From Publishers Weekly
Director Hitchcock is in a class by himself. His legendary films, including Rear Window, The 39 Steps and Notorious, coupled with his TV show, Alfred Hitchock Presents, aired his singular brand of evil and salvation. In this enthralling, scholarly and candid appraisal of the artist, McGilligan, a biographer of James Cagney and Jack Nicholson, neatly reveals the man behind the camera. A quiet Catholic boy from London's East End, Hitchcock (1899- 1980) began as a production designer on silent films and eventually became Britain's premier movie director. David Selznick tapped him for Hollywood, and although their relationship was stormy, it spelled success. Hitchcock, who claimed, "I'm not interested in logic, I'm interested in effect," quickly redefined the medium. He told his stories visually, invented innovative camera angles and reveled in suspense tales. Always, he was aided by his wife, Alma, an invaluable partner on every project. A Hitchcock film "characteristically mingled light with darkness," possibly because its creator was so conflicted. Hitchcock adored gossip, dirty jokes and icy blondes, though, sexually impotent, he could not consummate his desire; his voyeurism instead played out on screen. He relished the occasional cruelty, but it did not obscure his genius or his generosity. He worked tirelessly for the British war effort, though America was committed to neutrality until Pearl Harbor, and was deeply loyal to old friends. McGilligan has crafted an inside look at this unique director and the studio machinations that sustained him. Film buffs will relish how power and creativity play out in Hollywood. The rest will learn how obsession can produce art. 32-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The author of the useful George Cukor (1991) and Fritz Lang (1997), biographies of film directors less documented than Hitchcock, now turns to that perhaps most-written-about filmmaker of all. Of course, the last major biography (as opposed to various kinds of studies) came 20 years ago, and McGilligan's effort incorporates many significant findings made since. It also serves as a corrective to Donald Spoto's Dark Side of Genius (1983), which focused unduly on Hitchcock's baser qualities. McGilligan portrays Hitchcock as driven by his neuroses, but also as a devoted husband and father and a clear-headed businessman. Still, the gist of the volume focuses on its subject's inventive filmmaking in detailed accounts on the making of each of his 60 movies, with particular attention paid to the screenwriters, many of them relative tyros, with whom Hitchcock collaborated. McGilligan's valuable discoveries include short fiction by a 19-year-old Hitchcock; his insights, illumination on Hitchcock's flawed final films. So detailed and readable that it is hard to imagine another Hitchcock biography will be needed 20 years hence. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Publishers Weekly
"Enthralling, scholarly, and candid."


Book Description

In a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock was the dominant figure in the first century of cinema. His films -- from The 39 Steps to The Birds, from Rear Window to Vertigo, from Notorious to Psycho -- set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling élan. He was both visionary artist and consummate entertainer ... and became the most widely recognized director who ever lived.

In the decades since his death, the public image of Hitchcock has crystallized into a series of iconic images: the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense. But this remarkable new biography -- the first in a quarter-century -- draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man, in all his three-dimensional glory. Here is the comprehensive film craftsman, forever pushing forward the boundaries of his art. Here is the passionate collaborator, who cheekily referred to actors as "cattle" but invigorated the careers of Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly. Here is the insatiable provocateur, testing the limits of his audience with his cocktails of sex and violence. And here, too, is the private man: dedicated romantic, constant trickster, impotent voyeur, devoted husband, a man who sacrificed his life, again and again, for his work.

Like the best Hitchcock films, Patrick McGilligan's life of Hitchcock is a drama full of fresh revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humor, and cliff-hanging suspense: a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.


About the Author
Patrick McGilligan's biographies include the highly acclaimed FRITZ LANG: THE NATURE OF THE BEAST and GEORGE CUKOR: A DOUBLE LIFE, which were both NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR. Among his other books are biographies of Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Robert Altman, and James Cagney, along with the oral history TENDER COMRADES: A BACKSTORY OF THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST (with Paul Buhle). McGilligan lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock was the dominate figure in the first century of cinema. His films - from The 39 Steps to The Birds, from Rear Window to Vertigo from Notorious to Psycho - set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling elan. He was both visionary artist and consummate entertainer and became the most widely recognized director who ever lived.

In the decades since his death, the public image of Hitchcock has crystallized into a series of iconic images: the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense. But this new biography - the first in a quarter-century - draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man, in all his three-dimensional glory. Here is the comprehensive film craftsman, forever pushing forward the boundaries of his art. Here is the passionate collaborator, who cheekily referred to actors as 'cattle' but invigorated the careers of Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly. Here is the insatiable provocateur, testing the limits of his audience with his cocktails of sex and violence. And here, too, is the private man, dedicated romantic, constant trickster, impotent voyeur, devoted husband, a man who sacrificed his life again and again for his work.

Like the best Hitchcock films, Patrick McGilligan's life of Hitchcock is a drama full of fresh revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humor, and cliff-hanging suspense, a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

It's the story of Hitchcock the professional that McGilligan has chosen to emphasize. What anchors this biography is tale after tale of "the farsighted preparation and hard, hard work" that went into making those 53 great, good and indifferent films. Hitchcock may have been a glutton for rich food and fine wine, as we learn, but he had an even larger appetite for infinite detail in getting a film ready to shoot: months of scriptwriting and revision, laying out shot sequences, planning sets, costumes and camera angles. — Robert Sklar

Publishers Weekly

Director Hitchcock is in a class by himself. His legendary films, including Rear Window, The 39 Steps and Notorious, coupled with his TV show, Alfred Hitchock Presents, aired his singular brand of evil and salvation. In this enthralling, scholarly and candid appraisal of the artist, McGilligan, a biographer of James Cagney and Jack Nicholson, neatly reveals the man behind the camera. A quiet Catholic boy from London's East End, Hitchcock (1899- 1980) began as a production designer on silent films and eventually became Britain's premier movie director. David Selznick tapped him for Hollywood, and although their relationship was stormy, it spelled success. Hitchcock, who claimed, "I'm not interested in logic, I'm interested in effect," quickly redefined the medium. He told his stories visually, invented innovative camera angles and reveled in suspense tales. Always, he was aided by his wife, Alma, an invaluable partner on every project. A Hitchcock film "characteristically mingled light with darkness," possibly because its creator was so conflicted. Hitchcock adored gossip, dirty jokes and icy blondes, though, sexually impotent, he could not consummate his desire; his voyeurism instead played out on screen. He relished the occasional cruelty, but it did not obscure his genius or his generosity. He worked tirelessly for the British war effort, though America was committed to neutrality until Pearl Harbor, and was deeply loyal to old friends. McGilligan has crafted an inside look at this unique director and the studio machinations that sustained him. Film buffs will relish how power and creativity play out in Hollywood. The rest will learn how obsession can produce art. 32-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Oct.) Forecast: There are loads of books available on Hitchcock, but the market may be ripe for a new one; nothing groundbreaking has come along in the past four or so years. Taschen is publishing the heavily illustrated Alfred Hitchcock by Paul Duncan in November, which, paired with McGilligan's book, could make a smart display. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In this ambitious biography, McGilligan (Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast) notes that Alfred Hitchcock was not only a master of suspense but also "the ultimate magician of the cinema." Drawing on original interviews with the director's friends and associates, as well as documents from Hitchcock's archives, he uses contradiction as a theme throughout. While Hitchcock maintained a professional atmosphere on the set, for instance, he was famously aloof toward actors ("cattle") and could be petty and vindictive to loyal collaborators. Hitchcock was also devoted to his longtime wife and trusted critic, Alma Reville, yet he enjoyed voyeurism and propositioned, then sexually harassed, actress Tippi Hedren. The films themselves, including Hitchcock's best-remembered entries from his personal "golden age" of the 1950s, are also addressed, but primarily through details and anecdotes. Those looking for more analysis of themes and motifs, then, should seek out Fran ois Truffaut's interviews (Hitchcock) and Robin Wood's eccentric but informative Hitchcock's Films Revisited. McGilligan's is a more balanced portrait than Donald Spoto's The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, and it offers broader coverage of the director's productive late period than can be found in John Russell Taylor's Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock. For large public and academic film collections.-Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews