RARA-AVIS: Re: Hitchcock: Channing

From: foxbrick ( foxbrick@yahoo.com)
Date: 15 Feb 2007


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Channing" <filmtroll@...> wrote:
> And just as briefly, in a Hitchcock biography I read he said the best
movies are made
> from mediocre books. Hitch points to Psycho and The Birds as
examples.

That's interesting. Hitchcock credits PSYCHO as being all from Robert Bloch's excellent short novel, in his book-length interview with Truffaut. But perhaps that was in part a way dressing down Joseph Stefano, the overly self-regarding scriptwriter-adapter. Either way, the novel is better than the film.

Daphne Du Maurier's "The Birds" is a short story. It's also superior to the film (rather easier in this case), even though Evan Hunter credited Hitchcock with giving him an education in screenwriting in expanding the concept for the script, in Hunter's FRESH AIR (NPR) interview.

Todd Mason



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