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Francois Truffaut and His Raging Hatred of Bloch's Novel, "Psycho"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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On the Psycho DVD, they have excerpts of the Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews that made up the famous 1967 book -- specifically their talks on Psycho.

For those of us for whom Hitchcock/Truffaut was a near-memorized "Bible" in the 60s and 70s, we remembered the exchange on paper pretty much like this:

Truffaut: I've read the book on which Psycho was based, and one thing that bothers me about it is that it cheats. There will be passages like "Mother sat down next to Norman and they had a conversation," whereas in the film, it is rigorously worked out not to cheat.

Hitchcock: Well, I think the only reason I decided to film the book was the murder in the shower, coming , out of the blue as it were. That was about all.

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I've always felt that Hitchcock's statement was WAY too dismissive of the original Robert Bloch novel. Sure, the shower scene would be the centerpiece for both the book(in which Mary is beheaded by the knife) and the movie(in which Marion is stabbed for far longer a time than anyone was ever stabbed before in any movie.)

But the novel also has the motel/house combo, the twist ending, the burial-at-swamp, the fruit cellar reveal...the interrogation of Norman by, and murder of, the detective(a killing shown differently in the book, in the house foyer)...and Norman in the cell at the end. A cornucopia of classic horror elements, all there for the feasting in Hitchcock's screen translation.

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Well, the audio of the Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews on Psycho rather explains Hitchcock's dismissive answer to Truffaut about the book. Here(from memory, paraphrased) it is:

Truffaut: I've read the book upon which Psycho was based. Its horrible. Its awful. Its badly written. It isn't even really a book. Frankly it never should have been written at all -- and one thing about it is that bother me is, it cheats...

Hitchcock: Well, I think the only reason I decided to film the book was the murder in the shower, coming , out of the blue as it were. That was about all.
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You see, with THAT being what was spoken, you can be sure that a defensive Hitchcock wasn't going to defend Psycho, the novel, at all. Not after Truffaut tore into it like that.

Actually in another interview at some other time, I recall Hitchcock noting that he very rarely chose to adapt bestsellers(Rebecca and Topaz were exceptions.) He didn't want to compete with the source. Rather, Hitch said "I've made a lot of good movies out of very mediocre material." I expect he figured Bloch's Psycho as such.

Well, the funny thing is, I've read Bloch's Psycho, and pulp though it may be, short as it may be(I believe it qualifies as a "novella") -- it is certainly a chilling experience on the page, and filled with more great story ideas than any other book Hitchcock ever purchased to make a movie from.

Simply put, I think Truffaut was wrong about Bloch's Psycho. But more to the point: WHY did Truffaut go so berserk over that book? What so enraged him about it? It never should have been written?(Hey, if it hadn't, Hitchcock would be short $50 million dollars or so, because he never would have made that movie.) Did he work from more high falutin' source material, is that it?

Its some kind of mystery.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

WHY did Truffaut go so berserk over that book? What so enraged him about it? It never should have been written?

Truffaut may have been fanboy-ishly pandering to Hitch a bit with his remarks: 'You made a great film and with no help at all from source material!'

Beyond that his talk of Bloch 'cheating' sounds like a lack of imagination on Truffaut's part: certainly these days we're very used to the idea of projected/hallucinated characters whose projected status we often only discover much later. 'Cheating' by having Norman interact with a Mother we also see is the obvious way to adapt Bloch nowadays, i.e., a la Bates Motel.

There also may be a trace of sheer snobbery in Truffaut too - the thought that a real book is Dostoevsky or Flaubert or at least Graham Greene or Ray Bradbury. Lots of the best films adapt pulp rather than literary fiction. And Literariness per se is often a problem. Even something as compact as Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 has a poetic and elusive and atmospheric quality - and it's about reading and censorship and freedom of thought; how to make that visually appealing? It's not easy as Truffaut himself would soon discover. (I haven't seen HBO's recent F451 adaptation yet, but I gather that the literary nut remains uncracked.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Truffaut may have been fanboy-ishly pandering to Hitch a bit with his remarks: 'You made a great film and with no help at all from source material!'
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That's possible, for sure. The whole INTERVIEW is somewhat fanboyish-- Truffaut legitimately wanted Hitchcock to appreciate how great Truffaut and others thought he was, its rather touching. Still, boy does he angrily dump on Bloch's Psycho. (It remains amazing to me, all these decades later, to hear how different the actual audio interviews are from what made it into the book --if you know the book intimately, all this "cut out material" changes a lot of the interview. Its like a different interview!)

Of course, a few critics who wrote on Hitchcock/Truffaut could spot where the fanboy mechanism broke down -- when H and T discussed "The Wrong Man," with T wanting it to have been more realistic(no camera circling Fonda in the cell) and Hitchcock grumbling "You seem to want me to work for the art houses," and finally dismissive of the whole topic, "I'm not much attached to that picture at all, it didn't do well"(paraphrased.) Well, to me The Wrong Man is a top drawer Hitchcock, and only the Hitchcock touches make its bleak tale fully watchable. And I think Hitchcock was VERY attached to the project; he pretty much made it for free, just to get it out there.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Beyond that his talk of Bloch 'cheating' sounds like a lack of imagination on Truffaut's part: certainly these days we're very used to the idea of projected/hallucinated characters whose projected status we often only discover much later. 'Cheating' by having Norman interact with a Mother we also see is the obvious way to adapt Bloch nowadays, i.e., a la Bates Motel.

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Well, we now have, via the Bates Motel series, for better(and a bit for worse, the constant "overkill of it") EXACTLY how Norman could imagine mother sitting next to him and talking to him. Often in Hitchcock/Truffaut, Truffaut -- however great and famous a filmmaker on his own terms -- is just "one of us" : a person with an opinion about a movie. Not right, not wrong, just different (same with his reviews; I have a book of his reviews, and its funny how often he seems to have "wrong" concepts. Example, Truffaut says in 12 Angry Men, the jurors switch sides "two at a time." No , they don't.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There also may be a trace of sheer snobbery in Truffaut too - the thought that a real book is Dostoevsky or Flaubert or at least Graham Greene or Ray Bradbury. Lots of the best films adapt pulp rather than literary fiction

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Indeed. I think with regard to Hollywood films of a certain era(let's say the 30s through the 50's), movies from great novels rarely MATCHED the great novels. Like The Brothers Karamozov. Or War and Peace.

"Giant,"" which we've talked about around here(it has a Psycho connection) is perhaps more like it: a big popular mass market best seller, that became a big, popular movie bestseller.

About "bestsellers." Hitchcock, talking about bestseller books being made into movies, pointed out that a lot of bestselling books had far smaller "audience members"(readers) than any given movie. I'll bet he was right. Far more people probably saw The Godfather than read it. Reading takes a longer commitment. Which is why the phrase "I didn't read the book, but I saw the movie" became a funny cliché.

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And Literariness per se is often a problem. Even something as compact as Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 has a poetic and elusive and atmospheric quality - and it's about reading and censorship and freedom of thought; how to make that visually appealing? It's not easy as Truffaut himself would soon discover. (I haven't seen HBO's recent F451 adaptation yet, but I gather that the literary nut remains uncracked.)

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I haven't seen the new one, but I saw the old one. On 1966 release. My parents took me, I guess they thought it would be a young intellectual experience. I guess you can say that was my first Truffaut film -- and I didn't see many others in my life, but I saw the key ones and....they're accomplished but not my cup of tea. (One wag noted that one product of the book Hitchocck/Truffaut was to make TRUFFAUT far more famous with "the masses" than he otherwise would be.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I went and listened to some of that Hitchcock/Truffaut audio interview on Psycho in my quest to find new topics for this board, and listening to the audio, I was reminded again how different the real interview was from what ended up in the book. Not to mention, the interview is maddening in its slow, extended quality -- Hitch and Truffaut are exchanging views through an interpreter(Helen Scott) and it takes each man awhile to both hear and understand the question being asked or the comment being made to them, and that much longer to comment back. In that regard, the book is much easier to digest -- questions and answers match right up, no translation in the middle.

There is another solid stretch of Hitchcock/Truffaut on a commentary track added to one of the DVDs of Strangers on a Train -- as we watch the berserk carousel climax, we hear Hitchcock telling Truffaut how it was done. Its quite technically interesting: TWO carousels were built with two sets of cameras -- one carousel was prepped for filming while the other was BEING filmed. And the process work was extremely complex, with the process screen "at an angle". And Farley Granger's legs being lifted up into the air via the centrifugal force of the carousel was..."wires attached to pull his legs up."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

By the way, we hear around here how much John Gavin was disliked by Hitchcock on "Psycho." Well it turns out that Hitchcock didn't much like Rod Taylor on The Birds, either -- and Truffaut buttered him up on that : "How hard it was for you to make that great film while working with an idiot like Rod Taylor." I think if they weren't superstar level men(Grant, Stewart), Hitchcock really had it in for his handsome lesser male leads. John Gavin. Rod Taylor. Jon Finch(on Frenzy.) He didn't think they were very talented and he was jealous of their looks.

A little proof: for her screen test for The Birds, Tippi Hedren was paired with Martin Balsam(Arbogast) and had to kiss him in scenes from To Catch a Thief. Balsam was handsome enough, but no John Gavin. Similarly, a screen test with romantic kissing scenes for an actress named Claire Griswold (who became Mrs. Sydney Pollack) were done with...the psychiatrist himself, Simon Oakland. Its as if Hitchocck didn't want young handsome men kissing his new ingenues.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

Even something as compact as Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 has a poetic and elusive and atmospheric quality

I just got around to seeing The Illustrated Man (1969) w/ Rod Steiger, which is adapted from some of the stories in the eponymous Ray Bradbury collection.

TIM was a critical and commercial flop at the time, but if you go into it now as I did, with very low expectations, it's not bad at all.

It's not exactly good either, the overall cheap look (all the exteriors are transparently the Malibu Ranch area that '60s movies and '70s TV beat to death, and the sci-fi interiors are el cheapo) hurts it, the script could have used another draft or two (there's some seriously silly bad, stilted sci-fi dialogue - e.g., Husband - How are the children? Wife - Beautiful, as always. - that's ludicrously alien to Bradbury; boy he must have been cross about it!), the direction by Jack Smight is undistinguished, and Goldsmith's score is all-to-obviously mostly outtakes and rehashes from his great Planet of the Apes work.

Still, the basic stories still have some power, and Steiger, Claire Bloom, and the other actors give it their all. It's worth seeing so long as you're prepared to roll with its limitations. The second short story adapted, 'The Long Rain', is probably the best realized and in my view is alone worth tracking the film down.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I just got around to seeing The Illustrated Man (1969) w/ Rod Steiger, which is adapted from some of the stories in the eponymous Ray Bradbury collection.

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I recall reading the book and its stories, never managing to see the movie. I recall "The Veldt" as the scariest piece in the collection, but it wasn't really a horror book.

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TIM was a critical and commercial flop at the time, but if you go into it now as I did, with very low expectations, it's not bad at all.

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Well, its funny. The 60s/70s cusp of movies delivered its share of classics and great entertainments, but as a whole, the old Hollywood system was dying out and a lot of half-assed pictures were released. There was a palpable, desperate air of "trying to get hip" from studio moguls; Lucas and Spielberg and Scorsese weren't here yet, so Jack Smight had to suffice.

Briefly on Rod Steiger. His heavy-duty Method overacting was nothing if not fun to watch. And rather like fellow supporting actors Lee Marvin and Walter Matthau, Steiger rather grunted and groaned his way to stardom; as with those other two, an Oscar put him over the top. His beefy good ol' boy Southern sheriff in "In the Heat of the Night" ("Oh, YEAH!") got him that Oscar, and made him a star.

For a very short time. Hollywood didn't much know how to use him. He was a master-of-disguise psycho killer in "No Way to Treat a Lady"(1968), and he did The Illustrated Man, and he played Napoleon in Waterloo but...he just wasn't leading man material. Steiger himself was frank about it in later years: "The ladies didn't lust after me. If that doesn't happen, you can't be a leading man." (Truth be told, the ladies DID lust after Lee Marvin and Walter Matthau; there were polls taken.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

What was interesting when "The Illustrated Man" came out was that, even if Rod couldn't get the ladies on screen, he had QUITE a lady off screen, in beautiful Claire Bloom, and they WERE a stylish acting couple. For awhile. I believe that Philip Roth married her next.

Steiger played out the decades as a "name" supporting actor. He's funny as hell in the misfire "Mars Attacks" as a hawk-like general promoting nuking the Martians while President Jack Nicholson fumes at him(two Best Actors trading funny lines with skill in a movie that's beneath both of them.) That was 1996, almost 30 years after In the Heat of the Night, and more than 40 after On the Waterfront. It was a long career. Just not much of it as a lead. He almost got The Hospital, but lost it to yet another character star, George C. Scott.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's not exactly good either, the overall cheap look (all the exteriors are transparently the Malibu Ranch area that '60s movies and '70s TV beat to death, and the sci-fi interiors are el cheapo) hurts it,

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This is EXACTLY why so many 60s/70s cusp movies are failures -- one sensed the studios not caring about their audience, looking to use shortcuts and cheap sets to get around the fact that the studios were, largely, failing. (Something with the craft and care and precision of The Wild Bunch stood right out.)

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the script could have used another draft or two (there's some seriously silly bad, stilted sci-fi dialogue - e.g., Husband - How are the children? Wife - Beautiful, as always. - that's ludicrously alien to Bradbury; boy he must have been cross about it!),

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You have the material from a great writer of prose and the screenwriter blows it. Sheesh. But truth be told, good screenwriters are hard to find. Billy Wilder told Billy Bob Thornton to "write yourself a role" to become a movie star: "Actors are a dime a dozen in this town, but good writing is hard to find."

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the direction by Jack Smight is undistinguished,

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I saw his name a lot in the 60s, sometimes on good movies. Didn't he do "Harper"? And "No Way to Treat a Lady" with Steiger(which is a bit of a "Frenzy" with better stars.) But, alas, he was no auteur.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

and Goldsmith's score is all-to-obviously mostly outtakes and rehashes from his great Planet of the Apes work.

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You know, Goldsmith gave us some of the greatest movie scores ever -- particularly in Westerns -- but he seems to have blown it a time or two. He was arguably the biggest name on "Psycho II," but that film has a score that simply doesn't compare to Herrmann.

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Still, the basic stories still have some power, and Steiger, Claire Bloom, and the other actors give it their all.

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I can't remember if that's the only time Steiger and Bloom worked together on screen. Off to imdb!

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It's worth seeing so long as you're prepared to roll with its limitations. The second short story adapted, 'The Long Rain', is probably the best realized and in my view is alone worth tracking the film down.

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I'll keep all of that in mind and take a look. "The Veldt" is in there, right?

Noteable: Steiger showed off his "Illustrated Man" body in photos. Tattoos from top to bottom, and necessarily with his shirt off, which was a problem: he was pretty stocky at the time, and out of shape. It fought with the concept of a man who uses his body as a work of art. As for all those tattoos: we see a LOT of men in public who look like that today.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

"The Veldt" is in there, right?

Yes it is. The original story's so great and *really* resonates today with parents who struggle to get their kids off their devices. Unfortunately, all the film's problems with cheapness in locations/sets, lethargic direction, and messing with Bradbury's ace colloquial dialogue mark the adaptation as far from ideal. It's not *terrible* but *we* know that film dynamite made cheaply but with incredible energy and visual and audio invention (Duel, THX-1138) or great sensitivity to dialogue (Little Murders, Husbands) or both (Five Easy Pieces, Panic in Needle Park, Last Picture Show) are just around the corner. TIM is enjoyable *if* you can keep out of your head what a young Spielberg or Lucas or Ashby or Bogdan. or Rafelson, etc. would have done given the same budget and opportunity.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"The Veldt" is in there, right?

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Yes it is. The original story's so great and *really* resonates today with parents who struggle to get their kids off their devices.

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Not only is this the only story I recall reading in The Illustrated Man, it may well be the ONLY story I read in The Illustrated Man...it certainly had a Twlight Zone like payoff, as I recall.

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Unfortunately, all the film's problems with cheapness in locations/sets, lethargic direction, and messing with Bradbury's ace colloquial dialogue mark the adaptation as far from ideal. It's not *terrible* but *we* know that film dynamite made cheaply but with incredible energy and visual and audio invention (Duel, THX-1138) or great sensitivity to dialogue (Little Murders, Husbands) or both (Five Easy Pieces, Panic in Needle Park, Last Picture Show) are just around the corner. TIM is enjoyable *if* you can keep out of your head what a young Spielberg or Lucas or Ashby or Bogdan. or Rafelson, etc. would have done given the same budget and opportunity.

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Yes, I've pointed this out before, having lived through it. With the studios dying out AS studios(they were becoming banks, in the main, for indie worldwide film production), a lot of cheapjack movies were made in the 70's...the early 70's in particular. MGM under the Evil Cost Cutter James Aubrey seemed to go out of its way to deliver corner cutting entertainment, often filmed on the MGM backlot...which wasn't up to snuff with the Universal backlot.

The exciting "indie" filmmakers were working on shoestrings, and in NYC, and in Spielberg's case, on TV (Duel.) And then they blossomed.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I was a pretty good filmgoer in the 70's. I usually found the money somewhere to see things like "THX-1138" (which interested me becuz of the Sci Fi and a promised chase through a subway system) and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"(praised to the gills in magazines I read; evidently not all that widely seen, but I saw it. Same goes for Little Murders.)

I felt a bit "inside" when American Graffiiti hit big and "THX--1138" was the license plate on a car(a car that crashed outside a theater showing Coppola's obligatory Psycho homage, "Dementia 13," more insider stuff.)

I felt even MORE inside when -- as an original THX-1138 viewer -- I watched Star Wars hit years later. Well, only 7...

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

'The Long Rain', is probably the best realized and in my view is alone worth tracking the film down.
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I'll keep all of that in mind and take a look

'The Long Rain' has a couple of FX shots with rain and mud that are excellent and unforgettable. One of the problems with adapting Bradbury for film is that his stories are often very internal and psychological, but in 'The Long Rain' the internal stuff he's worried about - the threat to sanity posed by continuous heavy rain on some alien world - has the perfect visual correlate - all that rain and mud! So long as you spend time and money on getting some haunting FX together it'll work. They did and it did.

In general, just as The Veldt feels increasingly prophetic as our devices get smarter and more addictive and pervasive, so Bradbury's stories about the human costs of various traditional Sci-fi scenarios are feeling more prescient now that people are starting to actively grapple with the hazards of space-flight outside of low-earth orbit, i.e., beyond where the Earth's magnetic field still shields you from radiation from the Sun and the whole galaxy and universe. Being in deep space or on the (no magnetic field) Martian surface for months at a time is turning out to be *incredibly* tough for creatures like us - our brains are *very* vulnerable to radiation as are all of our self-repairing processes as are all of our gut bacteria, and so on. It all feels *very* Bradbury - future astronauts and space colonists - unless we get all the tech just right! - dying insane, cancer-filled, and wasting away!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In general, just as The Veldt feels increasingly prophetic as our devices get smarter and more addictive and pervasive, so Bradbury's stories about the human costs of various traditional Sci-fi scenarios are feeling more prescient now that people are starting to actively grapple with the hazards of space-flight outside of low-earth orbit,

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One thing about visionaries is that there visions can often extend more and more with each passing decade. Its like Bradbury simply "extrapolated" what science could do in the future...and here it is. Somwhere.

--Martian surface for months at a time is turning out to be *incredibly* tough for creatures like us - our brains are *very* vulnerable to radiation as are all of our self-repairing processes as are all of our gut bacteria, and so on.

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Begs the question: just because it is out there, should we REALLY go there?

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It all feels *very* Bradbury - future astronauts and space colonists - unless we get all the tech just right! - dying insane, cancer-filled, and wasting away!

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I'll be staying right here, thank you.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A bit more about Ray Bradbury:

I think he entered my world in the sixties along with Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone and a few other things as "a special look at a special world" -- something beyond mere drama. (Star Trek SHOULD have had that effect, too, but it didn't work on me.)

Anyway, I read Farenheit 451 and saw Truffaut's movie (not knowing who Truffaut was) with Herrmann's music(not quite yet knowing what he did in favorite movies of mine), it was an OK experience that bothered this book lover. (I did love the humans all walking around with one book memorized in their head to tell others.)

A Ray Bradbury short story "The Lighthouse" became my favorite movie of 1953 -- The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The short story was but one scene in the film -- late on a dark and stormy night, a dinosaur rises out from the sea and demolishes a lighthouse as if it were his opponent. But the whole movie took off in all directions FROM that great scene.

I'm very, very sure that Hitchcock met with Ray Bradbury about writing "something" in the 60s, but nothing came from it (though was not one Hitchcock series episode from Bradbury? I now a TZ was.) Hitchcock also met with Rod Serling about writing something in the 60's (alas, in the decade of Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz, there was nothing for these guys interesting enough to write. This was all after The Birds, I think -- though maybe Bradbury was brought in on that.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

One of my favorite pre-teen books was by Ray Bradbury, and I saw it as a movie from the moment I read it:

Something Wicked This Way Comes.

A sinister carnival called "Cooger and Dark's Travelling Pandemonium Shadow Show." A carousel that spun backwords to turn an evil man into an evil boy...and forewards to age that evil boy into an evil, superold, DEAD man. A witch who hunted our heroic pair of pre-teen boys from a hot air balloon --at night. The carnival creating a parade to come into a small town for the express purpose of seeking out and grabbing the two boys.

And a dark, now hard to watch/read scene in which the sinister male villain pulls pages out of a book to show an old man how the years of his life have thrown away the healthy youth he once was and reduced him to a heavy-breathing old man.

The old man is more like late middle age, but he is the father of one of the two hero boys, and must try to save that boy.

Reading the book, I recall casting James Stewart as the too-old father of a pre-teen, and Kirk Douglas as the sinister carnival owner. (Truth be told, Stewart was too old even when I imagined him; Henry Fonda makes more sense to me now, from then.)

When they finally made it, Jason Robards(not starry enough, not quite good enough) was the father and Jonathan Pryce(not starry at all, quite good) was the villain. It was for "Old Disney" and it gave off an air of budget problems and amateur production(even with Jack Clayton at the helm.)

I hope someone remakes THIS one.

PS. The opening pages of Something Wicked This Way Comes are narration to warm the soul...as the school doors open for our two pre-teen boy heroes, from spring into summer, after the darkness of fall and winter. Arthur Hill got THIS narration right in the movie, at least.

[–] swanstep (2616) 6 years ago

Our discussion of Bradbury reminded me of this funny, filthy youtube hit from 2011 (NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM
Rachel Bloom's gone on to have an acclaimed nerdy comedy and singing career but it all started with her Bradbury song.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

As proof that IMDB isn't totally worthless these days, check out Bradbury's writing credits, 5 for AHP and 2 for AHH, most memorably The Jar. As opposed to a single TZ credit for I SIng the Body Electric.

As you noted, EC, the HItchcock show depended a lot more on adaptations than TZ as is the case with Bradbury.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

As proof that IMDB isn't totally worthless these days,

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Oh, its still a great data base. Its just that we do the talking, here and elsewhere, now.

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check out Bradbury's writing credits, 5 for AHP and 2 for AHH, most memorably The Jar.

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Ah, The Jar. Not as scary as "An Unlocked Window," but as creepy as you can get at the end, with a beheaded head in the jar shown ...but not shown. From behind, with a telltale ribbon in the hair.

I remember, as a 60's kid, how it seemed like CBS was showing The Jar like, every two months or something. It kept coming back. I kept seeing commercials for it on daytime TV. Must have gotten high ratings.

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As opposed to a single TZ credit for I SIng the Body Electric.

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Somehow, that's a title I remember.

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As you noted, EC, the HItchcock show depended a lot more on adaptations than TZ as is the case with Bradbury.

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Actually, I'm surprised to realize that TZ had many adaptations AT all. So often the episodes seemed to be "variations on one nifty little idea." No real plotting, no real characterization..just a journey to the preordained punchline ("The customer is a Martian! But the cook is a Venusian!"; "To Serve Man...its a COOKBOOK!")

That said, I recall the one with Gig Young -- "Walking Distance" - being a real tearjerker of sorts. An NYC Don Draper/Roger Thornhill Madison Avenue man needs car repairs in the county and so walks(walking distance) to his old hometown...and finds it as he lived in it as a boy. And then he finds himself AS a boy...and scares the boy while desperately trying to tell the boy to avoid the awful high pressure adult life he faces. In the poignant near-last scene, Young's young father tells him he should leave his childhood to his childhood self. "You only get one life." THAT TZ had meat on the bones and emotion, you ask me.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

As you noted, EC, the HItchcock show depended a lot more on adaptations than TZ as is the case with Bradbury

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More on the above:

Its interesting to ponder where Hitchcock got the money to purchase the sheer volume of short stories and novels(sometimes novellas) that powered AHP and AHH. I assume that Universal gave him a story budget, or perhaps Universal had already bought a lot of the titles for use (I know Universal, not Hitchcock, bought Topaz -- Hitchcock was then asked if he wanted to make the movie.)

I also assume that short stories came cheap back then...maybe you could buy one for $500 or less?

But also this: Hitchcock's company seemed to have a never-ending supply of short stories to put into books both for adults ("Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV") and kids ("Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful.") Again...where in Hitchcock's operation did the money come to buy all this material?

I know that Robert Bloch's "Yours Truly Jack the Ripper" was put into one of the KID's books(Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbinders in Suspense), because I was gifted with that book for Xmas, and I recall being excited by the references to body parts like livers being removed by the Ripper. And yet that story was filmed for "Boris Karloff's Thriller" -- not one of the Hitchcock shows. Maybe Universal owned it.

I was also gifted with "Alfred Hitchcock's Sinister Spies." I recall in that book a story by Anthony Boucher(the NYT mystery book critic who discovered Psycho.) The key was a person named "Elsie" but that turned out to be "LC" which turned out to be "Library of Congress" as a library research system that solved a murder. I also recall the killer being revealed as a beautiful woman who pulled a revolver from "between her breasts" after unzipping her blouse. Thank you, Alfred Hitchcock, for putting THAT story in a kid's collection.

And finally, this: Who bought the short stories for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine? And with what money? (Hitch said all he did with that Florida-based magazine was lend his name for a fee, and assign Pat Hitchcock to monitor the publication.)

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ecarle, I suspect the going rate for short stories in the 50s was a lot less than $500. Getting short fiction published was and still is one of the best ways for aspiring writers to get attention, and many publications today pay a nominal $25 for the privilege

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Wow. Well that would keep costs down for the Hitchcock TV show, the books and the Mystery Magazine, I guess.

But to have your $25 short story broadcast to millions on AHP probably meant a lot to a writer's career and future work, I suppose.

And then there was Robert Bloch. He sold his novel Psycho for a measly $9,000 (the book Advise and Consent sold for $400,000), but ended up with a very famous name. Anytime that name appeared on AHP or Thriller or even Star Trek...people knew who Robert Bloch was.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Walking Distance exhibited Serling's most common and heartfelt theme, how the heartless corporate world grinds men down and makes them nostalgic for a simpler time. This cropped up pre-TZ in the TV and movie versions of Patterns, and would recur in a number of other TZ episodes, the one with WIlloughly and one where an actor escapes his horrible life by becoming the character he plays on TV.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Walking Distance exhibited Serling's most common and heartfelt theme, how the heartless corporate world grinds men down and makes them nostalgic for a simpler time.

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Its a very real theme, I'm afraid. I expect that women can relate to it as well, now, but what it does/did to men in a dog-eat-dog world was pretty grim indeed.

I'm reminded of someone's line in The Wild Bunch "All men dream of being a child again..the worst of them, perhaps most of all."

I recall watching a re-run of Walking Distance about 10 years ago with a female companion. I teared up at the end(father talks to son), but she started sobbing. She was very moved.

I often found the song "Cat's in the Cradle," that supposedly indicts a father for not spending enough time with his son, to be a "sideways" indictment of the capitalistic grind that sacrificed BOTH father and son to corporate demands. And then the son ends up pretty much in the same place. Maybe that's just me, but I see it as the larger picture of the song.

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This cropped up pre-TZ in the TV and movie versions of Patterns,

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Patterns is another film (from Serling's TV play) that I saw very young (on TV) which, along with films like The Hospital and The New Centurions, filled me with a bit of dread about adult responsibilities and competitions. But -- good news -- I found it to be not THAT bad in real life. Just lower your competitive goals....

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and would recur in a number of other TZ episodes, the one with WIlloughly and one where an actor escapes his horrible life by becoming the character he plays on TV.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I believe I have told this tale before, but it is relevant. I saw Rod Serling speak at an LA college in the 70s. He showed his Night Gallery tale "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar," about yet another middle-aged burnout remembering his youth(not his childhood, though.)

When the film was over, Serling spoke a bit darkly to us all: "Feel lucky, you are all young, in your teens and twenties. It will be a lot harder when you are in your forties and fifties."

Serling died of a heart attack -- AT 50 -- within a couple of years after giving that speech.

Mr. Serling was a cautionary tale -- I guess I've spent a lifetime trying to avoid his dark warnings, up to, during, and now past my own forties and fifties.