I’ve always been a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock. My love for the Hitch probably began with the late night screenings of The Vault on TV1 hosted by Chris Knox about 8 years ago, where they’d play every awesome movie ever made from Duck Soup to Singin’ In the Rain to Holiday Inn (a great musical which is only about 20% racist, check it out). They went through a bit of a Hitchcock season, where I was exposed to some of his best.
So in light of the upcoming screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Blackmail’ in the NZ Film Festival accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra (this is a seriously awesome festival event and you should definitely try and make the screening this year if you can), I thought we’d have a look back on some of his most memorable leading ladies.
Blackmail features Anny Ondra as Alice White, one of the earliest examples (technically I suppose) of what would become known as the ‘Hitchcock blonde’ – a icy blonde whose character is either emotionally tormented, put in grave danger or just straight up murdered. More often than not, the poor actresses playing these characters were subjected to Hitch’s special brand of creepiness/sexual harassment. I guess he got away with it all because of his mesmerising second chin.
Anywho, let’s have a look at some of the poor dears who suffered the Hitch* treatment.
*I’ll be using the term ‘Hitch’ a lot as a way of suggesting that Alfred Hitchcock and I are mates. Please don’t mistake this for a reference to the Kevin James blockbuster hit Hitch starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes. Two very different things.
Madeleine Carroll
Madeleine starred alongside Robert Donat in The 39 Steps, a breakthrough hit in the UK for Hitch. Carroll stars as Pamela, a no nonsense gal who finds herself handcuffed to Donat’s character because all this spy stuff happens. I’m bad at relaying plots, you can watch the whole thing here anyway.
Carroll seemed to escape relatively unscathed from Hitch’s behind the scenes creepery, but did suffer huge welts on her wrists as a result of being handcuffed to another person for most of her scenes. Personally, I wouldn’t be too mad about being handcuffed to Robert Donat, he was a fox. Also his last name sort of sounds like ‘donut’, which makes him 32% more attractive. And also I think I may have a thing for guys with creepy thin moustaches (e.g. Laurence Olivier in Rebecca). Okay, I’m getting sidetracked now.
Hitchcock films: The 39 Steps.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a creep was Alfred Hitchcock to her? 2/10
Extra tasty treat: Watch this scene of her and Robert Donat eating sandwiches together while handcuffed. It’s ADORABLE.
Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine was somewhat typecast in her career, since every plot synopsis I see from her films describes her as ‘shy young English girl’ or ‘meek wife’. She occupied similar roles in two of Hitchcock’s films, but boy was she something.
In Suspicion, she plays a country girl who marries a good-looking man from the city with a cleft chin played by Cary Grant. Suspicion is pretty boring since the ending had to be changed, as well as the fact that she has little to no agency in the film. She just sometimes tells Cary Grant off for buying some vases or something. However, she won an Oscar for her performance in it – the only actress directed by Hitch to do so – so she must’ve been doing something right.
Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first foray into Hollywood, and was the only one of the director’s films to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It’s one of my favourite Hitchcock films, and Fontaine plays her role beautifully as the super-anxious second wife of Maxim DeWinter who looks worried ALL THE TIME.
The story goes that Laurence Olivier was already pissed that his girl Vivien Leigh wasn’t cast as the second Mrs. DeWinter, so he was a total dick to her. Hitchcock decided to go one step further and tell the cast and crew to treat her as if they hated her to add to her performance. Perhaps the biggest dick move ever, and maybe the reason why she never worked with Hitchcock again.
Hitchcock films: Suspicion, Rebecca.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a creep was Alfred Hitchcock to her? 2/10
Extra tasty treat: Creepy scene from Rebecca.
Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly was a babe.
Her/she/I don’t know grammar and Hitchcock enjoyed a close working relationship and it seems like they got on well, which I reckon is mostly because she was either used to being hit on by slightly creepy men or had a bit of a thing for older guys (cough Clark Gable cough).
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Grace Kelly as much as the next person, but she never really did it for me. Her role in Rear Window was the best, but I struggle to remember what she did apart from walk around in dresses that were really pretty and just about give viewers a heart attack when she goes into the neighbour’s apartment. To this day I can’t watch that scene without yelling at the screen “GET OUT BITCH, HE GON’ STRAIGHT MURDER YO ASS!”
Hitchcock films: To Catch a Thief, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a creep was Alfred Hitchcock to her? 5/10, but all parties were sort of okay with it.
Extra tasty treat: There is nothing I love more in this world than a YouTube montage of an actress from the 40s and 50s set to entirely inappropriate modern music (e.g. Halo by Beyonce.) Here you go.
Tippi Hedren
Poor, poor Tippi Hedren. Out of all the Hitchcock blondes, Tippi seemed to bear the brunt of Hitch’s torturous directing style as well as his offscreen adulation/creepy obsession.
Hitchcock plucked the former model out of relative obscurity and gave her a shot at acting in her first film, The Birds. Her first big break saw her being put in a room with a lot of REAL-LIFE birds going apeshit at her. She soon realized that the reason Hitch has chosen a nobody for the part because no actress in their right mind would let this psychopath tie birds to her.
In Marnie (one of my faves), she plays a kleptomaniac with a love of horses who hates the colour red. Once you see the movie, you’ll realise that that’s a pretty spot-on character description. Not only does she have a rather horrendous rape scene, but she also has to put up with Sean Connery’s weird half-Scottish half-American accent that ends up sounding Russian.
Hitchcock films: The Birds, Marnie.
Hitchcock Creep-o-meter: Off the charts. Hitch reportedly obsessed over Tippi, propositioning her a number of times as well as kind of stalking her. 50/10
Extra tasty treat: Sean Connery’s weird accent!
Notable mentions
Janet Leigh – we see a lot of her bra in Psycho.
Ingrid Bergman – I don’t know if she’s technically a blonde, but she was pretty great in Spellbound and Notorious.
Kim Novak – Starred in Vertigo, one of the best examples of the Hitchcock blonde – she’s blonde, she hardly talks, she’s emotional, she thinks she can talk to trees.
Does anyone else out there in the internet like Alfred Hitchcock and wants to nerd out with me? Did I miss any of your favourite Hitchcock blondes? Have you been sexually harassed by Alfred Hitchcock? Comment below and let me know!
