Hitchcock (2012) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC The relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho (1960) in 1959 is explored. Director: a list of 25 titles created 10 Jan 2013 a list of 43 titles created 31 Jan 2013 a list of 28 titles created 04 Nov 2013 a list of 35 titles created 01 Dec 2013 a list of 35 titles created 23 Jul 2014 Search for " Hitchcock " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 27 nominations. See more awards » Videos Edit Storyline In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville , are at the top of their creative game as filmmakers amid disquieting insinuations about it being time to retire. To recapture his youth's artistic daring, Alfred decides his next film will adapt the lurid horror novel, Psycho (1960), over everyone's misgivings. Unfortunately, as Alfred self-finances and labors on this film, Alma finally loses patience with his roving eye and controlling habits with his actresses. When an ambitious friend lures her to collaborate on a work of their own, the resulting marital tension colors Alfred's work even as the novel's inspiration haunts his dreams. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com) Behind every Psycho is a great woman.

See more » Genres: Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content and thematic material | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 14 December 2012 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of 'Psycho' See more » Filming Locations: $287,715 (USA) (21 November 2012) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Among the actors who were considered or interviewed for the role of Alfred Hitchcock during the long preproduction were Oliver Platt , Richard Griffiths , Alfred Molina , Paul Giamatti , Philip Seymour Hoffman , Bill Murray and Johnny Depp . See more » Goofs While Hitch is in the middle of a chapter of "Psycho", Alma takes the book from him. He takes it back but continues reading from the beginning of another chapter. See more » Quotes Henry Gein : You know, there's gonna be a lot more jobs at that factory in Milwaukee come June. I could put in a word. Ed Gein : You can't leave us, Henry. She needs us both. Henry Gein : Can you stop being a mama's boy for one second?

I'm not trying to hurt you, but Jesus, you gotta live your own life sometime. That woman can take care of her own god... [Ed hits Henry with a shovel] Alfred Hitchcock : Good evening. Well, brother has been killing brother since Cain and Abel, yet even I didn't ... [...] See more » Crazy Credits After the end credits, there is a brief shot of Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock standing in profile in a large empty movie theatre. See more » Connections Courtesy of The Island Def Jam Music Group Under license from Universal Music Enterprisrs An exercise in feminist revisionism 26 January 2016 | by Leofwine_draca (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews While I enjoy watching historical biopics, I don't like the ones that mess with the facts, especially when the subject matter is a favourite of mine. Hitchcock has long been a favourite director, so I awaited with interest this film which depicts him as he devises and shoots the legendary PSYCHO. Unfortunately, what Hollywood ultimately delivers is nothing more than an exercise in feminist revisionism, and that's all down to Helen Mirren who play Hitch's wife.

Apparently, Mirren refused the role at first as it lacked 'meat' and 'importance'; thus, a number of spurious and ludicrous - angles were added to the movie to better accommodate her. According to this film, Hitch's wife directed part of the movie, inspired her husband, and came up with the best ideas, all of which is complete nonsense of course and a bit of an insult to the great director himself. Aside from that, the film isn't bad, so it's a pity that the huge flaws stopped me from enjoying it (it's more fantasy than realist). Anthony Hopkins is a nice fit for Hitchcock, but I found his prosthetics to be too distracting and unrealistic (and, after all, there's only one Hitch). The supporting cast is better, with Scarlett Johansson (as Janet Leigh), Michael Wincott (as Ed Gein), Kurtwood Smith (as a censor) and Michael Stuhlbarg (as an executive) really standing out. 4 of 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes ‘Hitchcock’ and ‘The Girl’ Remember Alma Reville - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Weapon Becomes a Star Search Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Weapon Becomes a Star ‘Hitchcock’ and ‘The Girl’ Remember Alma Reville By JOHN ANDERSON Continue reading the main story Photo Left, Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as his wife, Alma Reville, in “Hitchcock,” about making “Psycho”; right, Imelda Staunton and Toby Jones in HBO’s film “The Girl,” about “The Birds” and “Marnie.” Credit Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight Pictures; Kelly Walsh, via HBO NORMAN BATES and his mother were pretty effective at eliminating motel guests. But it was Alma Reville who really killed off Janet Leigh in the shower scene of “Psycho.” “They were watching a cut of the film,” the actor and producer Norman Lloyd recalled, referring to Ms. Reville and her husband, Alfred Hitchcock . “And Alma said, ‘You can’t — Janet Leigh swallowed once when she was dead in the bathroom.’ It was one frame.

No one spotted it except Alma.” Hitchcock, who died in 1980 , is getting a lot of attention this year. His 1958 masterpiece “Vertigo” displaced the longtime champ “Citizen Kane” as the No. 1 film of all time in Britain’s influential Sight & Sound poll. Two new features — “Hitchcock,” which takes an alternately comic and demented look at the making of “Psycho,” and “The Girl,” an HBO film that examines the unmaking of the actress Tippi Hedren — have the droll, acerbic and rotund Hitchcock at their center. But it is Reville who is finally getting some overdue public attention. As historians and insiders have long known she played an indispensable role in the making of her husband’s movies, as a story consultant, script editor, continuity person and overall sounding board. She was his closest confidante, his most trusted ally. When the Hitchcocks met in 1920s Berlin, she was already a rising star at Ufa, the German film studio; he was a would-be production designer with an advertising portfolio under his arm. As Mrs.

Hitchcock, Alma Reville became the quintessential unsung heroine. But now, being played by two prominent actresses ( Helen Mirren and Imelda Staunton), she is being ushered out from behind the curtain. “It’s time someone heard about her,” said Mary Stone, one of the three daughters of Patricia Hitchcock, the only child of Alfred and Alma. “She deserves 100 percent of the recognition she’s getting.” Photo Janet Leigh just seconds before being greeted by her murderer in “Psycho.” Credit Paramount Pictures, via Associated Press Speaking for her family Mrs. Stone said they were never consulted about “ The Girl ” — which had its premiere last month and portrays Hitchcock as a sexual predator and sadist, tormenting Ms. Hedren during the making of “The Birds” (1963). The family knew about “Hitchcock,” due Friday from Fox Searchlight, she said, but despite a cast that includes Anthony Hopkins as her grandfather, chose not to be involved. Mrs. Stone declined to be specific about the reasons, but the plotline is provocative enough: Ms.

Mirren plays Alma as a woman running out of patience with her husband’s notorious obsession with blondes and flirts with having an affair of her own, with Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), a writer with whom she had worked on “Stage Fright” and “Strangers on a Train.” Ms. Mirren admits that her character’s illicit romance was cooked up. “That man certainly existed, and they did write a script together,” she said by phone from England. “And there’s a suggestion in one of the biographies that possibly they’d had an affair, but it’s not remotely proved. I suspect the way we define it is exactly what happened, something innocent that got right to the edge of something maybe happening. But probably not.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Ms. Mirren expressed regret at not being able to inhabit the physical Alma Reville, who died in 1982. “It broke my heart I couldn’t be that person,” she said. “She was a tiny little woman, under five foot, but she must have been an amazing personality. And she was quite intimidating, from what I’ve read.” Much of Ms.

Mirren’s familiarity with her character came from “Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man,” the biography written by Patricia Hitchcock with Laurent Bouzereau. Mrs. Stone said that her mother, now 84, is not in the best of health and doesn’t do interviews, but Ms. Mirren pointed to Patricia Hitchcock’s book as the loftiest compliment to Alma Reville. “She was the child of Alfred Hitchcock and chose to write a book about her mother.” According to Ms. Hedren, and “The Girl,” which is based on Donald Spoto’s “Dark Side of Genius,” Reville was aware of her husband’s alleged abuse of the actress and chose to ignore it; Ms. Staunton’s portrayal, unlike Ms. Mirren’s, is of a victim and an enabler. “I don’t buy it,” said Mr. Lloyd, now 98, who appeared in the Hitchcock films “Spellbound” and “Saboteur” (it is Mr. Lloyd who falls from the Statue of Liberty ) and was a producer and director on the two Alfred Hitchcock TV series.

“Let us say, if he was interested in a particular actress, Alma was very shrewd about what was good for the picture,” Mr. Lloyd said. “ ‘Enabler’ is the wrong word. She observed everything, and either said to Hitch yes or no according to the person’s capabilities. And he listened to everything she said. His admiration for her was enormous.” Photo Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, in London in October 1959. She was an indispensable story consultant, script editor, continuity person and sounding board for his movies. Credit Associated Press Besides, Mr. Lloyd said, Hitchcock never disavowed the whole “Hitchcock blonde” concept because it was good for publicity. “Hitch and Sam Goldwyn,” he said, “were the best self-promoters in the history of Hollywood.” Ms. Mirren said she found herself more or less in agreement. “That whole thing about blondes is a bit of an exaggeration and a slightly lurid construct,” she said. “But he was creating a brand. And incidentally Alma recognized that. The success of that brand made them a lot of money and allowed them to enjoy a rather expensive lifestyle. They spent a fortune on food.

They had it flown in every week from Britain.” “Hitchcock” deals with the food, the obsessions and the financial risks Hitchcock took on “Psycho.” But its director, Sasha Gervasi ( “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” ), said that while there was “clearly a fantastical element” to his film, “the key elements are based in things that actually happened.” These include Reville’s contributions to the Hitchcock oeuvre, particularly “Psycho.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy “When I took Howard Suber’s class on structure,” Mr. Gervasi said, referring to the University of California, Los Angeles, film professor, “he does a section called ‘the greatest scenes in cinema,’ and the first one he shows is the shower scene in ‘Psycho.’ Hitchcock was against using the music. He did not want Bernard Herrmann’s music in that scene, and Alma insisted. And it was only because of his absolute trust in her that it’s included. He did it against his own will.

And when you think of that scene, you think of that music and you realize she played a critical role not just in that scene but in the history of cinema.” Stephen Rebello, author of “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho,” the book on which “Hitchcock” is partly based, interviewed many of Hitchcock’s collaborators on “Psycho” and confirmed the film’s version of events. Her instinct for the right thing is shot through Hitchcock’s work, Mr. Gervasi said. “I don’t think people in general have any idea the degree to which she contributed to Hitchcock’s genius. But she wasn’t interested in the limelight. She recognized her role. She recognized that Alfred Hitchcock was Alfred Hitchcock. She just wanted to make his films a little greater.” Correction: November 25, 2012 An article last Sunday about two new movies about the director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and collaborator, Alma Reville, referred incorrectly to their only child, Patricia Hitchcock. She is still living; it is Ms. Reville who died in 1982.

A version of this article appears in print on November 18, 2012, on Page AR16 of the New York edition with the headline: Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Weapon Becomes a Star. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Mrs Alfred Hitchcock: 'The Unsung Partner' - Telegraph Film news Mrs Alfred Hitchcock: 'The Unsung Partner' Alma Reville was Hitchcock’s wife, closest collaborator and the only person to whom he’d defer. She is played by Helen Mirren in a new film - which is finally giving her the credit she deserves. Image 1 of 3 Hitchcock's better half: Alma Reville stands behind Alfred Hitchcock (foreground) on the making of his first film Hitchcock's better half: the newly married Hitchcock and Reville in 1926 Image 1 of 3 Hitchcock's better half: with Grace Kelly on the set of To Catch a Thief (1955) Photo: REX FEATURES By Nisha Lilia Diu 6:00AM GMT 08 Feb 2013 Hitchcock hadn’t heard the word ‘no’ in a long time.

Of course he knew Psycho was a shockingly violent and transgressive story – that's why he wanted to film it. As Anthony Hopkins, playing the director in the new film Hitchcock, puts it, ‘Voyeurism, transvestism – very nice.’ He certainly didn’t expect his employer, Paramount, to point blank refuse to finance it. About halfway through Hitchcock, set during the making of Psycho in 1959, Hopkins and Helen Mirren face each other tensely across a table. Mr and Mrs Hitchcock are dining at home at the end of a bad day. They are personally bankrolling Psycho. The censors are crawling all over it. And the first cut looks like a disaster. ‘You might not be the easiest man to live with,’ says Mrs Hitchcock, ‘but you do know how to cut a picture better than anyone else.’ The world-famous director looks up at his wife. ‘Except for you,’ he says. Related Articles Hitchcock's best films: all 52 ranked 29 Apr 2015 ‘I’m sure that’s the way Hitchcock thought,’ says Patrick McGilligan, who knew Hitchcock and wrote a definitive biography of the man.

‘Her final word on editing was the final word on editing.’ Few beyond film historians and the notoriously tight-knit Hitchcock inner circle are aware of Mrs Hitchcock’s role in his 50-year career. Alma Reville, as she called herself even after they wed, has 19 credits – from assistant director to scriptwriter – in Hitchcock-directed pictures, and several on non-Hitchcock films. More than that, she was his constant collaborator and sounding-board. The Hitchcocks on location for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955) (REX FEATURES) ‘I hadn’t realised what an important figure Alma was in the creation of Hitchcock’s movies,’ says Mirren. ‘She was very happy to be in the shadows. But they had an incredibly close and creative relationship on every level.’ Stephen Rebello, on whose book Hitchcock is based, gives me two examples of her contribution to Psycho alone. ‘Hitchcock wanted no music in the shower scene [in which the heroine, Janet Leigh, is stabbed to death]. He just wanted the screams of Janet Leigh and the sound of the water running.

He was adamant about it.’ Meanwhile, the composer Bernard Herrmann had created the now-legendary score of screaming strings for the scene – which Reville thought was rather good. ‘Hitch and Bernie were at loggerheads. Alma was extremely diplomatic, seductive and charming, and you’d want to please her because she was so smart. 'Alma persuaded Hitchcock to listen to what Herrmann was doing with that sequence, not just to reject it out of hand. 'She really had a major impact on the film, by just persuading Hitch to back off from his own ego and listen to the idea of somebody else. In this case, a brilliant idea.’ And she saved Psycho from the ultimate goof by spotting Leigh swallowing while lying ‘dead’ on the floor. ‘We must have run that sequence back and forth a couple of hundred times – we completely missed it,’ says Psycho’s script supervisor, Marshall Schlom. Outraged by the lack of recognition for Reville on her death in 1982, the film critic Charles Champlin wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times entitled ‘Alma Reville Hitchcock – The Unsung Partner’. ‘The Hitchcock touch has four hands,’ he wrote.

‘And two of them are Alma’s.’ Reville and Hitchcock at work (1963) (PICTORIAL PRESS) Somehow, in the subsequent retellings of the Hitchcock story, Reville has been pushed to the edge of the frame. Or, worse, been recast as an enabler of Hitchcock’s obsessive Pygmalion-like impulses towards his leading ladies. A much-repeated anecdote – one that is reproduced in the BBC’s recent Hitchcock drama, The Girl – concerns Tippi Hedren, the star of The Birds. ‘He was developing this obsession for me and I began to feel very uncomfortable,’ Hedren told the writer Donald Spoto, in 2007. ‘He tried to control everything – what I wore and ate and drank.’ Spoto, whose biography of Hitchcock, The Dark Side of Genius, is behind the popular notion of the director as a socially inept, sadistic voyeur, tells me, ‘Tippi said to her, “Alma, you could stop this with a word. Why don’t you?” 'And Alma just looked at Tippi and walked away.’ Does Spoto believe Reville really could have stopped it? ‘Oh, absolutely.

Hitchcock was terrified of her.’ To illustrate this, Spoto tells me a story: he and Hitchcock were enjoying a private screening of a film in Los Angeles in 1976. ‘All of a sudden the telephone rings. Hitchcock picked it up – only for about five seconds – then he put the phone down and drew himself out of his chair and said, “I have to go home immediately. Madame wants me at home.” 'He left at once. You see, when she said, “Come home,” he went home.’ Hitchcock’s granddaughter, Mary Stone, has attested to her grandmother’s formidable personality. ‘She was an extremely strong and proud woman,’ she has said. ‘I adored her, and occasionally feared her.’ When Stone was caught smoking at the Hitchcock home, ‘My parents gave me the worst possible punishment – I had to tell my grandmother what I had done.’ Helen Mirren as Alma Reville and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in Hitchcock (ALAMY) ‘Hitchcock himself said that he feared Alma’s opinion,’ McGilligan tells me. ‘But you have to understand that he said almost everything with humour.

'Does that mean he thought of her as a mother who was going to rap him on the knuckles? No. He feared her opinion because he respected it. If she said, “I don’t like it,” that was the worst thing he could hear.’ But if a cast or crew member was told, ‘Alma loves it,’ it was the highest compliment they could hope for. Reville was working for Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount) at Islington Studios in London when she met Hitchcock. It was 1921 and, though they were both 22, she already had several years’ experience as a ‘cutter’ and continuity girl under her belt whereas Hitchcock was on his first job. She was editor on the silent picture Appearances; Hitchcock was designing dialogue cards for the film. They worked in the same studios for two years, during which time the red-haired Reville claimed she wasn’t aware of him even glancing at her. In later life, he hinted that he’d felt he couldn’t approach her until he held a better position. Then, in 1923, she received a phone-call from Hitchcock inviting her to a meeting.

Hitchcock had been made assistant director on Woman to Woman and he needed an editor. Would she join the crew? According to their daughter, Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell, ‘The interview was brief, for Alma politely informed her future husband that the salary he was offering was inadequate.’ She left the room only to find Hitchcock racing down the corridor after her. He made her a better offer, and a partnership that would last half a century was born. Until the age of 15, Reville lived in Nottingham where her parents worked in lace production. When they moved to London her father took a job in the costume department of Twickenham Studios. Spellbound, Reville would cycle over after school to watch the actors at work. At 16 she got a position in the ‘cutting room’ where she would cut and glue pieces of film together, transforming scores of separate scenes into a seamless story. She climbed the ranks so quickly that articles about her appeared in the press.

In 1925, the year Hitchcock’s directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden, was released with Reville as assistant director, The Picturegoer ran a piece headlined, ‘Alma in Wonderland – An interesting article, proving that a woman’s place is not always the home.’ They married a year later (Hitchcock proposed at sea during a storm) and over the next decade and a half worked together on classics such as The 39 Steps, Suspicion and Shadow of a Doubt. Just a regular day in the Hitchcock household… Reville at home in 1974 (Philippe Halsman/Magnum) Alma Reville was tiny and girlish. Photographs of her relaxing in her California homes in middle age show her reading with knees drawn up to her chest like a child, hair swept off her high forehead, horn-rimmed spectacles resting on her nose. Like Hitchcock, she was always impeccably dressed with an enviable wardrobe custom-made by Edith Head. But unlike her ingeniously self-promoting husband (whom his daughter called ‘a born celebrity’), Reville shied away from the limelight.

After the family’s move to America in 1939, Reville’s name appeared in credits less and less often. Rebello wonders if her confidence was shaken after some badly received screenplays or perhaps she was just falling into the more traditional role of a supportive wife and mother. What is certain is that she remained Hitchcock’s closest and constant collaborator. ‘She would still occasionally be present on set,’ remembers their daughter in her book, Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man, ‘but it was in the evening that my parents would discuss the current film.’ Reville would read and rewrite scripts, give her opinion on casting – ‘If she didn’t like an actor, they wouldn’t get the film,’ says Rebello – and watch the first cut of a film with her husband. ‘She would comment when she thought something was off, and she was usually right. Had she been born a man, or had she had a different nature,’ continues Rebello, ‘she would have been a director herself.’ Hitchcock’s film sets were famously orderly places.

He was a man of routine – Reville said he hated suspense in real life – and every day at five o’clock he’d call ‘cut’ and be chauffeured home for dinner with his wife. On Thursdays, they’d go to their favourite restaurant, Chasen’s, where they'd order steak for their adored dogs and where Alma was often overheard urging her portly husband to forgo the second pudding. They weren’t Hollywood’s most sociable couple but they loved to have small dinner parties, and Reville’s cooking was legendary. Their daughter’s book contains pages of handwritten menus: dinner for Tippi Hedren’s birthday; dinner with Sean Connery (they had caviar with vodka followed by saddle of lamb). Film and food is where the passion in the Hitchcock marriage lay. It was a sexless relationship. Hitchcock was open about his impotence and often quipped that they’d only had sex once, when they’d conceived Patricia. In Hitchcock, Reville comes perilously close to having an affair with the bisexual writer Whitfield Cook. McGilligan has read Cook’s journals and says he and Reville ‘certainly’ had a romantic relationship, possibly a sexual one.

There is a scene in the film that is lifted straight from Cook’s journal, in which the pair are about to kiss when a phone-call from Hitchcock interrupts them. As for Hitchcock, much has been written about his hopeless longing for the cool blondes in his films. ‘I think that’s quite normal for a director,’ says McGilligan. ‘Was Alma upset by it? I doubt it. She was an utter professional. Did she occasionally roll her eyes as Helen Mirren does in the film? Maybe.’ Remarkably, Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his directing. But, at 79, he did receive the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. When he accepted it, he said, ‘I beg to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, encouragement and constant collaboration. 'The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen.

And their names are Alma Reville.’ Hitchcock is out on 8 February Anthony Hopkins plays the legendary director in 'Hitchcock': movie review - CSMonitor.com Anthony Hopkins plays the legendary director in 'Hitchcock': movie review Latest News Anthony Hopkins does a reasonably good impression of the director, but it's a tough job to take on. By Peter Rainer, Film critic November 23, 2012 Anthony Hopkins plays Alfred Hitchcock in the new film. Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight Pictures/AP Monitor Movie Guide Alfred Hitchcock has been having rather a hard time of it lately. First there was the HBO movie “The Girl,” with Toby Jones playing the Master of Suspense as a blonde-obsessed boor. Now there’s “Hitchcock,” with Anthony Hopkins playing the title role as a blobby crank. He’s still somewhat blonde-obsessed, but mostly he’s wound into knots about the filming of “ Psycho ” and the possible dalliance of his wife and closest collaborator Alma Reville ( Helen Mirren ). Hopkins has been fitted out prosthetically to resemble Hitchcock and he does a reasonably good job of impersonating him, but it’s a foredoomed effort.

Mirren has the easier time of it; Reville was actually around five feet tall and looked nothing like this lanky, eternally sexy actress. The film, directed by Sacha Gervasi from a script by John J. McLaughlin , cooks up standard-issue marital conflicts between Hitch and Alma, and we don’t get much insight into the director’s artistry either. Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh , and she has the best line about the famously stubborn genius, telling a co-worker, “compared to Orson Welles , he’s a sweetheart.” Grade: C (Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, and thematic material.) Recent Movie Reviews Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. Daily 'Hitchcock' actress Helen Mirren on Alfred Hitchcock's complicated relationship with women | NOLA.com comments 'Hitchcock' actress Helen Mirren on Alfred Hitchcock's complicated relationship with women Helen Mirren and Anthony Hopkins, as Alma Reville and Alfred Hitchcock, put the finishing touches on 'Psycho' in director Sacha Gervasi's 'Hitchcock.' In addition to being his wife, Reville for decades served as Hitchcock's creative collaborator.

(Photo by Fox Searchlight) comments Generally, speaking, it's not easy being a woman in an Alfred Hitchcock film. Whether they're being dive-bombed by birds, splattered at the base of a bell tower, or attacked by cross-dressing maniacs with mommy issues, the master of suspense could be counted on to put his female characters -- and, at times, the actresses portraying them -- through the proverbial wringer. But the Oscar-winning Helen Mirren ("The Queen") is no ordinary actress, and she doesn't play an ordinary character in the fact-inspired biopic, " Hitchcock ," which profiles the filmmaker during the making of his 1960 film " Psycho ." Rather, she plays Alma Reville, the wife and longtime creative collaborator of the legendary filmmaker, a role that puts her in a unique position to consider the man behind the iconic profile and his often-complicated relationship with women. (Read my "Hitchcock" review here.) "It's a story of a creative partnership and a love story," Mirren said, calling to discuss writer-director Sasha Gervasi's film, which opens Friday (Dec. 7) in New Orleans and next week (Dec. 14) in Baton Rouge.

"Hitch was a complicated, interesting, funny, clever man -- and likewise Alma, (who was) incidentally, a woman who could handle him, actually control him. Pretty remarkable." Pretty remarkable, indeed -- especially considering that Hitchcock (played in Gervasi's film by Anthony Hopkins) was a man who was much more comfortable when his own ample rear was nestled in the driver's seat. That was especially the case in his relationships with his leading ladies, a fact that Gervasi touches on in "Hitchcock" with a scene in which demoted Hitchcock leading lady Vera Miles (played by Jessica Biel) warns "Psycho" star Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) about the filmmaker's controlling nature. "It starts with him wanting to choose your hairstyle," Biel's Miles says. "Then, he wants to choose your clothes and your friends and how many children you should have. You know the poor, tortured soul Jimmy Stewart played in 'Vertigo'?

That's Hitch -- only younger, slimmer and better looking." The temptation there is to categorize Hitchcock as a closet misogynist, but Mirren -- who doesn't at all come across as the type of woman to give a free pass to men behaving badly -- says she doesn't think that's the case. Exhibit A is his relationship with Reville, whose opinion he highly respected and often deferred to. He is said to have had a similar relationship with his longtime assistant, Peggy Robertson. "For me, his view of women is not misogynistic, because he always gives them a great role," Mirren said. "You know, they're interesting roles, they're great roles, and certainly most of the actors, if you worked with him, adored him. Janet Leigh, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak -- they loved him. He was funny, he was a character, a personality, but they adored him. "So I don't think they would (adore him) if he had been misogynist like that," she continued. "Sam Peckinpah was misogynist. That's a different thing, you know what I mean?

(For Peckinpah), women are there to be (expletive) or killed, basically. That's not Hitchcock." All that being said, one still must reconcile Hitchcock's likeable, if mischievous, side with the headlines made by actress Tippi Hedren when she described a pattern of sexual harassment and on-set torment she says Hitchcock subjected her to during the making of 1963's "The Birds." (Hedren's explosive side of the story was told recently in another movie about Hitchcock, the HBO film "The Girl," currently available on demand.) HELEN MIRREN + NEW ORLEANS To hear Helen Mirren tell it, the film "Hitchcock" -- in which she stars as Alma Reville, the wife of iconic director Alfred Hitchcock -- is really a love story, about a man who was lucky enough to be married to his creative collaborator. But before she gets to that, she has another love story to tell, one involving her -- and the city of New Orleans. ... ( Read the full story here. ) "I think some things did go wrong with Tippi Hedren," Mirren said.

"She's the only one who came out of that experience of working with Hitch, of all of his other leading ladies, saying he was a (expletive). And possibly, probably he was to her, but I've seen directors do that. Something about an actor or actress just sets their teeth on edge, but they're joined at the hip with them, they've got to work with them because they've employed them and they're shooting, and they start punishing them. "I have witnessed that, both in the theater and on film with other directors," she said, "and I suspect that maybe that started happening with Tippi Hedren: He just started punishing her. She wasn't Ingrid Bergman, and he couldn't forgive her for that." Gervasi's "Hitchcock" doesn't delve too terribly deeply into that, first because it is set three years before "The Birds" was shot. Also, though, "Hitchcock" isn't intended to be a heavy film.

Rather, it's an often-funny movie that -- while touching on Hitchcock's darker side -- plays more off of his wry wit and the persona that he brought into America's living rooms with his long-running TV series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." "Oh, it's a fun movie," Mirren said. "That's what we wanted it to be, without undermining the subject matter. We didn't want to make fun of it, or sort of mock in an unpleasant way, but Hitchcock himself was very funny -- he had an amazing sense of humor, and our wonderful director really tried to bring that side of Hitch out." Mike Scott says 'Hitchcock' is 'The One' movie For his best movie pick for this weekend, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune's Mike Scott says you should go see 'Hitchcock.' Here's why. As for the Hitchcock fanatics who might be tempted to take issue with the creative license wielded by Gervasi in creating his film -- which is more of a fact-inspired drama than a definitive biography -- Mirren doesn't seem overly concerned with them.

Rather, she finds gratification in knowing that the people who actually knew Hitchcock have gone on record as saying Gervasi nails it. "When you make a movie," she said, "you can't follow absolutely, exactly, linearly every single thing that happened. ... The things that do happen (in the film) did happen. There are lots of thing that did happen that we don't show. But you know, you do get these sort of nerdy, film buff-y people who either as a profession or as a hobby think that they know everything about a filmmaker -- and really they don't, because above all, filmmakers are creatures of imagination. "What we have had is people who have worked with Hitch and knew Hitch -- the script supervisor on ('Psycho,' Marshall Schlom), visited our set and also came to several screenings and has said publicly, 'That is the Hitch that I knew.' ... That is gratifying." Most Read Now Playing Get the latest news, reviews, trailers and up-to-date listings for movies playing in local theaters. Delivered Friday afternoons.

Leave this field blank Fact Checking 'Hitchcock': The Man, The Movie And The Myth : NPR Heard on All Things Considered NPR Staff Alfred Hitchcock pictured with his wife, Alma Reville. The couple's romance stands at the center of the 2012 film Hitchcock. AP hide caption toggle caption AP It's awards season for Hollywood as the film industry starts doling out accolades. And this year, some of the films hoping to grab the attention of voters will have these words in common: "inspired by true events." Think Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty — and, of course, Hitchcock. In the film, Anthony Hopkins plays the legendary film director, and Helen Mirren plays his wife, Alma Reville. How close to reality is Hitchcock and how much is just "inspired?" Well, this week we're subjecting this and other biopics to some truth squadding. Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, joins NPR's Robert Siegel to fact check the film. Interview Highlights Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) toast to Psycho in Hitchcock.

Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight hide caption toggle caption Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) toast to Psycho in Hitchcock. Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight On whether Hitchcock, did, in fact, have trouble getting Psycho made, as the film suggests "Yes, he was under contract at Paramount, and the studio was horrified at the possibility of this lurid film being made. Hitchcock forwent his salary and agreed to take everything on the back end, including percentages and ownership of Psycho. So it was one of the brilliant deals of all time, and Hitchcock and his then-agent, Lew Wasserman, foresaw its value to them." On whether Hitchcock actually took out a mortgage on his Hollywood house to finance the making of Psycho "No. That's very silly. If you can take out a mortgage on your house and make a movie in Hollywood — then or now, no director did who was under studio contract.

He had two houses, he had vast savings, so that aspect of the movie where he's — where they're constantly worrying about money to the point of talking about, you know, saving on groceries, is foolish." Article continues after sponsorship On Hitchcock's relationship with his wife, Alma, which is portrayed in the film as a creative partnership strained by jealousy "It's not true that they had strife in their marriage. In fact, I always say it's one of the few happy marriages I know of in Hollywood that lasted for 50-plus years. And they were creative partners, although the film goes way overboard to depict Alma as the person who bails Hitchcock out of every crisis that he's supposedly undergoing." On the scene in Hitchcock when Alma takes over directing part of Psycho when her husband is ill "Emails went around the world astonished at this plot turn, that Alma would go to the studios and direct what is described as a very important shot while Hitchcock is home in bed with a kind of self-induced illness because he's so unhappy over the way things are going in his private life. Complete fiction.

And when I say something's foolish, I want to stipulate that I find the film to be a very creative and clever fiction, and one that you can certainly believe, partly because Hitchcock is such a legend and people would rather believe the legend." Watch Clips from 'Hitchcock' 'You're Kidding' Credit: Fox Searchlight On the scene in the film in which Hitchcock terrifies actress Janet Leigh into giving a believable performance in Psycho's infamous shower scene "You know, at various times, the film crosses the line for me from entertainment into something that really I think diminishes Hitchcock's genius, and this was one of the instances. Didn't happen, wouldn't happen. He was a very — you know, his dignity and his control were very important to him and to his personality.

I could see how it could be inspired — in other words, I think it's maybe a very clever move on the part of the screenwriter — but he wasn't that kind of person, and it's linked in the film to this idea that behind this guy who makes films about serial murderers is a guy who has violent impulses, which was not the case." On Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hitchcock "Well, I think Anthony Hopkins really brings people into the film. He is best at the very beginning and at the end when he's allowed to be funny, as Hitchcock, and everyone who knows him would tell you, was enormously funny. I should add, Robert, he was not funny when I met him on the set of Family Plot, standing in the long line of journalists who came from all around the world to watch him make his final movie, which everyone expected it to be.

You could not ask him a question he hadn't been asked, and he was bored, he was glum, he was not in good physical condition, and he must have known the film was his last and it would not be very good." On Hitchcock's television persona and trafficking in self-parody as host of Alfred Hitchcock Presents "He started doing that early in his career by appearing in cameos, and increasingly funnier cameos, that we began to expect to see him in in his films. And he was a wonderful mimic, he enjoyed acting, he could stand up — especially in the silent era, if an actress wondered, you know, how she should behave in a certain dinner party scene — he could stand up and flounce around the room and show her precisely. And so he enjoyed, he enjoyed this idea of acting, and his persona and the image that he had crafted.

And to some extent, Hitchcock — you know, the film that we're talking about — is something that he would delight in even if he might be horrified at aspects of it, because it is partly the consequence of this long process that he started in the 1920s of building himself into a public personality that we could take delight in, to such an extent that I don't think people in general are interested in the real Alfred Hitchcock." 'Hitchcock' review: 'Psycho' drama - SFGate 'Hitchcock' review: 'Psycho' drama By Mick LaSalle , San Francisco Chronicle Updated 5:02 pm, Thursday, November 22, 2012 Photo: Suzanne Tenner, Fox Searchlight Image 1of/2 Close Image 1 of 2 Helen Mirren portrays Alma Reville, the wife of director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins), in the new film "Hitchcock." Helen Mirren portrays Alma Reville, the wife of director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins), in the new film "Hitchcock." Photo: Suzanne Tenner, Fox Searchlight Image 2 of 2 Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh, Anthony Hopkins is Alfred Hitchcock

 and Helen Mirren is Alma Reville in "Hitchcock." Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh, Anthony Hopkins is Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren is Alma Reville in "Hitchcock." Photo: Suzanne Tenner, Fox Searchlight 'Hitchcock' review: 'Psycho' drama Back to Gallery Hitchcock Drama.

Starring Anthony Hopkins , Helen Mirren and Scarlett Johansson . Directed by Sacha Gervasi . (PG-13. 98 minutes.) "Hitchcock" tells the story of the making of "Psycho" - or, as Alfred Hitchcock pronounced it, "Psyyyy-cow" - a film that was a trauma and a sensation in its own time and still has the capacity to shock. Released in 1960, that movie retains an aura of the forbidden, of something sordid and unwholesome, bordering on a snuff film. So imagine how studio heads reacted when Hitchcock, hot off the success of "North by Northwest," insisted on making an ugly, grainy, black and white movie about a serial killer. "Hitchcock" stars Anthony Hopkins as the Hitchcock of legend, seemingly implacable, and always dressed in his regulation dark suit and skinny tie. (Actually, JFK dressed in a similar way, but somehow the vibe was different.) The film begins with him deciding on "Psycho" for his next film and takes him through the process of raising money, casting, filming, editing and premiering the new picture.

Along the way, "Hitchcock" emerges as an entertaining, economical and thoroughly enjoyable glimpse into a familiar artist's creative process. This time Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville , gets her due as a collaborator working in every phase of production. She is far from just a sounding board, but a screenwriter and story editor who has the authority to take over on the set when Hitchcock is ill and the ability to save the picture during the editing. Hopkins is a fundamentally benign Hitchcock, hiding his vulnerability, neuroses and unrealized longings behind a mountain of impassivity and corpulence. He is a nice man, while the real Hitchcock seems to have been a more complicated figure. Likewise, no matter how much Helen Mirren tries to suppress her feistiness and allure as Alma Reville, she can hardly disappear. And so when Hitchcock begins to worry that his wife has become interested in another man, it means something different that Mirren is the source of the worry - Mirren is still a woman who can wreck a man's life. The real Reville wasn't that kind of siren.

In this way, "Hitchcock" is made to please a modern audience, providing us with a Hitchcock we can like and an Alma we must respect. Scarlett Johansson, at her most charming, plays Janet Leigh with a sweet deference, as though it were she herself getting a miraculous, time-travel chance to work with the master of suspense. Finally, there's James D'Arcy playing Anthony Perkins and doing the best Perkins imitation the world has ever seen, all angles and elbows and with an apology in every glance. If "Hitchcock" has a fault, it's that there is too little to challenge us, too little that's unexpected, and nothing to rub us the wrong way. It's not at all like a Hitchcock movie. In a series of fantasy sequences, Hitchcock is tormented by thoughts of Ed Gein, the murderer who inspired Robert Bloch 's original novel, but these hardly take us into Hitchcock's unsavory depths. Speaking of unsavory, the film doesn't bother to mention that Hitchcock got the rights to "Psycho" through a blind bid, so as to lowball Bloch with a minuscule offer.

There's not enough in the writing of "Hitchcock" to allow for a great performance from Hopkins, but he's certainly game, even if he does occasionally sound as much like Michael Caine as he does Hitchcock. Ultimately, what saves him and everyone connected with the picture is that "Psycho" is just so interesting and "Hitchcock" commits itself to dramatizing its creation. It's fascinating to see a classic being built from the ground up, to see it fail and then burst to life in the editing process, and to see Hitchcock standing in the lobby listening as the audience reacts to the shower scene. "Hitchcock" isn't ambitious or complicated. It's simple, does what it sets out to do, and gets out before anyone even thinks about checking the time. More movies should be made in its image.

Question: Who plays Alfred Hitchcock’s wife Alma in the movie Hitchcock?
Answer: Helen Mirren