Press conference Portrait of Clint Eastwood

Credit: Far Out / Alamy

When Clint Eastwood turned down Alfred Hitchcock

Sat 17 June 2023 15:45, UK

Before Clint Eastwood became an acclaimed director in his own right, his acting career saw him collaborate with the likes of Don Siegel, Sergio Leone and Michael Cimino, bringing his distinct brand of western-tinged machismo to almost every genre except the romantic comedy. However, there was one director, still considered to this day as perhaps the greatest filmmaker in the history of cinema, who Eastwood passed up on working with: Alfred Hitchcock.

In his extraordinary 50-year career, the British director oversaw every stage of cinema’s evolution; he made features during the silent era, directed black-and-white ‘talkies’ and continued well into the 1970s with full-on colour pictures. His deftness with tension earned him the moniker ‘The Master of Suspense’, and his unparalleled ability to combine excellent performances with exciting and purposeful camera work resulted in films that will be remembered for decades to come.

Films like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest featured collaborations with Grace Kelly, James Stewart and Cary Grant; the best of the best wanted to work with Hitchcock, and he certainly expected nothing less. During the 1970s, less than ten years before the great director died in 1980, he famously hosted Eastwood for lunch in his office as part of a conversation for a future project.

According to Entertainment Weekly, however, things didn’t go quite as planned. As a result, we never got to see what could have been an epic collaboration between two titans of cinema. The reason? Eastwood just “wasn’t nuts about the script”. After being pitched a film by the late great Hitchcock, it seems that something about the movie didn’t entirely draw the Dirty Harry star in. Eastwood never revealed what exactly it was about the film that he didn’t like, whether it was the role itself or the narrative, nor did he confirm the actual project itself.

Based on reports on Hitchcock’s own creative progress, however, it seems likely that we can deduce what the film may have been. Along with Walter Matthau, Sean Connery and Steve McQueen, many believe that Eastwood was being considered for The Short Night – a romantic espionage thriller that would have been filmed in Finland. Initially set up at Universal, with Hitchcock as director, the film ultimately never came to fruition, and neither the studio nor any other gave the project the green light.

We can’t know for sure how the film would have turned out, but it’s safe to assume that with Hitchcock helming, there would have been plenty of thrills involved. It may be for the best that the picture never got made, saving Eastwood from the remorse and regret many actors often come to feel later when they pass up on a project such as this. As it stands, the High Plains Drifter actor didn’t miss out on anything. Instead, he continued to forge his career as an exceptionally talented actor/director, which sees him beginning production on a new feature, Juror #2, this month.

Watch the trailer for his most recent picture, Cry Macho, below.