The only thing Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock had in common was their bizarre favourite movie
Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock are often considered in the same breath when it comes to cinematic icons of the golden age.
You’d think they’d have some respect for each other, considering that they operated in similar circles and both had a passion for filmmaking above anything. Sadly, there was no friendship there, and Welles actually had an active hatred for Hitchcock’s work.
Seriously, he didn’t hold back in revealing his disdain for the filmmaker’s oeuvre, because Welles was one opinionated man. He didn’t care if what he said came across as a bit harsh; he could be ruthless because, let’s be real, he’d written, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane when he was just 25 – that’s certainly going to give you one hell of an ego boost.
“I’ve never understood the cult of Hitchcock,” Welles once said in a tape recording which was shared following his death. “Particularly the late American movies. Egotism and laziness. And they’re all lit like television shows.” He even went as far as to claim that he “saw one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen the other night,” in reference to Rear Window, explaining, “Complete insensitivity to what a story about voyeurism could be. I’ll tell you what is astonishing. To discover that Jimmy Stewart can be a bad actor … Even Grace Kelly is better than Jimmy, who’s overacting.”
Yet, for all of their differences, the pair actually shared the same favourite movie, which would probably piss Welles right off if he found out. Hitchcock was once quoted as saying, believe it or not, that Smokey and the Bandit was his favourite movie. Not a tense thriller or a pioneering horror, but an action comedy from 1977 – made after Hitchcock retired (and just three years before he died).
In fact, it’s said that Smokey and the Bandit was the last film that he watched before he died, which is really saying something for arguably one of the greatest directors of all time.
Perhaps Hitchcock just liked a bit of fun when it came to watching movies near the end of his life, tired with a whole career of making movies that often dealt with some rather trying topics. The Burt Reynolds movie was pretty well-received, especially with audiences, who poured money into the film’s box office earnings, but it’s not exactly the height of cinematic sophistication.
Interestingly, Welles loved it, too, clearly letting down his rather pretentious guard when it came to the feel-good film. It starred Sally Field alongside Reynolds as a runaway bride who jumps into his car while he’s trying to distract himself from a truck illegally loaded with beer. You wouldn’t expect Welles to love it, but he really did.
Maybe he should’ve opened his eyes to the fact that he and the ‘Master of Suspense’ had much more in common than they’d like to have admitted.
