Me and Hitch [Paperback]

Evan Hunter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

A frank, insightful memoir of the writer's experiences in scripting Marnie and The Birds.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571193064
• ISBN-13: 978-0571193066
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,095,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Short and Not So Sweet, April 29, 1999

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Me and Hitch (Paperback)

More of an extended essay with unrelated anecdotes, this tiny book concerns the brief partnering of author Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) and Alfred Hitchcock over a few years on the films "The Birds" and "Marnie." Dropped in the midst of these alternately bitter and fond memories are totally unrelated anecdotes about "Hitch." Nifty, but so short you should read it in the bookstore and save the $12.95.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hicth forever, October 9, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Varese, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me and Hitch (Paperback)

I liked this book a lot. First of all, it showed me how much discussion and creative brain-storming is involved into a script preparation, especially when the director is a perfectionist like Hitch. Second, I was amazed by noting that the conflicting relationship between the script-writer and the director has been so intense that it still emerges from pages written more than thirty years later. In this conflict between the professional script-writer and the non-rational genius, those of us who have intensely loved The Birds and Marnie stay with the genius.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent film memoir of an unsettling collaboration, April 30, 2010

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me and Hitch (Paperback)

Fans of Ed McBain's 87th Precient novels might know that he also wrote books under his real name, Evan Hunter, but not that he worked on two scripts for director Alfred Hitchcock: "The Birds" and "Marnie." In "Me and Hitch," Hunter/McBain describes his collaboration in the cool, even-handed prose that is a mix of restrained affection, much admiration for Hitchcock's genius, and sometimes unsettling details.

Hitchcock came across Hunter after his novel of juvenile delinquency in New York schools, "The Blackboard Jungle" became a best-seller and later a good movie. He had also bought one of Hunter's short-stories for his TV show. What Hitchcock didn't tell Hunter was that he was looking for a writer who also had some literary credentials (which "Jungle" gave Hunter).

It seems that, despite a long, successful career and several Oscar nominations, Hitchcock wanted more. He wanted respectability. He wanted an Oscar. His previous movie, "Psycho," was successful, but it was also sort of a pot-boiler. Hitch -- I can't resist using his nickname, although no doubt he would insist on me using "Mr. Hitchcock," if he wasn't ignoring me completely -- wanted to be recognized as an artist, at least not the kind who made movies like "Psycho."

If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it was. "The Birds" was intended for Cary Grant and Grace Kelly; instead, it got Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedron. Hunter's idea to write what he called "screwball comedy becomes terror" was, even he admitted later, a terrible idea. There would be no music. And they never did figure out why the birds were attacking in the first place (Hunter thinks that Hitch didn't want to. Makes it more artistic, doncha see).

As for "Marnie," Hunter's objection to the notorious scene in which husband Sean Connery rapes his frigid wife (Hedron, again) on their honeymoon signalled the beginning of the end of their partnership (a friend later told Hunter "you just got bothered by the scene that was his reason for making the movie. You just wrote your ticket back to New York.")

The end was anti-climatic. After Hunter turned in his version of the script, Hitch fired him through a phone call from his assistant. Later, they met with their wives for a convivial dinner, and that was it. If Hunter suffered for his art, he didn't reveal it.

But "Me and Hitch" is a worthwhile book. Fictioneers and scriptwriters will appreciate the insights into Hitchcock's method of building a script, his fans will eat up the glimpses of the man's private life ' he gives autographed books to Hunter's kids; he visits children who want to talk to him; when he's not saying that "The Birds" would be the best movie of his career, he drunkenly confesses he's nothing but a "big fat slob" ' and film fans wonder what the hell "The Birds" and "Marnie" were all about will get a few ideas.

Best of all, Hunter/McBain fans get a lovely bit of biography, told in the same laconic, direct style found in his novels. And at 90 pages, it can be read about as fast as a Hitchcock movie.