Another
souvenir Hitchcock brought back from Germany was the playful tyranny in his
persona; a tyranny that was very German, mingled with playfulness that was very
much his own.
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At
Elstree in the late 1920s emerge the first eyewitness accounts of a director
who sometimes ruled the set like a fuhrer, manipulating the people and the
atmosphere the way he manipulated pieces of film - achieving darkness or light
according to his mood.
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To
get what he wanted on film, he was capable of behaving like a dictator, or a
circus clown. Like other tales of Hitchcock hubris, these stories have grown
and been exaggerated over the years. The penchant for elaborate, sometimes
borderline-ugly practical jokes was widespread during this era. Hitchcock was
not the only practical joker at B.I.P (or, later, Gaumont); the trend was
industrywide. People say, for example, that whenever Monta Bell - an American
who was "literary editor" of Chaplin's Woman in Paris before turning
director - was on the lot, the madness was rife.
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Sometimes
Hitchcock's "odd behavior" was simply good publicity.
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Teatime,
for example, was a treasured afternoon break, and so it was fodder for the
columnists when Hitchcock took to hurling crockery over his shoulder, signaling
"Back to work!" after drinking his cuppa. "I always do it when
I'm feeling good," Hitchcock explained one time. "I like to get up
onto a high rostrum with a camera, and tip the tray over. Or push cups over the
edge of a platform. Or just open my hand and let the whole thing drop. Wouldn't
you?"
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The
first time he did it, Hitchcock told the press, one of his favorite crew
members split his sides with laughter - a sure invitation to repeat
performances. Soon he was expected to smash all his teacups. Such eccentricity
woke people up, and made for an exclamation mark in an otherwise humdrum day.
The crew relished it, which was sensible policy.
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Hitchcock
also hated uninvited visitors to the set, especially members of the general
public on courtesy tours (ironic considering his later association with
Universal Studios, packager of the most lucrative studio tour in film history).
So, when such tours materialized, Hitchcock would switch to German, shouting
curses and obscenities - all the more amusing when the visitors were priests
accompanied by ecclesiastical students.
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Most
of his practical jokes were innocent: hosting formal dinners with all the food
tinged with blue coloring, placing whoopee cushions under the hinds of stuffy
guests, plying uptight people with strong drink and watching as they came
unglued. Some were elaborate and expensive: tying quantities of kippers onto
the bumpers of a victim's fancy car, ordering a load of coal to be dumped on
someone's front doorsill.
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But
practical joking was also a matter of one-upmanship - a game Hitchcock was
driven to win at all costs. Assistant cameraman Alfred Roome recalled how the
director used to poke fun at his posh, beetle-size Austin-Healey, and one day
requisitioned the car for a conference with floor manager Richard
"Dickie" Beville. Both hefty men, Hitchcock and Beville squeezed
inside the vehicle, pointedly annoying Roome, who felt his private vehicle
ought to be off-limits. Roome went in search of a smoke pot, found one in
storage, placed it underneath the Austin-Healey, and then lit the fuse.
"You never saw two fat men get out of a car quicker," recalled Roome.
"Hitch never tried anything again on me. He respected you if you hit back.
If you didn't, he'd have another go."
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No
question, some of his jokes had a bullying quality that disturbed people.
Actors he didn't like or considered "phony" were special targets for
sarcasm or pranks. Hitchcock said defensively in a 1972 televised interview
that he never meant to harm or denigrate anyone. But everyone knew his jokes
were at their worst when a film wasn't going right.
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Oh,
my son couldn't be a murderer, Bruno's mother (Marion Lorne) exclaims in
Strangers on a Train; it must be one of his practical jokes. "Sometimes he
goes a little too far," she sighs.
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People
reflexively cite the case of Dickie Beville. Beville always seemed to suffer
the worst, most humiliating Hitchcock persecution. One notorious time,
Hitchcock bet Beville he couldn't last a night in handcuffs. Before Hitchcock
locked the cuffs, however, he tricked Beville into drinking coffee laced with a
strong laxative. Even though there are wildly conflicting versions of this
anecdote - the only consistent touch is the handcuffs - the story is widely
accepted as gospel in English film annals. Poor Beville, it is said, spent a
long diarrheic night, thanks to cruel Hitchcock.? (Typical of the wild, disparate versions,
cinematographer Jack Cardiff wrote in his autobiography that man's name was
Harry, the laxative was in his beer, and after Harry was sodden and soiled he
was pushed out of his car by Hitchcock "in the middle of nowhere,"
leading to Harry's arrest "on suspicion of being an escaped
convict.")
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Patrick
McGilligan "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" (2003)
