Hitchcock Chronology: 1958

Overview

Images from the Hitchcock Gallery (click to view larger versions or search for all relevant images)...

18th-19th - Hitchcock directs the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Lamb to the Slaughter".^[1]

With American musicians on strike, composer Bernard Herrmann is unable to record the score for Vertigo. Pushed for time, Paramount London negotiates with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Muir Mathieson but the recordings in early March are abandoned part way through when the orchestra walks out in support of the American musicians. Associate producer Herbert Coleman quickly tries to find another orchestra in Europe who can complete the score.^[2]
14th-18th - The score for Vertigo is completed in Vienna with a local orchestra, conducted by Muir Mathieson.^[3]
16th - Hitchcock returns to Los Angeles from London.^[4]

3rd - Hitchcock receives a letter from the London Symphony Orchestra (dated 19 March) explaining why they were unable to complete the recording of the score for Vertigo.^[5]
13th - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Lamb to the Slaughter", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is nomited for (and subsequently wins) a Golden Globe Award for the best television series of the year.^[6]
Hitchcock directs the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "A Dip in the Pool" in mid-April.^[7]
17th - Alma Reville is diagnosed with cervical cancer.^[8]

9th - Vertigo premieres at the Stage Door Theater, 420 Mason Street, San Francisco, California, USA.^[9]

1st - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "A Dip in the Pool", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.
9th - Actor Robert Donat, who starred in The 39 Steps, dies aged 53.
9th - The British Daily Mail newspaper reports that someone apparently impersonating Hitchcock had walked into a job centre in Sussex and said, "I'm making a film. I want a large number of men as extras." The incident was reported to the local police.^[10]

28th - MGM location manager Charles Coleman arrives at Mount Rushmore, accompanied by Larry Owen of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce, to talk to the National Park Service about using the monument in North by Northwest.

27th - Principal photography begins on North by Northwest in New York City, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.^[11]

Production on North by Northwest moves to Chicago.^[12]
7th - British film director Graham Cutts, who worked with the young Hitchcock at Gainsborough Pictures in the 1920s, dies aged 72.
15th - Hitchcock arrives in Rapid City, South Dakota, to film sequences at Mount Rushmore for North by Northwest.
16th - Filming at Mount Rushmore begins and is completed the following day. With shooting limited to the parking lot, the park cafeteria and an adjoining terrace, much of the final footage for North by Northwest's iconic climax will be completed back at the MGM studios on sets designed by Robert Boyle.
18th - Production on North by Northwest returns to MGM in Los Angeles for studio work.^[13]
26th - Actor Carl Brisson, who starred in The Ring and The Manxman, dies aged 64.

5th - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Poison", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.

17th - Production on North by Northwest is completed.^[14]^[15]
19th - Motion Picture Daily reports that Hitchcock has arrived into New York.^[16]
20th - Hitchcock departs New York for London.^[17]