Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes [NOOK Book]

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Overview

In spring 1953, the great director Alfred Hitchcock made the pivotal decision to take a chance and work with a young writer, John Michael Hayes. The four films Hitchcock made with Hayes over the next several years—Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much—represented an extraordinary change of style. Each was distinguished by a combination of glamorous stars, sophisticated dialogue, and inventive plots, and resulted in some of Hitchcock’s most distinctive and intimate ...
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Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes

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Overview

In spring 1953, the great director Alfred Hitchcock made the pivotal decision to take a chance and work with a young writer, John Michael Hayes. The four films Hitchcock made with Hayes over the next several years—Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much—represented an extraordinary change of style. Each was distinguished by a combination of glamorous stars, sophisticated dialogue, and inventive plots, and resulted in some of Hitchcock’s most distinctive and intimate work, based in large part on Hayes’s exceptional scripts.

Screenwriter and film historian Steven DeRosa follows Hitchcock and Hayes through each film from initial discussions to completed picture and also reveals the personal story—filled with inspiration and humor, jealousy and frustration—of the initial synergy between the two men before their relationship fell apart. Writing with Hitchcock not only provides new insight into four films from a master but also sheds light on the mysterious process through which classic motion pictures are created.

This updated edition includes previously unpublished archival material such as Alfred Hitchcock’s dubbing notes for Rear Window, deleted script sequences, Hitchcock’s own notes on John Michael Hayes’s screenplay for The Man Who Knew Too Much, and forty-four illustrations.
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Editorial Reviews

George Robinson
DeRosa describes the relationship in meticulous detail, providing fascinating evidence of the extreme care with which Hitchcock chose his writers.
Allison Burnett
Steven DeRosa's book eloquently reminds us, someone actually had to sit down and write the scripts. 'Writing With Hitchcock' offers not only entertaining biographical sketches of both men, chockful of anecdotes, but a thorough illumination of the Hitchcock/Hayes collaboration: how it worked, who contributed what, and how it ended.
Donald Spoto
John Michael Hayes wrote the screenplays for a quartet of Alfred Hitchcock's perennially popular film classics. Steven DeRosa skillfully shows just how the works took shape and why Hayes must be ranked as one of Hollywood's great writers. —Donald Spoto, author of The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
Joseph Stefano
With diamond clarity, Steven DeRosa defines the art, the joy, the rewards—and the hazards—of screenwriting for a cinematic genius like Alfred Hitchcock. —Joseph Stefano, screenwriter of Psycho
Curtis Hanson
For many, Hitchcock is and has been the very definition of ‘cinematic auteur.’ Steven DeRosa's book gives us fascinating insight into the collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, a collaboration that resulted in four of the master's finest films. The auteur did not work alone. —Curtis Hanson, director of L.A. Confidential
Donald Spoto
John Michael Hayes wrote the screenplays for a quartet of Alfred Hitchcock's perennially popular film classics. Steven DeRosa skillfully shows just how the works took shape and why Hayes must be ranked as one of Hollywood's great writers.
—Donald Spoto, author of The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
George Robinson
DeRosa describes the relationship in meticulous detail, providing fascinating evidence of the extreme care with which Hitchcock chose his writers.
Allison Burnett
Steven DeRosa's book eloquently reminds us, someone actually had to sit down and write the scripts. 'Writing With Hitchcock' offers not only entertaining biographical sketches of both men, chockful of anecdotes, but a thorough illumination of the Hitchcock/Hayes collaboration: how it worked, who contributed what, and how it ended.
Curtis Hanson
For many, Hitchcock is and has been the very definition of ‘cinematic auteur.’ Steven DeRosa's book gives us fascinating insight into the collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, a collaboration that resulted in four of the master's finest films. The auteur did not work alone.
—Curtis Hanson, director of L.A. Confidential
Joseph Stefano
With diamond clarity, Steven DeRosa defines the art, the joy, the rewards—and the hazards—of screenwriting for a cinematic genius like Alfred Hitchcock.
—Joseph Stefano, screenwriter of Psycho
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780983205616
  • Publisher: CineScribe Media
  • Publication date: 2/8/2011
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 400
  • Sales rank: 849,678
  • File size: 3 MB

Meet the Author

Steven DeRosa is a screenwriter and has also worked as an editor of movie theater previews. He has lectured on screenwriting and film at NYU’s Hitchcock Centennial Conference, The American Museum of the Moving Image, Film Forum, and New School University, and has been a contributing writer to the Writers Guild of America Awards.

Steven can be seen on-screen in the feature length documentary, The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style, available on Warner Home Video’s 50th Anniversary Blu-ray of North by Northwest, as well as in featurettes on Paramount’s DVD release of To Catch a Thief.
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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 28, 2001

    Always interesting, often hilarious

    Far too often books on cinema are either heavily slanted to the scholarly side, or the same old stories that have been repeatedly told, offering no new insight into the films or the filmmakers. Steven DeRosa has written a marvelously entertaining book on Hitchcock, some of his most popular films, and on the love/hate relationship he had with writer John Michael Hayes. This one will satisfy the average movie fan and the scholar.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 28, 2001

    More than a 'making of' book

    Bravo! Not since Leonard Leff's book on the Hitchcock/Selznick collaboration has anyone devoted as much attention to an individual who worked behind the scenes with this great director. In this case though, it's not a producer, but a writer. Evan Hunter tried to do it in his own book about his work on the screenplays of 'The Birds' and 'Marnie', and came up short. Steven DeRosa succeeds on every level in his account of Hitchcock's work with John Michael Hayes, screenwriter of 'Rear Window,' 'To Catch A Thief,' 'The Trouble With Harry' and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much.' Although DeRosa provides the story behind the making of each of these classics, 'Writing with Hitchcock' emerges as something more. It's really about the relationship between the two men - why they worked so well together, and what tore them apart. Fascinating reading!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 8, 2001

    Insightful and funny

    Wow! I just read this book and was blown away by its revelations. It is taken for granted today, given Hitchcock's auteur status, as though he were some kind of god among directors, that he had the Midas touch and that all his films were as highly regarded when they were first released as they are today. Not so. The author makes a convincing argument that Hitchcock was in a creative slump at the time he met screenwriter John Michael Hayes, and picked him to write his next four films. Three of those films, 'Rear Window', 'To Catch a Thief' and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' put Hitchcock back on top, and were it not for ego and pride (Hitchcock's, that is), Hitchcock and Hayes would likely have gone on and made another ten movies together.

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