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John Larch as Sergeant McCallum: The Hitchcock Connection (SPOILERS)

posted 10 years ago by ecarle
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I thought one of the better performances in this thriller was from John Larch as the police sergeant who works the case.

Its interesting: "Play Misty for Me" came out in October of 1971, and "Dirty Harry" came out in December of 1971, and there's John Larch supporting Clint Eastwood in both movies. They must have been pals from Eastwood's TV days.

Larch is much more famous in the much more famous "Dirty Harry" playing the SF Police Chief, but he's got that cool, classic role to play in "Play Misty for Me":

The slasher victim.

"Play Misty for Me" is carefully written in that Jessica's first bladed attack only injures her victim(Clint's maid) and does not kill her. Jessica is committed...and then released.

But for Clint to justifiably and finally kill Jessica...she's got to kill SOMEBODY.

And poor Sergeant McCallum is the victim. Walks right into it after agreeing to "check in" on Clint's girlfriend and her roommate. He isn't slashed though --- he is stabbed, once in the chest, with scissors.

Movie buffs will note that Larch's murder is filmed with a slight, low-budget nod to the killing of Martin Balsam's private eye Arbogast in Hitchcock's "Psycho." (1960.) Though Balsam experienced a fancy overhead shot and process fall down a staircase when the psycho slashed him, Larch at least mimics Balsam's look of sudden, open-mouthed shock. Clint just didn't have the budget for a Psycho style set-piece.

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Around 1978, Alfred Hitchcock asked Clint Eastwood to lunch at his office to discuss starring in a new Hitchocck film("The Short Night," it was never made, Hitch got too sick and soon died. Eastwood took the lunch as a courtesy.) Clint found himself confronting an old, immobile Hitchocck("He just sat there, only his eyes moved.") Eastwood, desperate to make some kind of conversation with the elderly Hitchcock, noted that he tried to direct a Hitchocck type picture with "Play Misty for Me."

Also: After completing its run in the fall of 1971, "Play Misty for Me" was sent out as a second feature about six months later with Hitchcck's June 1972 release, "Frenzy."

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

Fascinating anecdote ecarle about the meeting between Hitch and Clint, underlining the relationship between Psycho and Play Misty For Me.

Other parallels besides those you've mentioned:
Both low budget
Both directors had creative control, though Hitch may have come under some pressure from the studio.
The TV factor; Hitchcock's production crew against Clint's largely TV casting, which as you note features John Larch, who Eastwood would surely have known from both men's earlier TV western roles.

Obvious differences:
Colour as opposed to B & W
Much more use of locations in PMFM
Gender role reversals which IMO work really well.
Quite a contrast in soundtracks with again both being effective in their own ways.

[–] ecarle 9 years ago

Thank you. Both your paralells and contrasts between the two movies are well taken.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5955) 3 years ago

Eastwood really made use of the beautiful Carmel scenery.