Hitchcock Chronology: To Catch a Thief (1955)
Entries in the Hitchcock Chronology relating to To Catch a Thief (1955)...
1951
October
- Agent Leland Hayward tries to interest Hitchcock in buying the screen rights to Cornell Woolrich's short story "It Had to Be Murder". Hitchcock passes and options David Dodge's "To Catch a Thief" instead.[1]
1952
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."[2]
1953
December
- Screenwriter John Michael Hayes and his wife spend two weeks at the Hotel Carlton in Cannes researching the area in preparation for starting the screenplay for To Catch a Thief.[3]
1954
February
- 23rd - John Michael Hayes and Hitchcock complete a 9 page story outline of To Catch a Thief.[4]
March
- 16th - Hitchcock sends a memo to Paramount's Hugh Brown asking his department to research if there will be any street carnivals taking place in Nice after May 15th that they could incorporate into the filming of the flower market scene in To Catch a Thief.[5]
- 23rd - John Michael Hayes completes his first draft of To Catch a Thief. Hayes is then required to work with a translator to translate the draft screenplay into French in order to obtain the necessary filming permits and work permits for the American cast and crew.[6]
- By the end of March, key crew contracts are finalised for To Catch a Thief and work begins on scheduling and budgeting the film.[7]
April
- With the budget for To Catch a Thief escalating towards $3,000,000, Hitchcock begins cutting unnecessary scenes from the script, including a planned police chase through a street carnival.[8][9]
May
- Hitchcock dispatches a second unit, headed by Herbert Coleman, to the south of France to photograph background scenes and auto chase footage for To Catch a Thief.[10]
- 3rd - John Michael Hayes completes the script for To Catch a Thief, although further rewrites will be required to tighten it and remove parts that the Production Code Administration object to.[11]
- 31st - Principal photography on To Catch a Thief commences with scenes set in Robie's villa in Saint-Jeannet. The shooting is delayed by intermittent rain showers.[12]
- The prinipal cast members of To Catch a Thief — Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis and John Williams — arrive in Cannes where they stay at the Carlton Hotel. John Michael Hayes joins them where he works with Hitchcock to tighten the screenplay.[13][14]
June
- 10th - John Michael Hayes completes changes to the To Catch a Thief shooting script.[15]
- 12th - John Michael Hayes' writing contract for To Catch a Thief is formally completed.[16]
- André Bazin, co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma, visits Hitchcock during the filming of To Catch a Thief's flower market scene, and interviews him for the journal.[17]
- 19th - Cary Grant is treated at Saint Nicolas Clinic for back and shoulder injuries sustained during the filming of the To Catch a Thief flower market scene.[18]
- 21st - Paramount studio executives demonstrate the studio's new VistaVision format at a press and industry event at the newly refurbished Paramount Cinema in Paris. Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief is one of the first VIstaVision films.[19]
- 25th - First unit location filming for To Catch a Thief is completed and the cast and most of the crew return to Hollywood to begin studio-based filming. Producer Herbert Coleman stays on in Cannes with the second unit team to shoot footage for the car chases, including aerial shots from a helicopter.[20][21] French film critic André Bazin, holidaying nearby in Tourrettes-sur-Loup, later writes of the helicopter shots, "That sequence must have been expensive!"[22]
July
- Film censor Joseph Breen continues to object to certain planned scenes in To Catch a Thief, including the dropping of a casino chip down a woman's cleavage, the symbolic firework display and some of Cary Grant's more risqué dialogue.[23]
- Studio-based filming for To Catch a Thief commences on the Paramount sound stages.[24]
- 13th - Filming of To Catch a Thief's Hotel Carlton raft sequence with Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and Brigitte Auber begins in Paramount's "A" water tank on Set #12.[25]
August
- 13th - Filming on To Catch a Thief is temporarily halted to celebrate Hitchcock's birthday. Costume designer Oleg Cassini later recalled that Hitchcock's secretary announced, "Could I have your attention for a moment please? Would you all come into the other room, please, and have a piece of Mr. Hitchcake's cock!"[26]
- The To Catch a Thief masquerade ball scene is filmed during the second week of August. During filming the dangerous rooftop scenes, actress Brigitte Auber is concerned she might accidentally fall and kill herself — when she then spies four Catholic priests who were visiting the set, she jokes, "Mon Dieu! You Americans think of everything!"[27][28]
- 30th - After considering several options for To Catch a Thief's final scene with Hitchcock, John Michael Hayes submits the ending used in the film and it becomes one of the final scenes to be filmed.[29]
September
- 4th - Principle photography on To Catch a Thief is completed and the film moves into post-production. Hitchcock boards the 8pm Santa Fe Super Chief at Los Angeles's Union Station to New York via Chicago. Once in New York, Hitchcock stays at the St. Regis Hotel where he meets Shirley MacLaine for the first time — when MacLaine admits to her lack of acting experience, Hitchcock says "All this simply means that I shall have fewer bad knots to untie."[30]
November
- 12th - With John Michael Hayes unavailable, studio records indicate that Alec Coppel was hired for a week to write a small number of dialogue changes for To Catch a Thief which were then redubbed over the existing footage.[31]
December
- 1st - The opening title sequence for To Catch a Thief is reshot. Footage of an open jewel case in a moonlit hotel room, with black-gloved hands reaching into frame to steal them, is dropped and new footage of a New York travel agent's window ("If you love life, you'll love France") is filmed.[32]
1955
January
- Returning for their Christmas holiday in St. Moritz, the Hitchcocks travel to Paris in early January to oversee the French dubbing of To Catch a Thief. Whilst there, Hitchcock meets with François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol for a Cahiers du Cinéma interview. After Truffaut and Chabrol manage to accidentally fall into an icy pond on their way to meet Hitchcock, damaging their tape recorder in the process, they reschedule and meet that evening at the Plaza-Athénée Hotel.[33]
- 18th - Actor John Williams spends a day redubbing some of his lines in To Catch a Thief.[34]
February
- Composer Lyn Murray completes the recording of his score for To Catch a Thief.[35]
- 24th - Geoffrey Shurlock, the new director of the Production Code Administration, issues the certificate of approval to To Catch a Thief on the proviso that an edit is made to the scene with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant which ends with the fireworks display. Hitchcock eventually appeases Shurlock by toning down Lyn Murray's sensuous tenor saxophone in the scene.[36]
August
- 4th - To Catch a Thief receives is premiere at the Paramount Theater in New York City.[37]
1961
November
- 8th - Tippi Hedren takes part in a screen test with Martin Balsam. Hitchcock directs them both in scenes from Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief.[38]
1964
November
- 22nd - Film editor George Tomasini, who worked with Hitchcock on Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds and Marnie, dies aged 55.
1981
October
- 24th - Costume designer Edith Head, who worked with Hitchcock on Notorious, Rear Window, The Trouble with Harry, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz and Family Plot, dies aged 83.
1986
November
- 19th - Actor Cary Grant, who starred in Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest, dies aged 82.
1989
May
- 20th - Composer Lyn Murray, who composed the score for To Catch a Thief and numerous episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, dies aged 79.
1990
April
- 17th - Production designer and art director J. McMillan Johnson, who worked on three Hitchcock films including Rear Window and To Catch a Thief, dies aged 77.
2004
November
- 22nd - Assistant director Daniel McCauley, who worked To Catch a Thief, The Wrong Man and Vertigo, dies aged 88.
2008
November
- 19th - Playwright John Michael Hayes, who wrote the screenplays for Rear Window, The Trouble with Harry, To Catch a Thief and The Man Who Knew Too Much, dies aged 89.
2009
February
- 27th - Illustrator Dorothea Holt, who worked with Hitchcock on Rebecca, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and The Man Who Knew Too Much, dies aged 94.
References
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 14-15
- ↑ "Stage Producers Help Cowan Cast His Film" in Los Angeles Times (10/Sep/1952)
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 91-92
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 92
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 97-98
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 96 & 101-2
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 102
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 102
- ↑ Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (2003) by Patrick McGilligan, page 493
- ↑ The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) by Donald Spoto, page 351
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 104
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 109
- ↑ The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) by Donald Spoto, page 351
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 105
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 111
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 111
- ↑ The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) by Donald Spoto, page 351
- ↑ "Hitchcock and France: The Forging of an Auteur" - by James M. Vest (2003), page 58
- ↑ "Hitchcock and France: The Forging of an Auteur" - by James M. Vest (2003), page 59
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 114-15
- ↑ Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (2003) by Patrick McGilligan, page 499
- ↑ Hitchcock Annual (2010) - Reflections on the Making of To Catch a Thief
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 116
- ↑ Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (2003) by Patrick McGilligan, page 499
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 116
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 118
- ↑ The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) by Donald Spoto, page 352
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, 117-18
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 119-21
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, pages 121 & 138
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 121
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 121-22
- ↑ Hitchcock and France: The Forging of an Auteur (2003) by James M. Vest, page 93-94
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 122
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 122
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 122
- ↑ Writing with Hitchcock (2001) by Steven DeRosa, page 123
- ↑ The Making of Hitchcock's The Birds (2013) by Tony Lee Moral, page 62
