132,564
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchSpellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies by Donald Spoto (view source)
Revision as of 13:09, 10 August 2020
, 13:09, 10 August 2020no edit summary
{{infobox infobox1
|title= Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies
|author= Donald Spoto
|date= June 2008
|isbn=978-0091797232
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0099503182</amazonuk> |amazonusaznuk=0099503182|aznus=<amazonus>0307351300</amazonus>
}}
There were so many, that the author does little more than skim through their (usually brief) careers with Hitchcock. Because of this, much of the book seems rather superficial, lacking in depth. Even his relations with his wife and daughter merit little more than a page each, though maybe this indicates there is little to be said on the subject. Only when he looks at Hitchcock's working relationship with Tippi Hedron, quite late in his career, does the text really come alive. The portrait of what she had to endure while filming 'The Birds', culminating in one of the birds that was tied to her jumping from her shoulder and landing near her eye, scratching her lower eyelid, gives us some idea of what it meant to be on his payroll.
Overall, this is a sad book. Hitchcock's last few films were failures, apparently pale echoes of what had gone before, and he evidently did not believe in quitting while he was still ahead. His wife had already suffered the first of several strokes before he slipped into a twilight world of loneliness, pain and alcoholism, dying in his bed. As a text on film studies, it makes a useful volume, particularly for some of the insights into the making of 'Rebecca', 'Psycho' and 'The Birds', for instance. As a work of biography, even given its rather limited frame, I found it somewhat lacking. We think you would be better looking at [[Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd]].
Our thanks to Hutchinson for sending a copy to Bookbag.
