The Lost Hitchcock

The word 'rare' is overused. 'Rare' photographs, 'rare' outtakes'... whenever people talk about archive material, it seems they love it to be akin to a lightly bruised steak.

There can't surely be such a thing as a rare film by the single more famous film-maker ever, but even the silent ones are at least commercially available. Yet, there's one film that, currently, qualified as rare. Waltzes from Vienna was made by Hitchcock under some duress - it really wasn't his kind of picture at all and he later told Francois Truffaut that he made it during his 'lowest ebb'.

When I was commissioned to co-write a book about Hitch, I wanted to make sure that I'd actually seen the films. This might sound obvious, but I know of a couple of authors who've written extensively about material that they'd not bothered to watch, which is why certain errors get passed on from book to book. One film, The Mountain Eagle, is lost - the last remaining print of it disintegrated decades ago (Hitchcock pragmatically didn't seen too upset by this development, describing the film as 'awful').

A trip to the USA gave me the opportunity to pick up almost all of his silent films and a few early talkies, but after five months one film eluded me. Waltzes from Vienna has, to date, never been released commercially and as far as I'm aware has never been shown on television. The only way I could see it was to rent time with a stack of film reels and a moviola.

It's by no means a great Hitchcock film; there are few of the directorial flourishes we associate with him even in this early period. But it's entertaining enough, telling the story of how Strauss the younger finally won the respect and admiration of his father.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, and thanks to various differences in American copyright law, you can actually watch the film at Archive.Org. But if you've managed to collect all of his other works, you'll find a hole where Waltzes from Vienna should be.

Today, I made the first approach to someone who might be in a position to rectify this. Let's see how far this campaign goes.

Live TV (or something close)

On 17 August, 1999, my flatmate and I went to BBC TV Centre in White City to appear on Backstage, a live early evening discussion programme shown on BBC Choice (the precursor to BBC Three). The beautiful host, Julia Bradbury, interviewed us about the films of Alfred Hitchcock, the subject of our book which had been published the previous month.

It wasn't our first TV appearance; earlier in the year, we'd done a quick interview for Carlton Digital (another channel that no longer exists), interviewed by a comedian who was best known as the face of Lee & Perrin's worcester sauce. But this one was at TV Centre, where they'd made the best TV in the world at one time. The gimmick for the show was that it had no set of its own but was broadcast from behind the scenes on whichever sets were available. I seem to recall we walked for what felt like miles within the famed BBC 'donut' before reaching a stage that had been dressed for a children's comedy show.

I'd been nervous about doing live TV again, knowing my habit of accidental Tourette's moments, so on the whole I think it went quite well. I even got away with saying that some of Hitchcock's films 'sucked and blowed at the same time', a line I'd stolen from Bart Simpson but only realised how rude it sounded the seconds after I'd said it on live TV.

Julia Bradbury made me blurt like a star-struck fan for the first time since I met Tom Baker in 1986. After the interview I babbled: 'I loved you on L!ve TV' (another defunct cable channel), and she said 'Oh, thankyou!'. Then I ruined it by saying 'Bet you're glad you left, though!' Thankfully she saw the funny side.... I think.

Oh, and she kept the copy of the book - which was okay, because the producer had said we couldn't show it and she ignored her and insisted it got onscreen for a hefty plug.

They sent us a video of it. It's sitting on my shelf. I might come back to this blog and add a screengrab... then again, I might not be quite so brave...

An Author Writes

This from May 24, 1999 2:27pm

Subject: Hitchcock's birthday


Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, London, on 13 August, 1899, and to celebrate, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, containing Leytonstone, is planning an exhibition at the Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow, called 'Hitchcock - From Leytonstone to Hollywood'. As part of this celebration, Paul Condon and I have been invited to give a "talk" on Thursday August 12 from 6.30 to about 8-ish, discussing our book, "The Complete Hitchcock" and making as many slanderous and ill-informed comments as we possibly can.

Personally, the whole idea fills me with dread, so I'd love it if some of you sexy people could join us for what will be our unofficial book launch. It'll be a tiny affair, only about 40 people can fit in there apparently, but for those that are interested, there'll be a bag of crisps, a can of flat diet coke and a handi-wipe to pass round between the lot of yer. We can go for a drink afterwards and you lot can take the piss out of me ('cos Paul will be fab as ever).

More news nearer the time,


Jim Sangster
...who only realised this morning that Hitch's 100th anniversary falls on Friday 13th!!!

I can't actually remember why we didn't end up having this booklaunch, whether I bottled out as usual or whether they cancelled. But it didn't happen anyway.