It's no secret that I hold a profound admiration for Robert Bloch's Psycho, the 1959 horror novel that screenwriter Joseph Stefano masterfully adapted into Alfred Hitchcock's classic film of the same name in 1960. While my affinity for Psycho and its sequels—excluding the completely unnecessary 1998 shot-for-shot remake by Gus Van Sant, which I prefer to forget—runs deep, my heart truly belongs to Hitchcock's 1954 thriller Rear Window, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. Hot on its heels is 1940's Rebecca, a cinematic classic, largely due to my newfound love for Daphne du Maurier's works. And then there's that nostalgic tie between Psycho and 1963 The Birds, a film loosely rooted in du Maurier's short story. The latter, alongside 1964's Marnie, has sparked intense debate over the years regarding the alleged mistreatment of actress Tippi Hedren by Hitchcock—a dialogue ignited by Donald Spoto's The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) and echoed in Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (2008). The latter work inspired the BBC/HBO film The Girl in 2012, which escalated claims of Hitchcock's purported sexual harassment of Hedren, a matter fiercely contested among those who worked with Hitchcock and film scholars alike
This backdrop leads us to the recently published A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, the Myths, the Legacy [*] by Tony Lee Moral, who, as a chronicler of Hitchcockian lore, aims to unravel these lasting narratives. With a fresh perspective grounded in new archival research, unpublished interviews, and a critical reevaluation of existing biographies, Moral challenges the entrenched views that have shaped Hitchcock's reputation over time. He carefully revisits the contentious claims regarding Hitchcock's supposed abuses, particularly scrutinizing Spoto's portrayal of his relationship with Hedren. Through the lens of Spoto's interviews, Moral reveals contradictions within longstanding claims and shines a light on the embellishments and distortions that have tainted Hitchcock's legacy for too long.
