MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > "New" Book By Stephen "Alfred Hitchcock ...

"New" Book By Stephen "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" Rebello -- On Valley of the Dolls (1967)

posted 2 years ago by roger1 (4046)
18 replies | jump to latest

Formerly ecarle.

As, horribly, with so much in life about time passing, something that seems like "it happened a few years ago" can turn out to have happened DECADES ago.

So it is with Stephen Rebellos truly great book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho."

I was thinking "oh, I read that for the first time about 10 years ago " and -- no -- it came out 33 YEARS ago -- in 1990, which at the time was, of course the 30th Anniversary OF Psycho 1960 and -- hoo boy, the years they do pass. Indeed it took 22 years to get a MOVIE made out of Rebello's Psycho book. _"Hitchcock" of 2012, with major stars in it -- led by Anthony Hopkins as Alfred and Helen Mirren as Alma. Because the Hitchcock estate wouldn't cooperate, that movie was missing a LOT of things(like a good view of the Psycho house set) and a real missed opportunity.

I just discovered a "new" Stephen Rebello book(well, from 2020) all about a particular OTHER 60s movie, and its a real treat -- a return to the research and chatty style of the "Psycho" book. Its like a homecoming. The book is about 1967's Valley of the Dolls, and I'm going to give it its own post(with Psycho crossover.)

In reading this new book, I notice that Rebello is meticulous about writing not only the salaries that each major actor was paid for the film, but with an "inflation update" for each sum. For instance, Susan Hayward came on (to replace fired Judy Garland) for four scenes at total pay of $50,000 ("approximately $340,000 today," writes Rebello.) Something very gracious in there: Garland was fired without getting HER pay -- Hayward said she would take the part ONLY if Garland was paid in full, first. Kinda nice -- though Hayward was a tough broad in other ways, Rebello proves.

All of this sent me to the bookcase to pull Rebello's Psycho book out and to check the 1960 pay awarded to the actors in that famously low budget film. In the Psycho book, Rebello didn't provide inflation updates, so you pretty much have to guess. Martin Balsam got $6000 to play Arbogast. Not much for "movie star pay" but in 1960, I'll assume that average American yearly salaries were probably in the 6,000 range.

And the rest of THIS post is here:

https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/64adb2a760ce220384262023/What-They-Got-Paid-on-Psycho-1960

But back to Rebello's book on Valley of the Dolls.

I discovered Rebellos VOTD book this year(2023) but it was published in 2020 -- which makes that a publication exactly 30 years after the release of the book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho," which came out in 1990..exactly 30 years after the release of Psycho in 1960. Again..."life (and movies) create their own patterns.

I'm not sure what books Stephen Rebello wrote between the Psycho book and the VOTD book. I know he wrote a lot of interviews and reviews. He did a crackerjack DVD commentary for Psycho on one of the special editions -- perfectly ending his remarks just as the car came out of the swamp on "The End."

But anyway you cut it, the "Valley of the Dolls" book is -- to this superfan of "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" -- a pitch perfect return to the tone of the Psycho book, and its narrative style, and its meticulous research. The book feels like a "sequel" -- 30 years later -- to Rebello's great Psycho analysis("just the facts, m'am.") And for me it felt like getting back to together with an old friend after all these years.

I also found, on the internet as a corollary, a 2020 LA Times review of the book by none other than Peter Biskind, author of the seminal "Easy Rider, Raging Bulls"(about 70's cinema) and that one about 90's independent cinema, "Down and Dirty Pictures"(not as good a title, actually.

Frankly, I've already forgetten most of the Biskind review, but it was a positive one with, as I recall, some reservations about the lack of references on the research(more on that anon) and also a concern that Rebello spent all this time an effort on a book about...Valley of the Dolls? (It is no "Psycho," Biskind noted. That's right and yet -- they have have some things in common.)

I felt some crossover, in the Biskind review and Rebello's own book, to Mark Harris' noteable nonfiction book "Pictures at a Revolution," about the five Best Picture nominees of that great movie year of 1967: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and Doctor Doolittle. B and C was violence, The Graduate was sex, two of the other movies starred Sidney Poitier (with Tracy and Hepburn in one of them) and Doctor Doolittle was an overstuffed Fox musical MEANT to repeat Sound of Music, but failing.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

Indeed, in Rebello's VOTD book, he notes near the end that even though VOTD was panned mercilessly by the critics, it had lines around the block (like Psycho) and made big bucks(like Psycho.)

Rebello gives us these stats:

VOTD: 50,000,000 (1967 dollars) (A 20th Century Fox film)
Dr. Doolittle: 3,500,000 (A 20th Century Fox film)

Ouch.

And:

Planet of the Apes: 32,000,000 (also from Fox)

And:

Bullitt: 42,000,000 (but wait, this was a 68/69 release -- from Warners.)

Rebello's point is well taken. Whether a bad movie or a camp movie, Valley of the Dolls (from one of those "Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture" paperbacks strewn all over suburban dens) was a HIT movie, and now its kind of a camp classic movie -- having gotten revivals and evidently enjoyed by the gay community(even though the character say some pretty bad 1967 things about gays.)

Some random thoughts:

GOOD MOVIE VS MONEYMAKER

Walter Matthau gave a film interview defening a great little 1962 art film called Lonely are the Brave, starring Kirk Douglas in his favorite role and Matthau in strong support.

Matthau said that Lonely Are the Brave was a good movie...but a flop. He elaborated: "In Hollywood, there are good movies and there are moneymakers. Moneymakers are generally not good movies. A good movie can BE a moneymaker, but it is rare."

Apply Matthau's formula:

Lonely are the Brave: Good movie, not a moneymaker.
Valley of the Dolls: Moneymaker, not a good movie.
Psycho: Moneymaker AND a good movie. (You see, it can be done.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

TWO: Director Mark Robson

With his book about the making of Psycho, Rebello had at once, "a top of the line director" in Alfred Hitchcock, but on the other hand such a "specialty act"(making his own movies in his own way without much studio interference, muss or fuss.) Psycho was a small, almost personal film, with the cast paid very little and little in the way of location work. Valley of the Dolls -- bad or not -- was a MAJOR production, with location work in NYC and snowy New England, lush Hollywood soundstage sets, costumes everywhere...a Big Deal. And Mark Robson -- while certainly no Hitchcock -- was a journeyman studio director.

His biggest hit seemed to be Peyton Place(1957), a kinda bad movie that got many Oscar noms(winning none?) and spawning a hit nighttime soap which brought us one of the stars of VOTD: Barbara Parkins.

Robson also made "The Prize"(1963) a spy thriller with a script by Ernest Lehman(North by Northwest) that mixed his NXNW script with the story of Foreign Correspondent. The film was entertaining but not very good -- "Mark Robson is no Hitchcock," wrote critics. Well, duh.

Robson also made Earthquake in 1974 for Universal. The elderly Hitchcock turned Earthquake down; Robson turned in a clunky movie from a clunky script with clunky effects but the in-theater "Sensurround" gimmick made Earthquake a huge hit.

Robson had a "good movie money maker" with 1955's The Bridges at Toko Ri , which starred William Holden, Grace Kelly and Fredric March in a Korean War drama. In Paul Anderson's "Licorice Pizza", set in 1973, Sean Penn plays "Jack Holden" (meant to be William), who starred in "The Bridges at Toko-San"(guess what?) Penn's Holden runs into a grizzled old director at dinner who might be John Huston...or Sam Peckinpah...OR Mark Robson.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

This VOTD book contends that the women actresses working on the movie found Robson brusque and mean and uncaring about their feelings -- comes off as a real bad guy( who was particularly rough on Judy Garland when she kept blowing lines -- she was fired and replaced with Susan Hayward.)

imdb says Mark Robson made only one movie after Earthquake -- Avalanche Express, with Lee Marvin and Robert Jaws Shaw. That movie came out in 1979, but Robson had died in 1978 at the young age(says I) of 64. Robert Shaw died in 1978, too -- sudden heart attack at 51, He was dubbed for Avalanche Express.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

DAVID WEISBART This guy was a Fox producer-for-hire. I memorized his name because it was on TWO Fox releases of 1964, very different, both beloved by me, one in particular.

The one in particular was "Rio Conchos" a muy mas macho Western with a lead for Richard Boone and three guys on his impossible mission team: Stuart Whitman, Tony Franciosa and Jim Brown. A total favorite.

The same year as the macho "Rio Conchos," Weisbart sheparded(for director Vincente Minelli) a comedy called "Goodbye Charlie." It has an ultracool theme song(Charlie is murdered pre-credits so...Goodbye Charlie sings the choir). It has ultra suave Tony Curtis in the lead. It has a hilarious Walter Matthau(supporting Curtis, but not really) as the Hungarian producer who shot Charlie and got away with it. It has Debbie Reynolds "coming back to life in the body of a woman as a chick-hungry man." Boy did 1964 critics find THIS "tasteless." Fits right in , now.

Anyway, Weisbart was on those two fave movies and there he is producing Valley of the Dolls to success and big money.

And we get this real life scene from Rebello:

Mark Robson and David Weisbart were playing golf to celebrate the success of VOTD. "This is the life" Weisbart said...and then dropped dead of a heart attack on the course. At the Robert Shaw-ish age of 52. Interesting: fellow golfers Stephen Boyd(Ben Hur) and Michael Dunn(the diminuitive Dr. Loveless) tried to revive Weisbart. No go. Boyd himself died of a heart attack in 1977, age 45.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

BARBARA PARKINS: Barbara Parkins got a few leads after the VOTD. One -- also for Fox -- was in John Huston's grim but well-cast spy thriller "The Kremlin Letter." Richard Boone(again) leads a cast that includes great character guys with great voices -- Boone's, George Sanders, Nigel Green, Dean Jagger. But there are two beautiful women in the spy story, too. One brunette(Barbara Parkins), one blonde(Bibi Anderson, slumming from Ingmar Bergman with fellow Bergmanite Max Von Sydow.) Patrick O'Neal has the ostensible romantic spy lead. He was an OK character guy(playing Columbo villains and such) but he got this lead only after Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty and even James Coburn turned it down. Still, in the movie, he gets to bed Parkins AND Bibi -- who both meet grim ends. Its a grim movie. I love it. And I love Barbara Parkins in it. A real beauty but -- said the critics -- not a good actress.

Rebello prints a 1967 interview with Parkins that ostensibly reveals her hunger for stardom. "It comes in phases," she says, "Now I hear they are looking for a Barbara Parkins type. Next: a legend."

Nah. Didn't happen. But boy was she pretty and she got the "good girl" role in VOTD.

PATTY DUKE: Ms. Duke -- late from an Oscar for The Miracle Worker and a hit TV sitcom where she played teenage twins -- got the "bad girl" role in VOTD -- Neely , who becomes a star, a drunk, and a pill popper and tears Susan Hayward's wig off.

Ms. Duke had problems -- confessed --with bi-polar disorder that led to drugs (and maybe alcohol) in real life. I recall Ms. Duke accepting an Emmy back in the 70's and it was clear to my young eyes and ears that she was drunk..or high...or both...on stage. But very happy.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

In "real life" -- word -- I was once assigned to take Patty Duke to lunch. A business lunch. She is one of a handful of stars with whom I interacted for business reasons. Liz Taylor and Burt Lancaster were the biggest two -- but Patty Duke was formidable, too. I was apprenhensive about the lunch -- would she go nuts on me, or be mean? But no, she was past her problems(an aide was with her) and nothing but kind and graciuos to me. I recall her saying that I must watch out for the really good actor in her family...her son Sean Astin. I said I would.

SHARON TATE: The lovely Sharon made more than a few movies before her horrific 1969 death by the Mansons knives. This one was her biggest hit. Her reviews weren't all that good, but I have seen this movie once -- only once -- and her final death scene(quietly, suicide by pills) is not only moving because of what really happened to her, but in terms of her VERY GOOD acting in this scene.

Of course, QT cast Margot Robbie as Tate in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and had her tell a theater manager that "I was in Valley of the Dolls." The dialogue;

MANAGER: The one from Peyton Place?
TATE: No.
MANAGER: Patty Duke?
TATE: No. (Whispers) I was the one who made dirty movies...

And of course in QT's movie, some guys kill the Mansons before they can kill Sharon. Such a great fantasy.

I type this on a day when one OF those Manson killers(not of Tate but of other innocent victims) has been released from prison. An outrage. A travesty. Par for the course in 2023.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S TOPAZ.

Surprise. In this Rebello book, we get a Look magazine cover from 1967 with the famous photo(also on the movie posters) of the three female stars all positioned on a big brass bed. Evidently this Look article did a real number on the movie and the actresses(its where Parkins says she will be a legend) but up in the corner of the cover, we get this headline:

"TOPAZ BY LEON URIS. A SMASHING NEW NOVEL OF ESPIONAGE AND BETRAYAL BY THE AUTHOR OF EXODUS.

An excerpt of Topaz was in the magazine, maybe in a few issues, serialized. They also did with with the book True Grit. But this: I REMEMBER Topaz(the novel) as a very big deal, promoted everywhere -- its own table and stacks in department stores and when Hitchcock was announced as the director I thought: HITCHCOCK? Can he handle one of this big historical novels? Turned out, no. (If only he'd cast "all star" like Stanley Kramer and Otto Preminger -- might have saved the movie.

"CASTING OF THE DOPES"

After a chapter on "The Casting of the Dolls" -- the female leads in a story about women, for women -- Rebello gives us "The Casting of the Dopes" in which we learn that all sort of known male stars (from Cary Grant to McQueen to Sean Connery...to Rod Taylor and George Peppard) had turned down "second tier roles." They ended up with Paul Burke(remember him?) , Martin Milner(more on him in a moment) and an unknown named Tony Scotti (as Tate's ill-fated love interest.)

About Martin Milner: as a grown man, he had a weird "boy next door ungrown" quality to his face, but I watched him on Route 66 episdoes this year and he ably handled all sort of brutal fistfight scenes. Then he went on to Adam 12 as a senior LAPD patrol officer and got a hit out of that.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

But in movies? He never really seemed like much. He's the weak point in the great Sweet Smell of Success and here, in VOTD, well...I really don't much remember him. He was a particularly sympathetic "guest victim" in an early Columbo episode -- directed by Steven Spielberg. Some guys get all the luck. Jack Cassidy killed him.

1967: A reminder: 1967 was one of the great movie years in American history. FILLED with movies. The five from Mark Harris' book(In the Heat of the Night won Best Picture.) And The Dirty Dozen. And at least one of the Leones. And Point Blank with Lee Marvin. And Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman. And Two for the Road. And In Cold Blood. And To Sir, With Love. And You Only Live Twice. And the FUNNY Casino Royale(a mess, but unforgettably so.)

And my two favorites, both from Warners -- Wait Until Dark(the most terrifying night at the movies I spent in the 60s; and RIP Alan Arkin) and Hotel(a sophisticated little soaper from the author of Airport, with Rod Taylor as the hotel manager.)

All of those movies, and Valley of the Dolls was a big hit that year, one of the biggest. With a great sad theme song sung by Deonne Warwick, all over the radio in my parents car.

AND SO:

The book, called "Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Inside the Valley of the Dolls" is a welcome "welcome back" to Stephen Rebello. In his thanks at the end, he notes he looked at the Mark Robson collection at UCLA and the David Weisbart collection at USC, and the Academy Library and -- he got it ALL. Scripts. Memos. Casting pay data. Its that dogged reading and organization of all that data -- with his witty guidance -- that makes this book a wonderful read on its own and -- to me -- a worthy sequel to "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho."

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

PS. I first read the words in 1990 but I'll never forget Rebello's funny line about Shirley Jones winning the 1960 Best Supporting Actress over Janet Leigh in Psycho. Jones won for Elmer Gantry and, wrote Rebello: "Her abrupt about-face as a trollop" after years of sugary goodie-goods in musicals.

[–] swanstep (2769) 2 years ago

Indeed, in Rebello's VOTD book, he notes near the end that even though VOTD was panned mercilessly by the critics, it had lines around the block (like Psycho) and made big bucks(like Psycho.)

But 1967 had its own Psycho-like small-movie-that-could sensation, The Graduate. It was a ridiculously huge hit as well as a hipster/critical smash. Presumably Rebello thought The Graduate was too picked over for both anecdotes and substance at this point whereas VOTD as a legendary (though moneymaking) turkey, perhaps a little like Tom Hanks's dreadful but money-spinning Da Vinci Code movies, was a relatively fresh scholarly field.

Lots of intriguing good films from 1967 tho': Belle du Jour, three different Godard provocations (I like at least Weekend and 2 or 3 things I know about Her), Rohmer's La Collectioneuse, hipster French gangster film Le Samourai, Audrey Hepburn had her best year (before more or less retiring) with Wait for Dark and Two for the Road, and super-watchable Guy-pictures like Cool Hand Luke and Point Plank. Why focus on VOTD over any of those? Similarly, if you were transfixed by the possibilities of writing about, say, film in 2006 why would you choose fluff like The Da Vinci Code when you had Children of Men or The Prestige or Pan's Labyrinth or Paprika, etc. to choose from?

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

Indeed, in Rebello's VOTD book, he notes near the end that even though VOTD was panned mercilessly by the critics, it had lines around the block (like Psycho) and made big bucks(like Psycho.)

---
But 1967 had its own Psycho-like small-movie-that-could sensation, The Graduate. It was a ridiculously huge hit as well as a hipster/critical smash. Presumably Rebello thought The Graduate was too picked over for both anecdotes and substance at this point

----

Well, yes on that one. The Graduate got at least one book just about it, and is one of the five Best Picture nominees covered in Mark Harris' book and got detailed study in at least two books on director Mike Nichols that I have read. So Rebello was probably "no go" on that one.

---

whereas VOTD as a legendary (though moneymaking) turkey, perhaps a little like Tom Hanks's dreadful but money-spinning Da Vinci Code movies, was a relatively fresh scholarly field.

----

I never saw the Da Vinci Code movies...not even the first one. They made zillions for the invincible Tom, but it seems that some of us just weren't gripped by the proposition. I never went to any of them. (Modernly, I find Avatar to be the same, SOMEBODY -- evidently a lot younger than me -- is going to those movies. I watched the first one and that was it. 3-D cartoons with blue people aint my style.)

On balance -- I would expect that the draw of VOTD was multi-fold: (1) It is considered one of the worst movies ever made(whereas I think DaVinci Code was simply banal); (2) it is a "chick flick" of some reknown; (3) Judy Garland was an ill-fated part of it(and Patty Duke was somewhat PLAYING Judy Garland); (4) then Susan Hayward was a successful part of it ; (5)the ill-fated Sharon Tate is on final display in it; and....(6) evidently biggest of all, VOTD turns out to have had great staying power in the gay community(so says Rebello) with a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" series of stage productions and, of great relevance today, a drag queen following.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

Which takes ME rather out of the audience for this book but, again -- Stephen Rebello as the author drew me in. (Of course, Psycho has a "drag" component which has historically been rejected -- by the psychiatrist at the end of the movie and in terms of analysis, but...there it is. And the irony is -- if I recall, VOTD has no scenes of men dressed as women...but Psycho does.

Also like Psycho, VOTD generated at least one sequel, and its infamous.

An attempt was made by Jackie Susann herself to write a sequel for the survivors from VOTD, but that project eventually fell apart and was replaced by an ultra-camp X-rated "barely a sequel" directed by Russ Meyer(king of soft porn and big bosom movies) and co-written by young critic Roger Ebert(whose participation adds yet another layer of interest to this VOTD book...which does cover the sequel.)

The sequel was called "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and I was a lot older in 1970 than in Psycho 1960 and I recall how 1970 had quite a clutch of "controversial" X-rated studio films -- Myra Breckinridge among them. There was also an ULTRA bosomy Russ Meyer discovery named Edy Williams who did the "Bettie Page/Jayne Mansfield" thing for New Hollywood. I recall thinking she was very sexy and very ridiculous(and over-ambitious) at the same time. She's an artifact now.

I caught up with these films decades after their release. I only saw Valley of the Dolls once, I can barely remember it. (I remember what happens to Sharon Tate, and I remember what happens to Barbara Parkins, but for the life of me I can't remember what happens to Patty Duke.)

I think I only saw Beyond the Valley, etc a few years ago(on streaming) and hey, yeah, it is a 1970 time capsule of groovy counterculture boys and girls and a fair amount of soft core sex occurs and the breasts are plentiful and hey -- I enjoyed THAT a lot more than Valley of the Dolls. So sue me.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

By the way, Joe Ezsterhas was a lousy screenwriter who made millions writing "Jagged Edge"(OK) and "Basic Instinct"(sexy but not good) and then wrote those two movies over and over and over until his career crashed when he tried to change with "Showgirls."

Well, in one of his books about showbiz, Joe noted Roger Ebert's contribution to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and noted "so always remember, Roger Ebert is just another critic who failed as a screenwriter." Uh, yes, I suppose -- but Joe Ezstgerhas was a successful screenwriter -- money-wise -- who wrote s--t.

---

Back to VOTD: it stands in many ways as a truly sad testament to the gorgeous Sharon Tate, whose character befalls so many hardships that the ultimately takes pills for suicide purposes. That's the one scene I will never forget from VOTD because it is "two fold": (1) Tate's character, Jennifer, dies young of unnatural causes, just like Tate and (2) Tate's ACTING is VERY good here -- how she gives us the final moments that a living human being becomes a corpse is so sad --Janet Leigh gave us the same "journey" in the shower scene, but this one is more real and poignant.

---

Meanwhile: swanstep's wonderings have ME wondering:

How did Stephen Rebello land a contract to write about Valley of the Dolls? Did HE make the pitch, or did a publishing company put out a solicitation to all writers, or did they reach out to Rebello personally?

And that goes for Rebello's 1990 book on Psycho, too: Did HE make the pitch, or did a publishing company put out a solicitation to all writers, or did they reach out to Rebello personally?

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

The casting of Valley of the Dolls was interesting. I noted how they really couldn't land any name male actors at all for the boyfriend/husband roles, but it was actually pretty hard to find names for the main women.

The producers really wanted Barbra Streisand to debut as the awful riser-and-faller Neely, the Patty Duke role. The project was big enough that Streisand had to consider it , but wisely said no and picked Funny Girl instead -- the perfect "friendly vehicle" for her -- it had been a Broadway hit for her, favored her in all ways...and won her an Oscar(tied with Kate Hepburn that year.)

The producers pitched young sexpot Jane Fonda for either the Patty Duke role or the Sharon Tate tragic sexpot role. Jane was just about ready to shift from sexpot roles to serious stuff(They Shoot Horses Don't They and Klute lay dead ahead)...a wise no.

You have to figure the leads they ended up with were in certain ways "second tier." Patty Duke had a Supporting Oscar and a hit TV show, but wasn't much of a movie star. Sharon Tate was a sexy ingenue with a light track record. And Barbara Parkins -- who, again, I find just gorgeous of face and voice in her prime -- was "hot for stardom," a hoped-for winner who...didn't. (Though she is fine in The Kremlin Letter and, sexy I hear, in a weird number called The Mephisto Waltz from those years.)

Indeed, the overall "second tier" casting of VOTD (less, perhaps Susan Hayward) in GENERAL signalled that this " major Hollywood production" wasn't that major at all."

--

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

A bit more on Mark Robson. In interviews both new(from stars still alive to talk to Rebello) and gone(from Patty Duke and others who are now dead, but gave interviews when alilve) Mark Robson comes off as an arch villain -- an "old guard male studio journeyman director" who treated the beautiful women under his charge with light contempt and dictatorial orders.

We read of him forcing Sharon Tate to descend a difficult staircase take after take after take, evidently out to physically exhaust her and humilate her. I"m reminded that in addition to affairs(if things clicked) Hollywood afforded plain-looking male directors the power to run roughshod over beautiful women who otherwise would not give them the time of day. Yes, Hitchcock is a BIT in this category, but most of his ladies loved him(they said).

A story about Htichcock making Kim Novak dive over and over and over into a studio tank for her SF Bay jump in Vertigo was disproved by "Vertigo" book author Dan Auiler, who only found records for about three takes, as I recall.

Robson was also accused of making Judy Garland wait hours to do a scene and having wine made available all day so that when she DID do the scene(with letter-perfect memorization by Barbara Parkins, a TV series veteran) -- she blew all her lines and was fired.

The accusation is that Judy Garland was hired to "pay her off" for the Neely character being used and then to fire her so as to complete the publicity stunt. Pretty evil and -- I daresay -- another reason for Rebello to write his book.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

Which brings us to the fact that the book is far more salacious than the "Making of Psycho" book because Rebello spends some time on the sex maniac proclivities of studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck and his execs. Darryl evidently reserved 400 each day in his office for "quiet time" -- being serviced by starlets or secretaries. I don't fully believe Rebello here -- that's a LOT of starlets and secretaries. Perhaps he just had standing out-call orders from a Hollywood brothel. Darryl's execs also indulged during the day.

I call him Darryl because "Zanuck" also fits Darryl's son Richard, who was appointed studio chief by his father and a few years later publically FIRED by his dad -- in front of the Fox Board. THERE's a movie. Of course, son Richard went on to produce The Sting and Jaws. Take that, dad! (When did Darryl die?)

As I recall, Psycho was made at Paramount under Barney Balaban and Y. Frank Freeman(of whom Billy Wilder once said, "Why Frank Freeman?") and those guys had no sexual escapades on the record. But when Robert Evans took over Paramount in 1968, the women were plentiful THERE.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S TOPAZ.

Surprise. In this Rebello book, we get a Look magazine cover from 1967 with the famous photo(also on the movie posters) of the three female stars all positioned on a big brass bed. Evidently this Look article did a real number on the movie and the actresses(its where Parkins says she will be a legend) but up in the corner of the cover, we get this headline:

"TOPAZ BY LEON URIS. A SMASHING NEW NOVEL OF ESPIONAGE AND BETRAYAL BY THE AUTHOR OF EXODUS.

An excerpt of Topaz was in the magazine, maybe in a few issues, serialized. They also did with with the book True Grit.

--

I return to this "sidebar topic" because I remember thinking at the time -- that it was very surprising when Alfred Hitchcock bought Topaz for the movies -- I didn't think he was right for it. And I was young, but not THAT young. I saw him as the guy behind Psycho and The Birds and NXNW but also as an old man -- was Topaz REALLY something he should be making?

The answer was "no," but perhaps Topaz might better have been made by a prestige director like Otto Preminger(who filmed Leon Uris' Exodus) or Fred Zinneman or Norman Jewison or John Frankenheimer. Hitchcock just seemed "wrong" and proved it.

And Leon Uris really hated Hitchcock. Uris had "first dibs" on writing a screenplay of his own book, and set up shop at Hitchcock's Universal City HQ...and found Hitchcock an old boor -- "constantly showing me his movies to teach me about his work but really just showing off." Uris felt Hitchcock had no grasp of espionage(oh, I think Topaz the movie covered that well enough.) But in the end, Hitchcock rejected Uris' script and made Topaz using a script by his old pal Samuel Taylor, who was credited on the great Vertigo but didn't make lighting strike twice.

Hitchcock said of Topaz -- which he "didn't care for at all" that "Wasserman made me make that as a favor to him."

[–] swanstep (2769) 2 years ago

I think I only saw Beyond the Valley, etc a few years ago(on streaming) and hey, yeah, it is a 1970 time capsule of groovy counterculture boys and girls and a fair amount of soft core sex occurs and the breasts are plentiful and hey -- I enjoyed THAT a lot more than Valley of the Dolls. So sue me.

BTVD is *really* a lot of racey fun. *And* it has some interesting editing with quite a few flash-forwards *and* it has some great tunes. The main fictional band in the film, 'The Carry Nations' has the following earworm (from the official soundtrack) to carry them to stardom and you believe it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWN0FV7GYq0
and here's the original scene with its slightly less impressive mix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPJx7sooR4
This sort of circa-1970 folky/funky/deeply harmonized sunshine pop is almost immortal I think. E.g., a lot of the Barbie movie's trailer and publicity is unironically built around a 1970-ish pop hit from Mama Cass/Cass Elliot which still sounds incredible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ7dTMPwUi8