Hitchcock Chronology: 1952

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Month by Month

January

• 3rd - Hitchcock signs a $999,000 contract with Warner Brothers to produce and direct 4 films over the next 7 years.
• 17th - Patricia Hitchcock marries Joseph E. O'Connell at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

February

• 7th - Pleased with the terms of his new contact with Warner Brothers, Hitchcock offers to direct, without salary, one extra film at the end of the contract — this will turn out to be The Wrong Man.
• Alma Reville beings re-working a treatment for I Confess that she had originally drafted in 1948 for Transatlantic Pictures.
• Alma and Alfred Hitchcock travel to Quebec to scout locations for I Confess.

March

• The Hitchcocks travel to New York to meet writer William Archibald, who is hired to work on the I Confess screenplay.

April

• 21st - Actor Leslie Banks, who starred in The Man Who Knew Too Much and Jamaica Inn, dies of a stroke, aged 61.
• Dramatist George Tabori is hired to revise the dialogue of William Archibald's screenplay for I Confess.
• Hitchcock, Sidney Bernstein and writer George Tabori travel to Quebec to scout locations and hire local actors for I Confess. Local priest Father Paul La Couline is hired as a technical consultant and to act as a liaison with the Catholic Church.
• Warner Bros object to elements of the screenplay for I Confess, including the ending which has the priest being executed, forcing Hitchcock and Barbara Keon to hastily rewrite the scenes.

May

• Pre-production and casting continues for I Confess throughout May and June.

June

• Frederick Knott's play Dial M for Murder opens in London.
• Montgomery Clift is cast to play the central role of the priest in I Confess.

July

• 24th - Hitchcock, Jack Warner and Montgomery Clift meet with Anita Björk in New York to consider her for the lead role I Confess and to conduct costume tests. Afterwards, Warner insists on casting another actress and Hitchcock selects Anne Baxter for the role.

August

• 21st - I Confess principal photography begins in Quebec. Hitchcock hires Barbara Keon to work on several of the film's more difficult scenes.

September

• 10th - The Los Angeles Times carries a brief report that Cary Grant is keen to star in a Hitchcock adaptation of David Dodge's book To Catch a Thief. They report the actor as saying, "I read the book some time ago and loved it. If Alfred Hitchcock, who's to direct the picture, gets a good movie script from the story we'll have more conversation about my doing the film."

October

• Frederick Knott's play Dial M for Murder is staged for the first time in America on Broadway. During the run, Hitchcock sees a performance.
• 2nd - With location work completed, the filming of I Confess moves to the Warner studios.
• 20th - Actor Basil Radford, who memorably played the role of Charters in The Lady Vanishes, dies of a heart attack, aged 55.
• Filming on I Confess is completed by late October.

December

• The Hitchcocks celebrate their wedding anniversary at the Palace Hotel, St. Moritz.

See Also...

• articles from 1952
• births in 1952
• deaths in 1952

Notes & References

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