Or you haven’t done that.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: What do you mean?

CHRIS NEUMER: You had just said that your opinions of your father’s films hadn’t changed.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, that’s because I’m very close to them, too. I’m not your average viewer.

CHRIS NEUMER: This is true. But, being close to the material, do you have any understanding of why Vertigo was so universally panned when it was first released?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, I have no idea that’s up to all the critics.

CHRIS NEUMER: There’s a perception of Alfred Hitchcock, and it’s a positive perception to be sure, as that of the master of suspense. I’ve realized that he would have been the Steven Spielberg of his day. Normally Steven Spielberg is the Hitchcock of our times, but I’m looking at this upside down. I realized after the comparison to Spielberg that your father must have had an enormous amount of power and ability to work within Hollywood. Spielberg is known today for starting his own studio, branching out into animation. He’s gotten into everything from producing kid’s television shows to working on documentaries. In this respect, was there anything like branching out from feature films, like starting a studio, or anything big like that that your father--

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, absolutely not.

CHRIS NEUMER: He was just content with the feature films?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yes.

CHRIS NEUMER: What was it that get got out of doing the films that he found so satisfying that he didn’t look elsewhere?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Because he was trying to please the audience. The audience was the most important person.

CHRIS NEUMER: Were there challenges that he undertook, or challenges that he wanted to undertake, in terms of tackling new material, or approaching a different type of project?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Just to make a good movie. That was the most important thing. That was it.

CHRIS NEUMER: Let me rephrase. Robert Altman, a great guy—

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I think you’re trying to compare [my father], to all these other directors and producers, and I don’t think you can do that.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s fair, but he was still a creative type operating in Hollywood, right? Let me just get out my Altman question. Altman has mentioned a number of times that he likes to take projects that he doesn’t exactly know how to handle. The appeal of certain projects to him is that he doesn’t know what to do with it. He made a movie called The Company that was about ballet dancing. He didn’t know anything about ballet, and he asked, “How do I make a movie about ballet interesting?” He said, “When I realized I didn’t know how to do it, that’s when I realized ‘I’m doing this.’” What attracted your father to material, if it wasn’t challenging?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: If it was a good story, and he thought it would make a good movie. That was it. He wasn’t trying to do anything else.

CHRIS NEUMER: So the challenge for him was all in his ability to entertain the audience with a good story?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Right.

CHRIS NEUMER: Were there certain traits, or qualities to stories that stood out in his mind?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No.

CHRIS NEUMER: [Pauses] There were no uniquities about his storytelling preferences, or things like that? There weren’t any other qualities that he looked for in scripts?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay…

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: [Raises voice] It was to entertain the audience and that’s it.

CHRIS NEUMER: But there are many different ways to go about achieving that goal, aren’t there? PAT HITCHOCK: It all depended on the story.

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you feel that, as we go forward, there are any other of your father’s films, as was the case with Vertigo, that will see renaissance of approval and admiration?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I have no idea. That depends on the movie. That depends on the story. It depends on the people…

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you think that some films that haven’t gotten a lot of recognition maybe deserve more?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. Movie making today is totally different than it was when he first started. So, obviously it’s going to change. Obviously.

CHRIS NEUMER: But are there films of his, like some his later works—like Torn Curtain, or Topaz, films that aren’t necessarily put up there with Rear Window, or Vertigo, or The Thirty-Nine Steps—that you think deserved more acclaim? He made forty or forty-five films, are there any of those, in your opinion, that deserve to be brought into the forefront of the upper-echelon of his works that aren’t presently there at the table?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Oh… I don’t know. I have no idea.

CHRIS NEUMER: You’ve mentioned that Notorious is one of your favorites of his?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: That’s right.

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you feel that that film gets it’s “proper due,” in terms of American Culture, and being played [in] the Hitchcock Film Festivals, and things like that?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Possibly. Possibly. But that had a great cast. That’s what was the best part about Notorious.

CHRIS NEUMER: So, when you say, “possibly,” is that something you could expand on a little bit?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Not really. CHRIE NUEMER: Okay… Some people are comfortable talking about budgets, and some people don’t particularly like talking about that, and that’s fine, so I just wanted to ask you ahead of time whether that was something you were comfortable discussing.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, I know very little about it.

CHRIS NEUMER: About financial matters in general. I understand if you don’t know about the exact budget, that’s fine, but is this a topic that you’re comfortable talking about?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, I’ve never discussed it.

CHRIS NEUMER: You won’t or you haven’t?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I’ve never discussed it.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay, moving on… You’ve mentioned how your father’s films were designed to entertain the audience. I think of a large number of them like a really catchy pop song. It’s impossible not to like it. You just can’t not like it. It’s the same with your father’s filmmaking; you just can’t not like it—

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yeah, but on the other hand if somebody’s seeing any of his movies, if they don’t enjoy it, that’s up to them! They’ve paid their money to see it, so they either like it, or they don’t like it.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yes. [Pauses for five seconds] But, most people did, in fact, like the man and his work. As a collective body of work, it seems as though more people— Your father’s work seems like the cinematic equivalent of The Beatles music. It’s critically acclaimed, it’s popular, and it’s something that’s universally lauded.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, not necessarily. Some [of his] pictures weren’t. People didn’t just like it because it was his picture. Some people went in, paid their money, came out and said, “I didn’t like it.”

CHRIS NEUMER: [Pauses for five seconds] Besides the misrepresentation that’s often attributed to his quote about, “treating actors like cattle,” one of the other things that your father was very renowned for was his dislike of location work. Do you still go back and watch some of his works?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Not very often.

CHRIS NEUMER: You might be flipping channels, and see something and watch for a few minutes, something of that nature?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Not really.

CHRIS NEUMER: Sure… Well, I had been doing just that and stumbled onto Topaz. I had seen it and there were a couple of shots that were obviously shot on a set that were supposed to be outdoors, on location. I thought to myself, “This is such a great script, this is such a great idea, I just wish that maybe on this one case there had just been a little bit of location work.” Then I thought, “Has there ever been a situation where a film has been remade, almost identically, using the same script, trying to cast actors in the same vein?” Immediately, my mind went to Gus Van Sant’s film Psycho. He didn’t technically do it shot-for-shot, but I realized what I was describing was what he had attempted to do, on that film. When his version of Psycho first came out, I thought it was a horrible idea. Psycho was one of the greatest films of all time, what could he be trying to improve upon? When I was flipping channels and saw Topaz, I kind of came around, so I thought I’d ask you, what were your thoughts on either the remake of Psycho, or the quandary I was describing with the location work?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I wasn’t mad about the remake. A lot of it was the casting. I respect Gus for trying it. I mean, why not?

CHRIS NEUMER: Casting? Okay… Are there any films that you would like to see remade?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. CHRIS NEUER: George Lucas has said that there were certain films that he made early in his career where he’s really not happy with the results because they didn’t have a certain technology available, so he would like to see them remade. Are there any films you can think of off the top of your head like that? Something early in your dad’s career that could benefit from a bigger budget; The Lodger, maybe?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No.

CHRIS NEUMER: The studios continue to have the rights to all of your father’s films, correct?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, the family has the rights to a lot of them. Yeah.

CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, they do? Are there any specific ones?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I don’t remember. I don’t have that off the top of my head.

CHRIS NEUMER: I had struck upon this idea when I was watching a film made in the seventies by Walter Hill called The Warriors about New York street gangs. I looked at both of these and I thought to myself, “I wonder if either the AFI or The Academy would come out and say ‘We’re going to put on order on remaking certain films.’” It would be like deigning National Historic Status onto a building; any kind of changes to that building need to be approved by the government first. Do you feel that there are any of your father’s films that should be deemed as such: do not even think of remaking this film, just enjoy it as it?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No.

CHRIS NEUMER: Are you kidding? Not at all?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, I think they should leave them the way they are. People will go and see them, or if they don’t, they don’t.

CHRIS NEUMER: So your approach is sort of a laissez fare attitude that you have towards the remaking of any of his films?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yeah, I don’t know which of his films should be remade. That’s not up to me, that’s up to whomever has great ideas. I mean, Gus Van Sant did Psycho.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay… Going back to his dislike of location work, I know he liked to control things, and he often mentioned that the weather would be one of the reasons he didn’t want to get outside. Were there any other smaller-known things that he would speak of that he liked or didn’t like on a production level?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Are you talking about locations?

CHRIS NEUMER: I’m just saying about his filmmaking style. I know he didn’t like to go on location, but were there any other things about the way that he directed, other idiosyncrasies, that played a part in how he filmed things?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. He just felt that he cold control his story, which was difficult to do on location.

CHRIS NEUMER: In regards to actors, it didn’t seem as though he had a lot of, let’s say, sympathy for them. When they asked for motivation, he would respond, “It’s your paycheck,” or “your salary.” While to a certain extent that’s true, on one plane that’s okay, but on another plane there’s the character’s motivation. Do you think that he was sympathetic to actors, and their craft?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Oh sure. He was very sympathetic. Without the actors, he couldn’t have the story. He couldn’t have the film.

CHRIS NEUMER: Is it sort of just a misconception [about him] that’s been brought along by the media that he wasn’t very sympathetic to the actors’ on-set needs?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, that’s not fair at all. He would listen to actors. If there was something that bothered them, he was very sympathetic to them.

CHRIS NEUMER: So, the comment about the “salary,” was probably more of a joke?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yeah.

CHRIS NEUMER: I know he’s said that there was only one actor that he’s ever loved, and that was Cary Grant. Do you have any idea why it was that he felt attached to Cary Grant?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: It was because Cary was able to play so many different types of characters. He could adapt to the story.

CHRIS NEUMER: Hmmm… So are you saying that the other actors that he worked with were not able to play many different types of characters?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yes… but you’re taking it all wrong.

CHRIS NEUMER: Please, set me straight on this.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yeah, I will! Cary had a great sense of humor. He was able to bring humor to the part. He was able to go the other way.

CHRIS NEUMER: When you say, “go the other way,” you mean dramatically?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Yes, do dramatic, and all that. That’s why he liked using him.

CHRIS NEUMER: So, Cary was able to do that, I guess, better than other actors?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No, it all depended on the character. You couldn’t just take Cary Grant and put him in a part that would be better played by Jimmy Stewart. It’s as simple as that.

CHRIS NEUMER: You could not put Cary Grant into a Jimmy Stewart role, you’re saying?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Right!

CHRIS NEUMER: Were the roles specifically written for the individual men?

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. It’s how they came out.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay… There was a story about the shooting of North By Northwest where Cary Grant was supposed to walk through the lobby of The Plaza, which I believe he was actually staying at during shooting…

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: No. It was up near Mt. Rushmore, at a restaurant, it wasn’t the hotel.

CHRIS NEUMER: Uh… Anyway, when they’re in New York, and they go into Kaplan’s hotel room there’s a shot of Cary Grant—

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Oh, The Plaza?

CHRIS NEUMER: Yes. Somebody said, “How should he do this? How should he walk through the lobby?” Your father said, “Well, if there’s any man who knows how to walk through the lobby of The Plaza, it’s Cary.” So, he just said, “Go, and do,” and they went, and they did.

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Right.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s a very minor point, but there were certain things that Cary brought to roles. Obviously, when you look back on certain roles—

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: Well, all actors do that. All actors bring certain things to certain roles. Others don’t. If you’ve got a role that would be better for Cary Grant, then you put Cary Grant in it! Otherwise you’d put Jimmy Stewart in it.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s true, but since your father singled out Cary Grant as, “The only actor I’ve ever loved,” why did he—

PATRICIA HITCHCOCK: I don’t know, you’d have to ask him.