Big Sur, California

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean.

Although Big Sur has no specific boundaries, many definitions of the area include the 90 miles of coastline from the Carmel River in Monterey County south to the San Carpoforo Creek in San Luis Obispo County, and extend about 20 miles inland to the eastern foothills of the Santa Lucias.

In the 1960s, actress Kim Novak moved from Los Angeles to a coastal home in Big Sur.

I took off to Big Sur, which is the most beautiful place in the world. Every place I’ve been has been more beautiful than Hollywood. I lived on the ocean, with whales going in front of my house all the time. Stardom is all about rhinestones. My life there was about moonshine and real stars sparkling on you. How could you compare the two? I went to the real thing.
— Kim Novak (2012)^[1]

Hitchcock's Films

Rebecca (1940)

Several scenes were filmed at locations in the Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, including Gibson Beach.

Suspicion (1941)

Standing in for the fictional Tangmere-by-the-Sea, West Essex, England, the coastal sequences in Suspicion were all filmed along the current-day California State Route 1 in the general area of Bixby Creek Bridge, between Carmel and Big Sur. The area around Bixby Creek Bridge appears in the film, but is carefully framed to hide the actual bridge. Other scenes were filmed at Hurricane Point, approximately 1 mile south of Bixby Creek Bridge.^[2]