Editor Dan here. Before we begin the episode, I wanted to give a content warning
that this episode does discuss the topic of sexual assault and murder. We know that these topics
can be incredibly difficult, especially if they've touched your life personally. Thank you
for being here and listen with care. Hello and welcome to development purgatory.
This is the podcast all about the movies that were never made. The scripts I were never
written and the ideas that have ever made it to the page. My name is Daniel Kawka. And I'm Lexcee Riley.
And I do not have a tie. You don't thank God. Or could that mean the opposite thing?
Because I don't have a tie. That means I used it for other nefarious reasons.
Good evening. Hi. Our story begins in St. Anne's Nottingham in 1899,
where an intricate and important cog of cinematic history was born. On August 14th,
lace makers Matthew and Lucy Revelle would welcome their second daughter, Almond Revelle.
When she was young, Almond's family moved to London where her father took a job at Twiccom Film
Studios. And as children do, Alma would visit her father at work, leading her to eventually become
a tea girl. Do you know what a tea girl is? Is it a girl that provides drinks for people?
It's basically a British term for a PA. A tea girl. At the tender young age of 16, she got promoted
to a cutter. Do you know what it cutters? An editor? Yes. That is the British term for
editing. And she would go on to write as well as become a director's assistant. And if we look at her
timeline, she would be 16 in 1915. Film industry jobs. Pretty tough for a woman today. So mom, super
rarely accessible to women back then. Even I mean, 1915, just having a film job, like a job in the film
industry is a very rare thing. Mm-hmm. Alma said on editing, the art of cutting is art indeed,
with a capital A, and is of far greater importance than is generally acknowledged. And I concur.
Agree. It's like how editors are always contributed to like why directors are so great. It's like
Martin Scorsese has had the same editor. Well, you repeat that sentence one more time.
Editors can be the reason why directors are so great. I didn't pay him to say that, nor did I tell him
to say that. But like Martin Scorsese had like the same editor for nearly all of his career. Everyone
attributes to the reason why Star Wars was so good is because it was George Lucas's wife at the time.
She was the one who was cutting the film together. She is actually the reason for all the wipes,
because a lot of George Lucas' shots were like still like on sticks didn't move, didn't pan or
anything like that. And she's like, we got to put some movement somewhere in this. And she did it in the
edit. Did you look at my notes? I just know it's just not that fun fact, but like I'm like,
I just know what this is. I didn't write this for him. I'm a product of film school. Yeah, I am not.
I went to theater school. So moving along to 1919, Alma would take a job at the famous players
Lasky. It's the British location for Paramount. It was based in Eilington, North London. Here she would
work as an editor, a continuity supervisor. Lock that nugget away for later. As in like on the set,
like script supervisor. Okay. So an editor, no, continuity supervisor. Very specific.
Lock that specific continuity supervisor nugget away. Okay, because I've known a script supervisor
and she's told me like she is the one who watches for continuity. They are on some sets different people.
Okay. But this was like when she was at the basically British Paramount, these were her first
sets of jobs was editing continuity supervising and then a director's assistant. Like an assistant
to the director or like an AD? No, director's assistant. Okay. At the same time, there was another
up in Commer at the company. Ironically, he was born just one day before Alma and he was working his
way up the ladder at the exact same time as a title card designer. In 1922, Paramount would leave
London, but the work that both of those players had done was recognized by director Graham Cuts.
For 1923s, woman to woman, Cuts brought her on as the editor and script girl and Cuts brought
him on to assist with producing, directing, set design and script writing. The world's finally
collided, and Alma met Alfred, her future husband. Alma's husband stated that woman to woman was the
first film that I really got my hands on to. Alma would remain a powerhouse going on to write the
constant nymph and after the verdict as well as working with several other directors. But it was
Alfred that would be her constant collaborator and life partner till death. Alma Revell married Alfred
Hitchcock on December 2, 1926 and they would have one child, Patricia Alma Hitchcock in 1928.
But it was in 1927 that they would share their first on-screen credit for co-writing the silent
era film The Ring. A good old classic love triangle set the world of boxing. Where Jack and Bob
duke it out over Maybell. What is it about every director out there needs to do a boxing movie?
You know? Gotta start somewhere I guess. I mean that's how Stanley Kubrick got his start. He did a
profile. It was like a short profile where he filmed a boxer in Scorsese again, Raging Bull.
But that's a much sweeter story than what they would go to work on for the rest of their careers.
As we know.
By 1935 there was the spy thriller The 39 Steps.
Directed by Alfred with both script and continuity supervision by Alma was a US and UK commercial hit.
This led to in 1939 the couple would move to Hollywood.
Hollywood.
And they would bring on Joan Harrison to take over more of the secretarial duties from Alma
so that Alma could work more in the creative duties with Alfred.
It's almost like they're building a team of like their roster of players.
And so Joan Harrison, while she starts with the secretarial duties, she also goes on to help write
with Alma and they go on to adapt one of my favorites, which is 1940s Rebecca.
She was lying on the floor, she struck her head on a heavy piece of ship's tackle.
I remember wondering why she was still smiling.
And I realized she was dead.
But she didn't kill her. It was an accident.
Who would believe me?
With Lawrence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, they also adapt foreign correspondents and suspicion
from 1941 and Sebatoire in 1942.
Alfred's favorite film came in 1943 with Shadow of Adopt.
And a sharp career rise begins.
He brings on Jimmy Stewart in 1948 with Rope.
Rope?
I love Rope.
I, we are starting to write in our notes.
We know each other well enough to be like pause for Dan to talk about Rope.
Whenever anyone brings up Hitchcock, there's always the big hitters.
And I'm like of all my favorites, it's gotta be Rope.
One, it's got my boy Jimmy.
Jimmy Stewart.
I actually wrote a whole essay in my playwriting class all about Jimmy Stewart and Harvey
and how he revolutionized acting through that movie.
Besides that, he was in Rope.
It's one of the most perfect movies and it's a wonder as well.
It reads like a play.
A lot of his stuff reads like a play.
Yeah.
For the technical limitations at the time and what he was trying to achieve,
like that's really the only way that he could truly achieve that.
Yeah.
Rope's great. If you haven't seen Rope, you've had time.
I didn't see Rope until much later in my Hitchcockian viewing.
I saw Rebecca as a kid.
Rebecca, rare window, all that stuff.
Rope is 1948 and then he would bring on another one of his players with Grace Kelly
in 1954 with Dylem for Murder.
Would I pick up the phone?
He must have come from behind those curtains and attacked me.
He got something around my neck.
Or something.
What do you mean by something?
I think it was a stalking.
I see.
After Dylem for Murder, Kelly and Stewart would team up for a rare window,
which is hailed as one of Hitchcock's best movies.
Good bud, Jeff.
Well you mean good night.
I mean what I said.
Well, well, laser.
Couldn't we just, uh,
couldn't we just keep things status quo?
Without any future.
Well, when am I going to see you again?
I'm not for a long time.
Kelly was the first of his infamous belongs only to leave Alfred for parents'
premiere of Monaco, to which many claim that the director was incredibly heartbroken.
He would go on to make Vertigo and North by Northwest,
but Hitchcock's most memorable hit is going to come in 1960.
With?
You know this one.
The hotel.
Motel.
The chocolates are up.
The quick cuts.
A mama's boy in a fear-inducing score.
By Bernard Herman and a new famous blonde.
Janet Lee.
Oh, that's right.
Janet Lee.
Mother too?
Jamie Lee Curtis.
Correct.
Psycho was really hard to get off the ground.
And even though Hitchcock was contracted for another film with Paramount,
they wanted him to keep doing his, you know, his like spy thrillers and that kind of thing.
They didn't want him to branch out. And so he believed in Psycho so much that he moved the production
to Universal.
Waved his director fee in lieu that he would get 60% of the stake in the film negatives
and finance the film through his own Shamley productions.
A budgetary decision was done by choosing to film in black and white to keep the film under a billion dollars.
A million dollars.
We're not into that deep of inflation yet.
It's like crazy.
A billion dollar movie in the 60s.
No wonder Universal was like, shut it down.
Get it out of here.
So that movie and that shower scene in particular are I think one of the most iconic moments in
cinema history.
And it's actually probably thanks to Alma.
So because of her continuity supervision, she would go and watch Psycho over and over again.
And she caught a shot of Janet Lee breathing and blinking.
And he was like, it's not in there.
And she was like, yes, it is.
It absolutely is.
And was very adamant about it.
And it got removed.
The fear of, oh my god, she looks dead.
And it's not like a freeze frame like he had done in so many things.
Thanks, Alma.
To bring you back to my film school days,
we had a Hitchcock week.
The two movies that we studied in depth was Rare Window and Psycho.
And within Psycho, we analyze the shower scene and like what made it so iconic.
And what made it so groundbreaking, like this is the first of so many things in cinema history,
like the water going down the drain or something like the first time we'd ever seen that.
Even though it's not as revolutionary, but like we just had to say like that's the first time
it ever happened.
And then going behind the scenes with like we mentioned the chocolate syrup before,
it was brought up in our studies, the fact that there was a moment where you saw her breathing.
Because the scene has been like studied and looked at so closely, people are like, well,
is she still alive?
Could she still be alive?
Something like that?
And it was just an overlooked detail that she just like happened to breathe in that moment.
And no one just like noticed that first.
That's her, what?
It's like her last breath.
There's like, there's a very intentional reason that that is in there.
And then they cut out the blinking and stuff that happened after.
Everything with it is so meticulous and it's such a well done film.
And if you go from her continuity supervision, like that being its own lane and that, you know,
she started in editing.
So if she's starting in editing and then watching the continuity of things,
that eye to detail sort of shapes his entire career.
And you have to consider how many cuts are actually in that scene alone because most of the
movies at the time is like, you set up a wide and you just let the actors just play out the whole
thing where in the edit comes the action.
In the sound design comes that fear of getting stabbed even though you don't really see
her getting stabbed at all.
Like there's the part where the like the knife goes like against her stomach.
But you never see the knife like actually stab into her.
You just kind of hear it and you just like, oh,
that cannelope sounding thing is definitely a person getting stabbed.
Yep.
Thanks Foley.
Yep.
I don't remember what year it is.
I think it's like 2012.
There's Hitchcock which has Anthony Hopkins playing Hitchcock and Helen Miren playing Alma.
A lot of that is factual based.
Not all of it.
But there is a scene where they talk about you can't show the toilet and you can't show
her getting stabbed.
This always makes me think of my whole jaws theory of just like this is how great films are made.
Is that you have to tell people no?
Things have to break.
There has to be a budget like creativity thrives under rules.
Yep.
There is creativity in limits.
What was the movie?
There was going to end in explosion but they didn't.
The limitation was in back to the future because the end of the movie was supposed to be an
atomic bomb going off and that's going to send him back into the future.
But because the universal, because the universal didn't have the budget to do that,
they're like, well, what can we do instead?
He's like, well, what if we just like drive down the road and get hit with a bolt of lightning?
It's like brilliant.
We'll do that instead and it's a lot cheaper than a massive explosion.
So not wanting to diminish the success and uniqueness of Psycho.
He didn't want to keep using Janet Lee even though he has his whole thing for blondes.
So he's going to go on now to work with Tippy Hadrian in the birds.
Yeah.
Cacar.
Of roar fame.
Of the birds fame.
Okay, that too.
What were the crows after at the school?
What do you think they were after?
Miss Daniels, I think they were after the children.
Who are burpers?
To kill them.
The birds was going to become another smashing success.
Have you seen the birds?
I have seen the birds.
How old were you when you saw the birds?
I don't recall the first time I ever saw the birds.
I think I saw when I was much younger and like seeing it on television and being told
that it's a very important movie.
I for sure saw it in college.
Part of my study is just like watch every movie.
Right.
I remember my goal when I was in college was to go through the IMDB top 100 movies.
Did you ever finish them?
Short answer is no, but I believe I got really close.
Fair enough.
But I got through a lot of those movies and the birds was definitely on there.
And also the birds was something that we studied in our film class, specifically the part where
the city's on fire.
You see like the gas station is like leaking gasoline and you show like it was a tippy-hundreds face.
They're like going back and forth and it was showing like this is how like how an audience
assumes someone's feelings through their reactions by showing what they are looking at.
Yeah.
I have a real life fear of the birds.
The movie does not scare me.
Thankfully because I saw it when I was older.
I remember talking to my grandma about the movie and she was like, it was terrifying.
Like the technology at the time just, she was absolutely terrifying the first time I saw it.
And she would be like, look how scruely it looks now.
I mean there are moments in there that are genuinely terrifying.
There's a moment where she is in the phone booth and like she's going to attack or like the part
where they have to go up into the attic and they're like filled with birds just like standing there
and they're like, don't move or move very cautiously otherwise they're going to get you.
And like that is a genuinely terrifying moment.
That moment happens in so many horror movies now.
If you think about a quiet place, a lot of his films are very instrumental.
In what way do we watch today?
Mm-hmm.
It's fascinating.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, Hitchcock's golden era is going to start to set
with Marney.
You don't love me.
I'm just something you've caught.
You think I'm some kind of animal you've trapped.
That's right you are.
And I've caught something really wild this time, haven't I?
I've tracked you and caught you and by God I'm going to keep you.
Originally, Marney was supposed to be played by Grace Kelly.
Yeah.
Her children were now grown.
She's finding a break in her royal duties.
And so Kelly signed on to reunite with Hitchcock.
Marney is about a sexually disturbed thief,
which Monaco was not exactly thrilled with their princess portraying.
And technically Grace Kelly never fulfilled her MGM contract,
which prevented her from working with another studio.
So unfortunately she could not come back.
And thus ending their entire working relationship,
because Grace wound up passing at the age of 52 in a freak car accident.
Yep.
She would wind up stepping in to play Marney.
And so those were the two films that she worked on with Hitchcock.
Reviews were incredibly mixed for Marney.
Eugene Archer of The New York Times wrote a lukewarm assessment calling it
at once a fascinating study of sexual relationship
and the master's most disappointing film in years.
He called it an amateurish script and the casting grise for the talents
of Grace Kelly and Carrie Grant.
With Marney behind him, Hitchcock was eager to get back to his roots
and started planning a prequel to Shadow of a Doubt.
Finding the right writer proved to be quite a task.
He wound up passing on Psycho writer Robert Block,
who found the story too harrowing.
So Ben Levy was brought in to flesh out the ideas.
What did he've previously written?
He worked with Hitchcock on a bunch of things.
Looks like he wrote a lot of plays.
Hollywood holiday, springtime for Henry,
Cuban and Psych.
But he was friends with Hitchcock, so basically,
that's how he got roped in.
So the story was to star a young handsome bodybuilder
and in some accounts he is described as a
"Mama's boy."
It sends a running theme in a lot of his films.
Willie Cooper would be known as the Mary Widow murderer,
a version of a character from Shadow of a Doubt,
who would lure young women to their deaths.
Three young women to be more precise.
The first was to be murdered by a waterfall.
The second, the murder of Patty Landis
to take place in an abandoned shipyard,
a set that would have become Hitchcock's largest.
The murder of Patty became known in many notes and discussions about the project
as the mothball fleet sequence
in which there is a bunch of emails and not email.
There's a bunch of letters because we're in the 1960s.
Yeah, if they were going to do emails,
this would have easily been a billion dollars.
My errors are deeply conflicting.
There's a bunch of letters back and forth that we'll get into.
And Hitchcock, we need to invent the internet first.
The infrastructure alone.
Almost like I'm busy fixing your move.
I don't have time to make the internet.
And then there would be the third murder,
which was the grand finale, which would take place at an oil refinery
with brightly colored drums,
a kaleidoscope of color,
and gore and violence and gore and violence
and just too much, too much gore.
So I could not find a script for kaleidoscope.
There's a lot of back and forth on what was fully true, what was not.
But there is a scene that was floating around
that seems to be the last remnants of the waterfall murder.
It's a long scene.
And you can feel the suspense building.
It's about Willie and Caroline,
who would have been murderous victim number one.
So they are walking along near this waterfall and Willie is like,
"Oh, we're gonna walk over this thing,"
and he winds up falling in and it becomes this playful thing.
And Caroline is like, "Here, take this sweater.
It was my brothers so that you can dry your clothes and cover yourself."
And they have a very interesting back and forth banter
that I found boring and also creepy at the same time.
But I am going to read a little bit of it
so that we can see how Hitchcock was writing.
Like you hear his voice in it.
We're gonna open on a big head of Willie.
He turns his face back towards her.
The camera pans slightly as Caroline's face comes into picture.
They look at each other,
the camera eases back slightly as he takes her in his arms and kisses her.
We see her arms go about him,
and the camera goes with them as he presses her back gently into the grass.
Close up, big profiles.
Filling the screen, the kiss at gray length.
Close up, Willie's hand, traveling over her back.
It moves on past her waist and we see his arm pressing her to him.
Big close up, the zipper, coming undone.
It fills the screen, we see Willie's hand come between their bodies as he starts to
unbutton Caroline's shirt.
Back to their notices and mouths, still kissing.
The camera gradually pulling away until the back of Willie's head fills the screen.
We see nothing but hair.
The camera continues to recede, passing a bush which obscures the lower part of their bodies
until their two reclining figures fill the screen.
The camera pulls away continually until the figures are so tiny and the waterfall fills the picture.
The camera is so far away now that we have lost sight of them all together.
The only sound is the loud roar of the waterfall,
which somehow seems to increase with the size of the picture.
Low camera shot, Willie. His feet fill the screen and the foreground we see that he has pants on.
The camera moves in until his head fills the screen, a cigarette dangles from his lips.
He's staring ahead, a puff of smoke emerges from his mouth.
The camera moves off him and down to the head and shoulders of Caroline.
She's lying on her back, the sweater by her head.
Her eyes are open and glazed.
There's a trickle of blood from one nostril.
His hand enters the shot and strokes her hair for a moment.
There are scratches on the back of his hand.
Close up Willie, he turns and eyes the body.
Close up the camera pans from the dead face down onto the body.
Close up Willie, his eyes are traveling down.
Close up the camera arrives on the girl's abdomen and we see rivulets of blood.
Long shot, the waterfall.
We see Willie rise.
He stoops to pick up some clothes, including his coat and shirt from the bush.
He glances down at the reclining figure which we see can faintly see and then he moves away.
He crosses the rock and goes back in the direction of his car.
Long shot, Willie.
In the distance, making his way towards his car, he gets in and drives off.
The camera pans into a different direction.
Up the road, round the bend we see a group of children.
Perhaps it doesn't or so, accompanied by an adult woman.
They are obviously out on a picnic and are singing together in unison and seeing.
It's really well done.
I know the rules of screenwriting is that you really don't want to put in camera movements in there,
but it's just clearly not written by Ben.
This is written by Hitchcock, trying to explain his idea.
Yeah, because that is very much how he operates is like where the camera goes,
what's happening in the camera because those movements, the camera angles, they have meaning
and they contribute to the story, which is probably why so many of his movies, like the shots,
the close-ups, everything.
It's like, it's specifically there because it's planned for way back in how he writes it and how he
plans for things.
I am curious is this written when the haze code is still enacted?
I don't know.
Because it seemed like it was hiding a lot and just like implying so like showing like the
drips of blood and whatnot.
Stop stealing my note!
It doesn't help that Hitchcock is one of the most studied filmmakers of just all time.
Idiot.
She just keeps up.
And when it comes to like what we know about him is what I studied in film school.
So it's gonna come out.
I have a film degree and I don't get to use it very often.
I use my English degree more often than than I should.
That's not true.
I use it a lot.
You use your film degree a lot now.
I do.
You're using it right now.
I am using it right now.
But there's a lot of moments where the English degree comes out and it's like,
I'm very grateful that I accidentally got that.
Yeah.
On like three theater majors over here.
Uh-huh.
[laughs]
How's your knowledge on Patty LePone?
Patty LePone has been on Broadway, yes.
I've known it.
Also was in Agatha All Long.
I thought I was like waiting for this like obscure theater cut to go out of your mouth.
Oh I know, nothing but theater.
And then you were like, Patty LePone.
I was like, oh!
My bread and butter.
Yeah, that's how I feel about Hitchcock.
And you're like, okay, bring it on.
I mean, I also, I genuinely love Hitchcock.
And something I don't have in my notes because I was like, oh,
this entire episode has to be handled with like a little bit of grace because of the subject matter.
But also, it turns out like he may not have been the nicest of people.
Oh no.
And it even showed in the multiple biopics that come out about him where he is notorious for being
awful on set in like treating the women on set awful as well, where he
genuinely believed in order for these actresses to get a genuine reaction.
He'd need to like literally scare them and just didn't trust that they could actually act
in a way that he needed them to.
Yeah.
And there's so many different angles on the story and then recounts of it that I was just like,
insert, hey, we know he's not nice.
Like there's not a butt.
He was not nice.
Also, shape, cinema.
Both are true.
Yeah.
With him shaping cinema and reading that, it feels like it's in his old style,
which is why I almost call bullshit on this scene.
I do think it is reminiscent of his style and it fits the story for all accounts that I've seen,
but the reason that I disagree is because that's not the style that Hitchcock wanted to shoot
kaleidoscope in at all. So he wanted kaleidoscope to be very raw and incredibly explicit.
He was drawing from French New Wave and Italian Jaloo films.
Jaloo, which, do you know what, Jaloo means Jaloo.
And he's talking about those like Jaloo paperback books.
Jaloo films are extremely graphic, very bloody, very explicit sexually.
Like it is kind of an answer to like the American haze code to be like,
if you are going to be milked toast about all of these subjects,
like we are going to show it.
We are going to make sure.
So you're talking the haze code.
Explain that to our listeners who don't know what the haze code is.
The haze code was a reaction to, because I don't know the specifics of the haze code.
I just remember it was like a restriction on there.
Where it was like a movement that was a reaction from a lot of religious folks who were kind of boy-cotting Hollywood
saying that they were too raunchy or explicit or anything like that.
You went to the lustful kissing.
Yeah, and it basically rose up to like the government kind of threatened to then censor a lot of
Hollywood scripts and they're like, okay, before we have any like government interventions,
it kind of became like a self-governing thing where they actually had people at the studio
to actually go through these scripts and like mark them up and be like,
this is allowed, this is not allowed.
You can't show this.
You're allowed to show this and like you would have to go through this approval process first
before making your film.
And that's when you get a lot of like any windows as well where you can kind of like skirt around
that, so like that joke of whenever like two people are kissing and then like hands over to like
the bed, the end table or the plant or like my favorite is like the train goes into the tunnel
or something like that.
Right.
Yeah, that's kind of one way that you can get around the haze code to then imply what you're trying to do.
So the haze code was from 1930 to 1968.
Okay, so he's operating within that time.
So I just looked it up really quick and it says by the late 1960s under the leadership of Jack
Valenti, the rigid code was dismantled entirely by 1968 and replaced by the MPA.
For those that like are listening that don't know what the MPA is, that is your G,
PG-13, your R, it's our rating system that we currently have today.
So this is a kind of fascinating point he's trying to do this new style of filmmaking
while the haze code is being phased out.
It makes me think that this script is not real.
Based on I want to shoot it in this different sort of style, there had to be talk that the
haze code was being phased out at this point because Marney was 1964 and this is after Marney.
So we're pre-being officially phased out.
It seemed like a lot of Hitchcock style is kind of shaped within the haze code and then
it kind of attributes to his style where the things that are hidden, things that are not shown
become tension in a way. Until after 1968.
But he loves that tension. He loves that idea and I know we'll talk about it in frenzy.
There's a specific moment that I thought was just brilliant. We'll save it.
But the idea of like when you don't see something and you kind of imply that something else is
happening, that's when your imagination can run wild and you can imagine terrible things are
happening. So I imagine that he's kind of just stuck in his ways where like if he had to operate
under those rules and found a way to make it really good, why not keep going with that?
Right. I do think that while American cinema was not ready for the version of
kaleidoscope that he wanted to make, it does seem like a very natural trajectory for his path.
He definitely, like you just said, like works within the haze code and uses it to his benefit.
But we also see him trying to use technology or new filmmaking things every,
like the birds was a huge advancement. So it makes sense that he would go, okay, well,
I've done A and B and C. I'm now going to go do X. Yeah. But I imagine that he was frustrated with
a lot of the Hollywood system pushing back on a lot of the decisions that he wanted to make.
So it makes sense that when the haze code then thus disappears, he's like, oh finally, like, I'm free!
Yeah, I'm no longer having to make movies with one arm tied behind my back. I can actually make
something that I truly can do without the restrictions. What also does not help kaleidoscope's case
is that it was inspired by real life murderers, which sort of his thing had gone for psycho. So for
kaleidoscope, it was inspired by two possibly three real life murderers. The first one was
Neville Heath, who was described as a charmer, a former Air Force officer who used his handsome nature
to prering on young women, taking them back to hotel rooms and committing acts of violence before
just fleeing the scene. I'm going to leave it at us, acts of violence. I do not advise looking up
this person. We are also not a true crime podcast. We are not. So Neville was convicted of killing two
women, Marjorie Garner, who was an artist and film extra that he absolutely tortured, and then
Dorine Marshall, who he learned to her death, and her body was found days later covered by Rotodendrams,
but then some of her possessions were found at like a beach hut nearby. So just not a nice man. But if
you listen to his description, he's a charmer, he's handsome. What does that remind you of?
He likes to lure young women. Oh, there's a famous serial killer. Zach Efron played him. Yes.
Al Bundy. Nope. You know, the guy from married with children. Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy.
This guy makes Ted Bundy look semi-normal. Knowing how horrific this person was, I kind of understand
being like, hey, let's not make this person cooler. Let's not continue to bring up their name
throughout all of history and be like, yeah, look at this film. The second person that was also
rumored to be inspiration is John Hague. Known as the acid bath murderer, Hague murdered at least
six people, thinking that if he dissolved their bodies, that the police wouldn't have evidence to
convict him. Plan worked out perfectly. Again, not a true crime podcast, but like what? Hague was going
after wealthy people dissolving them in sulfuric acid and then forging their signatures to sell their
property cash checks like, you know, your typical fraud, you know, evidence. Uh-huh. He was so close
to being like a Robin Hood figure. Yeah. But like a Roger rabbit version of it. Don't they put
the toys in? No, that's Christopher Lloyd's character. He does it. No. Thank you. Okay, fine.
The bad guy in Roger Rabbit. Let me be more specific. Uh-huh. There's so many rumors about this movie.
Everything is like, oh, man, I wish we would have gotten Hitchcock's kaleidoscope. And I'm like,
but what version? And so writer Ben seemed to agree with me in this letter to Hitchcock, where it's
got to be Heath, not Hague. The Heath story is a gift from heaven. You'd start with a straight romantic
meeting handsome young man and pretty girl. Maybe he rescues her from a drunk and escort. I can't
stand men who paw at the girl for everything. It gets us rooting for them. He perhaps is
unhappily married and therefore a model of screen hero restraint. She begins to find him irresistible,
just a little boy who can't cope with life. At least of all with domestic problems, such as he described.
Sounds a lot like Norman Bates. Sounds a lot like movies we've seen Hitchcock making.
Also, I'm suspicious of Ben when I hear the Heath story is a gift from heaven. But Ben goes on to say,
by the time we get to the climax of his love and action and his murder, then even the slowest of
us will get it. Basically, the whole point of kaleidoscope was that the film would be from the
killer's point of view and they would be the protagonist and Ben is saying, like, let's get us
rooting for the killer. That's a really hard thing to get behind for sure. And I can see why he's
having issues with it when we can't really glorify this guy. And it's really hard to, like, you think
protagonist and we're not really at that moment where like protagonist is the main character,
but protagonist is just good guy. Like, you even think of like the movie Dracula or Dracula is supposed
to be the bad guy, but we're not following Dracula that whole movie. Like, none of this feedback stops
Hitchcock. He decides he's gonna go to New York City, shoot an hour's worth of test footage,
and it didn't make you watch the test footage because I, your homework was frenzy instead.
Frenzy is like, g-rated compared to the footage. Hitchcock's plan was to shoot it in this
realistic handheld documentary style, which is really a hard left from everything he's
sort of at this point. And so armed with this footage, the script, and he came up with like
450 camera positions he wanted to be able to use. He goes to the MCA at Universal and is like, I'm
gonna strip all the lighting down to natural lighting. I'm gonna keep the budget under a million
dollars with a cast of unknowns, although there are rumors that rubber red for it and Michael Kane were
like, who, you know, wanted to go after. Pitch is all this to Universal and Universal's like this material
is relentless. Way too much for the 60s. They didn't like, I said, didn't love that the murder
was the protagonist. They didn't want you to find sympathy with the murderer. Which is, I think also
part of the Hades code that you can't find sympathy with a bad guy. It doesn't even have to do with
murder. It's like if it's a criminal in general, like you have to at the very end, there has to be
like some sort of punishment or some sort of come-up and I remember like watching some new R. I forget
the name of the movie, but like it seemed like a scene that was just tacked on as like a note from
the producer to be like, oh yeah, we also need to do this. And all it had was the main character
just like walking down the road. The police officer like drives up and he's like, oh, we've been
looking for you, gets arrested, that's the end of the movie. So I can see like coming from that
arrow to be like, so he's like, murderer. And at one point, like there was one rumored draft where
they were gonna have a police woman be a trap kind of thing of, you know, setting it up to be like
the next victim, but actually we're trying to catch this killer. Yeah. So you can tell that they
just kept trying to make it work in different ways. I wish that there was a way to pinpoint
exactly when they were going to universal because the rough dates of like when this movie was
always talked about are from After Marnie so in 64 through 72. He's in the right time to be like, hey,
you guys are getting rid of the haze code. Other cinemas across the world are doing these movies. Do
you want America to be left behind or like, and if someone's gonna handle the subject material,
who better than me? Yeah. But no universal was like hard pass hitch. So sorry, mum, for air.
There's a reason why I started our story where I started it and I think it's incredibly important
to get Elma's viewpoint on kaleidoscope. So she had concerns that some of the aspects would be
repetitions of psycho and she was actually heavily involved in the tone of suspense. And so I found
one of her letters, not emails, letters. And I think this encapsulates her in a really great way
where we figure out her tone and like her influence. And so she has to say he knows she's got a boyfriend
and may not get another chance. He goes to a lot of trouble to get her into the engine room. He
thinks the body won't be discovered for a long time. Maybe he shouldn't throw the body overboard.
He put on his coat and take the body into the shadows. The shadows of concealment. Then he comes out.
Now we've lost the suspense. Maybe he goes along the corridor of the ship, cross-cut with the men
in the work so it comes all out of a door and you practically walk right into their arms. He comes
out of a door. He runs. He hides. Maybe his feet make a noise. Then the men come running. They can't
see him. Cut to him climbing down the anchor chain. They don't know what shippee's on. Maybe they
think it's a gang of kids around. Oh, maybe there's a scream while they're on the ship. No, that's too
clumsy. She typed all this out. You can see her train of thought. And that train of thought to me is
of a writer, of an editor, of someone who knows the entire film process of a director in a way.
And I also think you can see the beats in her process reflect Hitchcock's films really well.
Hitchcock has this massive legacy of film, but I think the women surrounding him are really cool.
And there's almost a way that I'm kind of glad kaleidoscope didn't get made. While yes, I think it could
have been a very cool artistic new way for American cinema or British cinema or you want to look at it.
There's a way that women are filmed in his movies that is compelling. And I think this would have
changed his narrative for history. It seemed like a lot of what he was trying to do was just a proof
of concept over anything. It wasn't like he went out there to New York to get the hours worth of footage.
To be like, I'm gonna make this a movie or like turn this into a film. He is going into uncharted
territory and he needed to not only pitch the idea to Universal, he needed to have some sort of visual
to be like, I know how to make this work. And this is me showing you that I can potentially make
this work. And we can either move forward with like where cinema is going. What the rest of the
world is going or we can stay stuck in the past and I fear that you guys are gonna do that. Yeah, I mean
he was no stranger to unmade films. There's a reason why I chose this one. Not only because it is
one of the bigger ones from his career that people talk about and it is one that apparently like eight
away at him for all of his life. But looking through the long list of unmade movies, it very much
reminded me of the del Toro episode where it's just like, oh this creative man has all these ideas
and like you almost get to a point where you have more that aren't made than are.
He had a concept for phone booth because he loved that claustrophobic like nature. I'm talking about
the phone booth that we wound up getting in 2002 with Colin Farrell. Originally could have been a
Hitchcock film. Like I think I'd prefer to see that over kaleidoscope. But yeah, this movie
eight away at him so much that you can clearly see it in frenzy. So I made you watch frenzy. Yep,
but you had not seen before this. I've never seen frenzy before. Let's chat about frenzy.
So my impression of frenzy when I first saw it was I never thought of Hitchcock as a genre. And that was
something that occurred to me while watching the movie. It hit a lot of the beats that I recognize from
Hitchcock's film. You have the murderous aspect to it. You have the mistaken identity. Was it strangers
on a train? Yeah. Was one that I like immediately thought of when they're like the police are
looking for this specific eye when the actual killer is someone else. And having that knowledge of
who that person is, it immediately reminded me of his past film. So it made me realize that it's not
just the style that Hitchcock is putting out there. But he is drawn to a specific genre. He's drawn
to a specific type of story and he thrives and works so well in that story. It is a well that he
constantly comes back to. It seemed like he was just trying to kind of bring back that glory of like
what he had with like his signature films. And he's just trying to do this again with a lot of
at the time modern vernacular. So never have I heard Bob's your uncle actually said in a nonchalant way.
I heard that and I was like I know that that tickled Dan. It was so funny. Okay, after going through
this, you have the three bodies. He's handsome and charming and lures them back to a room.
Like I don't think that we need to seek kaleidoscope because he made it. Like the frenzy is
essentially yeah when you were describing what was supposed to be kaleidoscope it seemed very much like
frenzy was that movie. The fascinating thing is like frenzy comes out in 1972 so that his go
is gone. He has much more freedom like cinema changed greatly in the 70s. So it's interesting that if
he was so frustrated by not being able to make the film that he wanted to do that less than five
years later he was like frenzy. I did it. I made it. This is not kaleidoscope. This is frenzy. It's like
and frenzy does feel like a g-rated version of what he had planned for kaleidoscope. Yeah, I mean it
seems like it went through even though the haze code is gone but you have to go through a lot of steps
of just like can this be approved? Can we film this? Is this allowed? And it felt like he wrote the
script that he wanted to with everything included and then he got pushed back for a lot of what he wanted
and eventually ended up with frenzy. It could have started with kaleidoscope. He pitched it to
Universal though but it seems like instead of just getting a flat no he's just like all of what
changed the title of the United States. I'll rework it until like they finally accept and greenlight it.
Right and it's interesting to me that 1972 like a lot of the rumors were that this movie ate away
at him and he always wished he had done kaleidoscope the way that he wanted to do kaleidoscope and I was
like okay so then you made this movie in 1972 for someone who pushed boundaries I was like you could
have pushed the boundaries a little there. In 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes out so we're at that
time. But that was a movie that was made independently outside of the studio system and infiltrated into
the mainstream because of how popular it became work. Right but he had done that with psycho. Like he had
financed psycho himself so it's like he could have done that. I guess he could have. Yeah. It's just
interesting that frenzy is a fine movie. There's the one shot that I was like don't say anything. We'll
talk about it later. That one shot to me is like I could watch that over and over again. Can we talk
about that shot? Yeah. Okay. So the shot that we were talking about Robert is the murderer. We see
him actually act out a full murder in what is essentially like the first act of the movie.
And when it comes to the second victim instead of having to go through that whole process again
there he like lures up babs up into a up to the room and he repeats the same line that he did
with the matchmaker. I don't know if you know I babs but you're my type of woman.
Oh that the way he said it just like sent chills down my spine. The door shuts you like do a
pan out and what's really great. Whoever did the sound design for it. It just like it turns
deathly silent going through the hallway. You don't really hear anything and then it goes out
to the street and all year is just the sounds of the street just like flood and get louder
and knowing like you have that tension of knowing like something bad is happening. You're waiting
for her to scream. Yeah and maybe because modern day movies have ruined this for me like I thought
she was gonna get thrown out a window and we'd see her body hit the floor like. I didn't go that far.
I was waiting for the scream. She is getting strangled. You can't really scream when you're getting
strangled. No but there's like a tussle happening like I was waiting for some sort of not a body
but like a kerfuffle of something or to see him like walk out of the building. But nothing happens
at all. And you don't need it too. No it's the fact that that shot lingers for so long that you
just assume that something bad definitely happened and it does like we saw the potatoes. So
going off of what I just read about seeing all this train of thought there's the specific maybe they
hear a scream on the ship. No that's too clumsy. I saw that shot and I was like that was her.
It seemed like they tried to fight every single cliche. And it still works so well. Yeah I
like rewatched that specific shot so many times and I was like this is her work coming out in his
cell. Yeah. I think friends use a fun movie. The deaths are a little kooky nowadays.
They are. I mean I left out loud when like they showed the strangle face and her tongue was out.
The tongue is off to the side like she's clearly pushing out her tongue. Yes. And then it frees
frames and I was like. Probably because she couldn't keep it out like. Yeah she clearly couldn't
like keep that face and stay still long enough. They're like well we got to fix this somehow.
So fun question. Sure. Did you catch the hitchcock cameo? The two of them? Sure. I clearly own the
caught one. There's the group shot where everyone's like it gathered outside. There's the guy in the
soap box in the opening. Yes. And the keys in the crowd and then everyone's like. There's a girl in the river.
And it's the necktie killer. And that again harkens back to kaleidoscope of like it's the Mary
Wives killer or whatever. And I'm like oh we really just swaps. So then everyone goes to the river
and then we see another shot where like it's a closer shot on like a couple who is describing like
what they've heard. Yes. And reported about there. And like in the back you see hitchcock just like
staring he's like this is going exactly to plan. But this little bowler has seen that's the one
I caught. I didn't catch the why. Yeah I caught the wide one for sure. But I also knowing that this
is a hitchcock movie I was like he's gonna appear somewhere. So like I'm kind of on high alert when
it comes to the cameos. So while Alamos has been did not invent the cameo he actually does get credit
for like modern day audiences are like oh no he totally did. Originally that cameo was a budgetary
reason for their first film together called The Lager in 1927 in which he and Alamo both cameo.
I love this. Yeah she would only go on to cameo in one other film The Sabotage in 1936.
How many films do you think he cameoed in? Like in his own. I'm gonna say all of them.
It's not all of them. He did the show hitchcock presents as well. I'm just talking movies.
Just the movies. Just the moving pictures. I'm gonna say he was an all except two.
I mean I don't know what his full run of films was but he would he would go on to cameo in 40 movies.
Okay that's nuts. His own movies. Yeah okay he didn't cameo in any other movie.
Kubrick wasn't shooting next door and be like hey but he'd be really funny.
If I was also in the hotel. Here's Johnny. He's in the bear suit. Oh my god.
40 of his 52 surviving. He never cameoed it movies direct by other filmmakers.
Okay and then it became this fun game to hitchcock to see where he could like place himself.
But now viewing his whole career they sort of have become a signature in a way that an artist would
sign a painting. I mean literally his logo just became his silhouette outline. His profile.
But I have to say that I think that his truest signature is actually Alamo's input.
You can see it in this whole through line throughout his entire career and even though she's not
credited on everything I do think she touched every inch of what he did. In 1982 there's actually
quote the hitchcock touch had four hands and two of which were Alamo's. And hitchcock himself in
1979 got the AFI life achievement award the year before he died. He wanted to mention.
Only four people who have given me the most affection appreciation and encouragement
and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor. The second is a script writer.
The third is the mother of my daughter Pat. And the fourth is a finer cook as ever performed miracles
in a domestic kitchen. And their name for Alamo Revolo.
I would see maybe Alamo's kaleidoscope. Yeah I would. And then my favorite line in frenzy which we
didn't really talk about. Oh it wasn't Bob's or Uncle. It was not Bob's or Uncle. It's to me one of the
on the list of underrated characters in the hitchcock film is the wife of the detective.
Oh I love those scenes. Okay say the line first and we'll talk about it.
No we'll end there. Let's talk about the weird dinners. The weird dinners are great.
And I love that the detective is trying to be like you know he was left at this diner where they
have normal food you know like not. Or fishhead. Or squid or whatever gray matter that is
trying to agree stuff it's delicious. So I love how enthusiastic she is and I feel like she's just
testing them. You would never see her actually the food. No that's what I'm saying like she's
genius and she's such a comedic relief. Oh it's so funny. And so my favorite quote was she says to him
so good. That's much better than the line that I really liked. Mine is the Gucci line at the end where
it's like you're not wearing your tie. And with that hitchcock's gal either slope.
That's great. Like I knew a lot about hitchcock's style and how he operated but I never really dove
into the career of hitchcock which is very eye-opening. And watching Frenzy see in a movie that
is not one of hitchcock's like staple films is really interesting to see especially like this is
in his later career. They say it's the last great film he ever made. Frenzy was great. I'm glad you
made me watch it. It is really interesting to see like how kind of his career just kind of like
guided him to create his own type of film. Like I said when I watched Frenzy it suddenly dawned on me
that hitchcock is not just the filmmaker but it just kind of turned into his own kind of genre.
Yeah I mean there's a reason people will say things are hitchcocking. Yes. I just found it fascinating
that they were born a day apart. They got this job at the same company and then they got hired
on to do these things at the same time. They never really had successes without the other. Yeah.
So there you go. Alma's husband's kaleidoscope. Yeah and I really love that you brought it from
Alma's perspective because like I mentioned at the beginning like editing is a very important
and kind of overlooked part of filmmaking but like I mentioned there are a lot of filmmakers who
wouldn't be where they are. And a lot of times not just editors but like women editors behind them
to really. Pat and I as well has a really great sound. Any movie that you love chances are
it was directed by a man edited by a woman which means a woman directed it. It's a dude with his
camera dick just pointing it everywhere just I'm just shooting fucking film. Oh my god just 18 miles of
it. Look at this fucking every frame is a painting. Oh my god I'm making the masterpiece. Oh
fuck I'm done. Yeah. Oh fuck I shot a lot of film. Oh man. You see all that film I shot?
Holy shit. Shot film everywhere man. Oh fuck. I'm a genius. I'm a genius. It's all me. I did it myself.
Woo! And the woman's got to show up. We all done sweetie? Okay. Out she go. I gotta make a story out of this mess.
No we're not gonna we're not gonna release an 18 hour movie sweetie. No.
No. The Hitchcockian style is truly both of them. And in reading bits of her actual letters I was like
oh I can read the tone from that. Yeah you can tell like she's also trying to put the story together
like that letter perfectly encapsulates like oh this part of the story is working this part is not
how do we avoid the cliches how do we make this better? Yeah and one of the things I didn't even
include is like they're exchanging the letters with Ben she even says like is this a repetition of
psycho? She's the one that's constantly like checking the backlog of things to go okay are we doing
something new or how can we keep this fresh and without her because of the subject matter of a lot
of his movies could have been skewed massage and it's very easily. Mm-hmm. And some do but there's
also a reason why people love them and I do think having her touch saved them from skewing too far one way.
Yeah. Almost kaleidoscope. Yep, almost has been scalyascope. Mm-hmm.
[laughs]
We're back from the ads. From Almas ads. Let's go through our recommendations. Is there anything you
want to recommend? The only thing I've watched recently is a lot of hacks still. I've started
hacks over but then I also started Widows Bay on Apple TV. I've been hearing really good things about
Widows Bay. I am enjoying myself I think. I'm 100% glad I got made. I think tonally it is
Kuku Banana pants in a fun spooky way. Yeah from what I've heard is like it presents itself as horror
mystery at the beginning. Mm-hmm. But it goes along as a comedy. Yes and then also like a period piece
just when I'm like okay it's gonna dig it's like nah Zaghan and I'm like I'd okay so like I don't
know that I am in love with it but I like it from a this is fresh and different and that perspective.
What a glowing recommendation. Yeah. Widows Bay. Apple TV. Check it out. Okay. For my recommendation.
Because I wanted to keep it in theme with what we were doing today. I- Well aren't you fancy?
Oh wait mine's technically carrying on. I wanted to recommend the TV show Colombo
but specifically in this is kind of real from the 80s? From the 70s. Yeah. Is this because we talked
about murder she wrote. It might have dawned from that but it also is somewhat relevant today because
it's the very first episode the pilot episode. It is called Murder by the Book. No. It feels
kind of like a Hitchcock movie especially with a lot of the setups a lot of the close-ups a lot
of the tone of the rest of the show is anchored from the pilot episode and the pilot episode
to make this relevant to today is directed by Steven Spielberg. Wow. Yeah. Of disclosure day. Of
disclosure day. This is like right before he directed dual he was still working for Universal as just
like a TV director. I know what I'm watching today. And knowing Steven Spielberg style and knowing
Hitchcock style you can tell that Spielberg is definitely borrowing a lot from Alfred Hitchcock
because like he learned a lot from him. He did. He actually just had an interview where they were like
what's one part you know the dead are alive who's the person that you want to have at dinner
and he chose Alfred Hitchcock. Just like the first scene of the pilot episode I actually just like
re-watched it is just so brilliant like there's not a word that said and there's like so much that's
established just through the shots alone. What is Colombo currently on? It's on Pecock.
I knew that's what how that was gonna come out. For those of you that don't speak Daniel that's
peacock as in NBC's peacock. Yeah that's what I said peacock. I've seen a lot of Colombo. I watched a lot of
we were talking about murder she wrote earlier this week which also I'll recommend that every episode.
I don't know they've seen the pilot of Colombo. I had to at some point. Yeah but definitely watch
the pilot like knowing that it's Steven Spielberg not attempting to do but like knowing that he is
heavily inspired by Hitchcock at that time. I like this like picking the recommendation
based off of the episode that's fun. I might steal that little nugget. Yeah that is my recommendation.
Okay so our handles have all changed. The handles have changed the show name has changed.
Set and Stone. Yeah I spent a whole day going through stuff like even stuff that I'd even realize
that we had for a while like we have a twitch channel. I did change the name of a twitch channel. We
haven't used that in like forever. I don't know we ever had a twitch channel. When did you was that for?
I did a quiz show with David and Alexa. Okay okay okay so when did we? So to find us on any social media
you can look up at development purgatory on pretty much all the socials all around. You can find
us on patreon as well under the same development purgatory. There is only one social media handled
that is different and that is blue sky. Blue sky we are dev purgatory. Yeah the only reason why we
had to do that is because blue sky likes to mimic. B-sky? Yeah B-sky likes to I mean it was modeled
after Twitter. Yeah 100% and Twitter also had the character restrictions. So that was the only
reason why Twitter that handle was different from like the Instagram and the TikTok handle is because
there is a character limitations on that look up development purgatory. You'll be able to find us
see where posting and blue sky dev purgatory. Yeah you can support the show like I mentioned before
through our patreon that is how you can directly support the show. Otherwise you can support the show
just tell smash that like. Yeah subscribe to the show tell your friends family whoever you know
that is a film nerd or not a film nerd get them into film yeah go see a movie and go see go watch
movie. Go watch Colombo. Watch Colombo on a train. Stop that train go see a movie. I forgot that's
awful. Yeah go see movie.