Jon Finch - quotes

Quotations relating to Jon Finch.

Finch talking about Hitchcock...

He was a revered character. He's one of the greatest names in 20th-century history, let alone the film industry. I thought it was right up there in terms of his later work in as much as it had chasing the wrong man, the amusing villain, and the discussion of married life and its ups and downs.

— Jon Finch (2001)

source: Documentary: The Story of Frenzy

keywords: Alfred Hitchcock and Frenzy (1972)

Casting

I think why Hitchcock asked me to play it was, at that moment, I hadn't had a big film released, but I'd just finished Macbeth for Roman Polanski, which was big news at the time. Hadn't opened. And, of course, I was gonna be cheap, you see. Now, it was a very cheap film, "Frenzy". They didn't spend a lot of money. They didn't, for example, provide cars for anybody to go to the set or go to the studio. You just got your own taxi or you came on a bike or whatever you did.

So, anyway, they asked me... just asked me to do it, see? They go through a book. You know, you got a casting director. Casting directors don't do a lot. I mean, there's not much they can do. But they say, "Well, this so-and-so. How about him?" And Hitchcock presumably said, "Yeah, I think he looks all right. What's he doing at the moment?" So suddenly my agent went, "Oh, yeah. Would you like, I'll get Roman Polanski?" Roman's doing everything down in Shepperton. He's saying, "I'll do anything. You wanna see the film? I'll show you rough cuts. I'll do this and do that." Hitchcock didn't want to see a frame. Nothing. But he said, "I've got to see whether he can act and what he looks like on film." And my agent got a television movie that I'd done — simple thing shot in black and white in '69, I think it was — and showed it to him. So he said, "Yeah, he'll do."

So I came to see him around the corner from the Dorchester, which is where we are now, and he said, "Jon, nice to see you." Ba-ba-ba-bom. I was, you know, like half in shock seeing the man anyway. "Do you like the script?" I said, "Yes, of course." You know, as you do. And, uh, so he said, "I've seen the film that your agent showed me. You can act. That's good. Would you like to do it?" "Yes, I would." "Okay. Let's go and have lunch." And that was it. So it was done. And, I, you know... Of course I couldn't believe it. I was stunned. Absolutely stunned.

— Jon Finch (2001)

source: Documentary: The Story of Frenzy

keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Frenzy (1972), casting, and pre-production

Film Production

I used to write notes every single night to his secretary, Peggy. And he was very good. Most of the time he'd say, "All right. Correct it." He wasn't annoyed that I'd pointed out, maybe, a syntactical error or something like that. He did say once, "Jon, I said you could make alterations. I didn’t say you could rewrite the whole script," which I was trying to do, I must have been.

— Jon Finch (2001)

source: Documentary: The Story of Frenzy

keywords: Frenzy (1972), Peggy Robertson, and production