If Alfred Hitchcock directed a Bond movie
osmir007
Posts: 23MI6 Agent
What if Alfred Hitchcock (on top of his game at that time) had a chance to direct a Bond movie ?
Would it be a good Bond movie ? and how would it be ?
Remember what he said :
-I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
-When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'
-A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.
Would it be a good Bond movie ? and how would it be ?
Remember what he said :
-I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
-When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'
-A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.
Comments
But if it were like his closest work to the genre - Topaz - than God forbid...
Yes, than that would be amazing.
Now Topaz, I feel, was Hitchcock's attempt at doing a Bond film or something close to that... exotic locales, spies, political conspiracies, beautiful women (Karin Dor!) all wrapped up in a howlingly boring package. Man, that's almost Hitchcock's rock bottom...
And if, is that good ?
Well, we'd have to ask the cast & crew of Marnie about that.
A Bond movie by Hitchcock in around 56/57 might have been interesting, but I'll return to his character trait; how do you create suspense when the climax is signposted from the first frame?
@merseytart
Good points.I think Notorious gives us an idea of how Hitchcock might've handled something like Casino Royale.North by Northwest--being to a great degree a selfsalute to all of his innocent man on the run things(beginning with The 39 Steps)shows how he'd have handled action.But you're correct,I think,because it's doubtful Hitchcock would've been very interested in coming up with anything as (generally)tightly plotted as one of Fleming's better stories.Hitch was always one to look for a way to put his special stamp on each film--whether the movie needed it or not.And as Cat points out,he was disinclined to be faithful to any literary adaptations.David O.Selznick had an exceedingly difficult time getting Hitch to direct Rebecca as scripted and without his special "florishes"(such as naming the nameless narrator Daphne,and depicting the mysterious Maxim deWinter riding around in a speedboat-a cigar firmly clamped between his teeth).
I remember reading that Hitch grew bored while making Topaz and rather than use the original Leon Uris climax(which is pretty dramatic and definitely cinematic--IMO)he came up with 3 alternate endings instead--none of which he liked.
It's nothing like Bond because again, it's the story of an "ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances." Professor Armstrong might do the work voulantarily, but he's still a physics professor, not a spy. But at least it's a rathar good movie.
...So, Hitchcock never would have directed a Bond picture.
But, if he had, I would say, think "Notorious" meets "North by Northwest," and it would have been very entertaining---and a 'one off.'
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Well yeah- but that's just a detail; you may as well say he isn't called 'James Bond' so it's nothing like a Bond film. But the fun tone, the travelling, expensive lush environments, stylish and witty hero, jokes, action and evil cultured villain, plus it even being involved in the spy world (although that isn't important to the similarity) make it very much a prototype Bond movie. It has many more surface similarities than the other alternate Bond series- Indiana Jones.
Bond playfully riffs on Hitch scenes.. the helicopter climax of FRWL is like the crop dusting scene in North By Northwest... the white knuckle car ride by the feisty female drive in Thunderball lifted from To Catch A Thief, the awkward and protracted killing in the elevator in DAF like a similar scene in Torn Curtain...
But Hitch's powers were arguably fading by the mid-60s and he was turning increasingly misogynistic(sp?) in his depiction of women, and no that's nothing like the alleged msygonoy ?:) that Bond is said to indulge in. Hitch's films are informed by a Catholic guilt of sorts that have no place in 007's world.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
(Obviously some details would have to be changed to make it more Bondian, but I imagine that would be relatively easy.)
And compared to DN,FRWL,TB GF lacks suspense!
I guess this is what Bond17+ (Bond17 and UP) needs or lacks!
Perfect for Bond.
There's a book due out shortly providing a thorough examination of Marnie, one of Hitchcock's several films with Tippi Hedren and co-starring Connery circa GF (inexplicably playing an American ... a Texan, no less, as I recall) so we may well find out.
(Curious they should choose to dissect Marnie, generally not well thought of in Hitch's pantheon, particularly some of the gimmicky "SFX". I can't ever get enough of the Birds but aside from a great Cinefantastique analysis 20 years ago, there's not been alot written about it.)
As for whether or not Hitch would have been a good choice to direct a Bond, we probably need to underscore what's been posted elsewhere here about Hitchcock's domain being the innocent man swept up by forces beyond his control; those films--North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, etc.--are among his best. Hitchcock's strengths seem counter to what makes a good 007 film.
Although he died long before Bond rolled around, I would like to have seen Victor Fleming as director.
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
I agree that he would do well with something of the Goldfinger ilk which contained mostly sets and performing in front of screens. But anything from the Brosnan era would be a distinct no-no.
So you think that LTK and TLD would be a no no for him
Well, Hitchcock is my all time favorite director, and Bond my all time favorite character, that could had been the greatest mix of film history...
he was about revolutionary camera work, a visual vocab of paranoia, a black sense of humour, victimised blondes with a hidden dark side, ambiguous heroes getting creepy, mistaken identity and loss of faith in ones identity, voyeurism and the implication of his audience, staircases and more staircases, and... spy stories
all his classic 30s films were spy stories, as were many of his 40s films
he would have been past his prime when the connery films were being made, but 50s Hitch at the height of his powers, the Hitch that made Rear Window and Vertigo, would have made the 007 films an awesome series indeed
he never would have fallen into the formula the Brocolli series did, he was too much of an experimentalist for that, thus each film would have a radical new take, much like fleming actually tried to do with his books
also, i think Hitchcocks Bond would be amuch more morally ambiguous character, discovering his capacity for cruelty as required and feeling revulsion at the realisation of who he can be and has to be to do his job - think about the headtrips that nice Jimmy Stewart experiences in the 2 films named above, that sort of thing would make for excellent Bond films, be true to Fleming, and be much more interesting as movies than much of what we have in the Brocolli-verse
on the downside Hitch hated filming on location, so that could rob us of much of the spectacular sightseeing content, but even then he did somehow give us all those fantastic shots of San Francisco in Vertigo, and the French Riviera in to Catch A Thief...
Anyway that's the reason perhaps that GF went in a different direction slightly.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
North by Northwest, IMHO, is Hitchcock doing a splashy remake/expansion of a couple of his older classic films: The 39 Steps, of which I know you're a big fan (as am I)...and Saboteur, one of his earliest Hollywood pictures. Both, like NBNW, featured the classic element of the 'Everyman' caught in extraordinary circumstances. However similar the story elements between NBNW and GF (or any other Bond, for that matter) may be, Bond was never 'Everyman.'
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Revealed: The secret telegram that shows Ian Fleming wanted Alfred Hitchcock to direct the first Bond film
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144638/Revealed-The-secret-telegram-shows-Ian-Fleming-wanted-Alfred-Hitchcock-direct-Bond-film.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.hmss.com/films/carygrant007/