The one movie Alfred Hitchcock hated making so much he disowned it: “Not a Hitchcock picture”
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most iconic cinematic figures of all time; creating a body of work that is inseparable from popular culture and the progression of cinema itself, pioneering a distinct voice through his portrayal of suspense and innovative visual style.
The techniques created by the director have defined decades of subsequent films, with the vertigo effect being utilised in the work of Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg and his genius knack for blocking and framing being studied by film lovers around the world. With his dark and effortlessly slick story worlds, the world of Hitchcock remains as one of the greatest marvels of the big screen.
However, while the director never suffered from a lack of external validation, he struggled to find an internal sense of pride for one film in particular after a challenging production, causing him to try and distance himself from the project entirely.
Some of Hitchcock’s most celebrated films include Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, being praised for his ability to create tension in confined spaces, giving birth to the slasher genre as a whole and his use of voyeuristic shots that align the audience with the perspective of an outsider or peeping tom. These are all techniques that are still associated with the director, with filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Stanley Kubrick paying homage to his trailblazing visual language, something that ensures his timeless legacy and impact.
However, there was one film of Hitchcock’s that he desperately tried to detach himself from, claiming that he didn’t like the film and it ‘was not a Hitchcock picture’, despite the fact that it was the only one of his films to receive an Oscar for Best Picture.
Rebecca, released in 1940, was one of Hitchcock’s many ventures into adapting the work of Daphne Du Maurier, later doing so with The Birds in 1963. But while it is the directors most decorated piece of work, he deeply struggled with the production due to intense clashes with the producer, David O Selznick, who was known for being a control freak that pushed for final say over creative decisions that challenged the authority of the directors he worked with.
After being offered his first deal to direct an American film, Hitchcock went over to the States for the production of Rebecca and signed a multi-picture deal with Selznick, unaware of the clashes that would later ensue. Selznick had begun building a reputation for crossing a line with his collaborators, scaring away three directors and several writers during the production of Gone With the Wind, which was his most successful film. And unfortunately for Hitchcock, Rebecca was no different.
While the film was hugely successful, the pair came to blows over the ending of the film, with both men having very different ideas about how faithful it should stay to the source material. While they eventually settled on a resolution, and the film was awarded eleven Oscar nominations, Hitchcock later disowned the project entirely, saying that the story was not to his taste and had been taken over by Selznick, resulting in a film that did not feel authentic to his style at all.
While it sparked the beginning of his career in the United States, it ultimately left a sour taste and became something the director had less than fond memories of, later on attempting to redo this experience by adapting another of Maurier’s novels, but this time doing it exactly the way he wanted.
