As one of the greatest film directors of all time, Hitchcock has always been remembered.
Hamlet
From the silent film to the horror fever of the 1970s, Hitchcock left many research models for film history, in addition to leaving many classic works for the history of world cinema.
By the 1970s, Hitchcock had spent fifty years directing more than 50 films in the UK and the US. In addition to the well-known thriller, suspense and horror genres, he has dabbled in other genres
As a "big man of suspense", Hitchcock played a crucial role in future generations of filmmakers and film research scholars. "Rear Window" and "Horror" extended the "mirror theory", and "Psychopath" triggered the academic study of Freud's "psychoanalytic theory" imaging.
Hitchcock's work not only inspired the photographic techniques employed by modern directors, such as the "sliding zoom", the effect of slow stair climbing and high-angle lenses, which were imitated by later generations.
His work also fueled the careers of the great actors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In addition to the typical "Hitchcock-esque blondes" Eva Marie St., Grace Kelly and Janet Leigh, Hitchcock also unearthed screen legends James Stewart and Gary Grant, almost all of whom are indispensable actors in Hitchcock's work.
Hitchcock created the original "Scream Queen" Janet Leigh in 1960's Horror, who rose to fame in the 1930s with spy thrillers and murders to bash the coming World War II.
Hitchcock has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture several times, and although only one of them won, and he himself did not win the Best Director Award, his cultural influence continues to this day.
Whether it is "Rear Window" or "Thirty-Nine Steps", or "Flock of Birds", fans and scholars have been amazed. Regrettably, Hitchcock left behind more than a dozen unfinished works before his death.
It is conceivable that if these works can be published, how many waves will be set off among movie fans. Here, I combed through these films that have not been made.
13
1922
As we all know, Hitchcock's debut film was 1925's "Garden of Joy", while the silent film "Number 13" belonged to one of his unfinished works, which can only be regarded as half of his debut, because only two rolls of film were made, and the nickname of this film is "Lady Peabody".
The film is about the lives of a low-income group rental house owned by the American Peabody Trust Company to provide affordable housing for Londoners.
Hitchcock's debut novel, Garden of Joy
Hitchcock chose British silent film actors Claire Gerrit and Ernest Cessig to star, but due to insufficient budget, the film stopped filming after shooting a few scenes.
In Alfred Hitchcock: A Life of Light and Darkness, It is stated that Greet offered to fund the film with her own money, and Hitchcock kept it in mind and allowed her to play roles in six of his later films.
exclusion zone
1933
When Hitchcock first began to turn to sound films, he planned to adapt the thriller novel Forbidden Zone by British writer Dennis Whitley, and the two had a good relationship, and the latter visited his film set several times.
When Whitley's novel was first published, he gave Hitchcock a copy, and Hitchcock was desperate to adapt the novel, but he switched to Michael Balcon's Lemgrove studio and was unable to obtain the adaptation rights.
Michael Balcon was an early British filmmaker
His new boss didn't like making such films, so Hitchcock asked his colleagues to go to England to fight for the rights for him.
In the end, Hitchcock's friends obtained the film rights to The Forbidden Zone, but Balcon did not let Hitchcock direct it, but gave it to the American director Phil Rosen.
Although Hitchcock was unable to direct Forbidden Zone, the film still had a relationship with him because the screenplay was written by Hitchcock's wife and long-time partner, Alma Revere.
Green cloak
Early 1940s
In 1916, John Bakken's The Green Cloak became famous for pioneering the modern spy novel, which was in Hitchcock's style.
Being able to adapt Green Cloak would be a major breakthrough for Hitchcock's spy films, as he had been experimenting with making versions of the film between 1939 and 1942.
That was only four years after he successfully adapted another of Bakken's Richard Hahne novels, The 39 Steps.
"39 Steps"
Hitchcock apparently wanted Ingrid Bergman and Gary Grant to play the lead roles, and the duo later starred in his masterpiece The Beauty Plan.
Originally a sequel to 39 Steps, the film tells the story of Richard Hane caught up in an international espionage plot during World War I.
Hitchcock tried to get the copyright to the book, but the rights to The Bakken adaptation were too expensive.
Given the immense success of 39 Steps, The Green Cloak is highly likely to be remembered as another of Hitchcock's great film adaptations.
Unnamed Titanic movie
1939
Twenty-seven years after the Titanic's catastrophe of the century, Hitchcock began preparing films on related subjects. Needless to say, he was the perfect person to integrate British and American cultures into this tragic subject.
One wonders what big-name actor Hitchcock would use to enhance the tragedy of the Titanic's sinking, even though Gary Grant appears to be one of the male lead actors.
Butterfly Dream
The untitled Titanic movie was Hitchcock's first foray into Hollywood, but in the end Butterfly Dream became his chance to successfully land on the American continent.
According to the British Film Institute, Hitchcock traveled to the United States in 1939 to sign a contract with David Selznick, a producer who runs his own international film company, to direct a film about the Titanic, which was planned to be distributed through The United Arts Theaters.
David Selznick (right)
Other sources suggest that the British refused to make the film, and that making a shipwrecked film in the run-up to World War II would be disturbing. But Hitchcock and Selznick had already signed a contract, so the two decided to make Butterfly Dream, which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture in its second year of release.
Untitled Nazi documentary
In 1945
Although Hitchcock never made a film explicitly about World War II, it did not show the main participants in World War II. But the message conveyed in his work in the 1930s and early 1940s clearly hinted at the dire situation in Europe and even in the United States.
Hitchcock's 1930s works, such as Gone With The NobleWoman and The 39 Steps, allude to international espionage, treason, and the European crisis.
The Disappearance of the Noble Lady
Hitchcock's overtly anti-Nazi film was "The Beauty Plan" starring Gary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Ryans. The untitled Nazi documentary was supposed to be produced towards the end of World War II in 1945, and Hitchcock was appointed production director.
Featuring real-life footage from Allied forces from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, the film will show concentration camps and expose Nazi crimes. But the British producers decided not to show nazi atrocities to the German people and instead focus on repairing relations with Germany, so the documentary was abandoned.
"Nightfall"
Years later Hitchcock's footage was reintroduced and featured in the documentary Nightfall, which provided an in-depth look at the backstory and filming of the original work.
hamlet
Late 1940s
According to Gary Grant, Hitchcock came up with several ideas when he filmed The Beauty Book, one of which was to modernize Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Hitchcock wanted Grant to play him, returning him to the almost evil character of Deep Doubt.
"Deep Doubt"
Hitchcock's plans to adapt Hamlet soon fell through, as another writer claimed he already owned the rights to a modern adaptation of Hamlet. Hitchcock clearly wanted to stick with the film, but after years of legal battles he gave up.
Although Hitchcock and Grant didn't actually make a Hamlet movie as they planned, north by Northwest used a lot of Shakespearean allusions to make up for it.
Thorny bushes
Early 1950s
Grace Kelly in "Rear Window"
In 1951, Hitchcock proposed adapting David Duncan's 1948 novel Thorns into a film. The film will involve a former communist who accidentally adopts the identity of a murder suspect while fleeing from U.S. police.
Hitchcock hired several screenwriters to write the screenplay for the film, but none of them lived up to the standards of a Hitchcock thriller. He also looked for several filming locations across the United States, but found that these places would take up too much of his budget.
Telephone Murder
He decided to go ahead and shoot Murder on the Phone, which starred Grace Kelly, a frequent collaborator.
Judges are not allowed to bail
1954-1959
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany
Hitchcock tried to bring a successful thriller novel to the big screen, but failed. He tried to adapt Henry Cecil's novel, which tells the story of a British lawyer defending his father with the help of a thief, who was a high court judge and was charged with murdering a prostitute.
Hitchcock's upcoming film Judge Not on Bail will be starring Audrey Hepburn and actors Lawrence Harvey and John Williams.
The novel is very lively, but because of the controversial themes, Paramount hesitates to support the shooting, and Hepburn opposes the shooting of rape scenes. According to Newsweek, Hepburn and Paramount Pictures lobbied Hitchcock to continue filming, but the rape scenes had to be omitted. However, Hitchcock refused, and the project was halted.
Although the collaboration between Hitchcock and Hepburn could become a blockbuster blockbuster and further enhance the development of their careers, the suspension of Judges Not On Bail allowed Hitchcock to continue to work on his greatest masterpiece, Horror.
Flamingo feathers
1956
James Stewart was in a wheelchair and Grace Kelly was lying in front of him
Hitchcock seems to want to replace Europe's fear of Nazis in the 1930s with the Red Terror of Communism in the United States in the 50s. One of his most interesting unproduced projects of the 1950s was Flamingo Feathers.
Adapted from a novel by Lawrence van der Bost, the film tells the story of a South African anthropologist who discovers that communists in the region are luring blacks into rebellion.
Hitchcock chose James Stewart as the main character and will travel to South Africa to shoot. He also wanted Grace Kelly to star with Stewart, and Paramount boasted of using more than 50,000 extras.
At that time, Stewart and Hitchcock had finished filming Capture in Morocco, so Hitchcock took a trip to Africa to find the location.
But Hitchcock found that shooting in South Africa was almost impossible, both physically and for economic reasons, and hesitant to make such a politically charged film, he decided to abandon the film altogether.
The shipwreck of the Mary Deere
1959
Although Hitchcock has been working with Paramount Pictures for some time, MGM tried to hire him to adapt Hammond Innes's novel The Wreckage of Mary, which will star Gary Cooper and Bert Lancaster. In the film, Hitchcock directs Cooper and Lancaster at sea, playing two men who try to shore an old crumbling ship, and the final plot is deeper than they thought.
Gary Cooper
Hitchcock was eager to work with Gary Cooper, who had refused to appear in his films The Overseas Commissioner and Cape Cop, but Hitchcock hesitated about the film's subject matter.
Hitchcock commissioned Ernest Lehman to write the script, although every time the two met, he always talked about something unrelated to the Shipwreck of Mary Deere.
North by Northwest
Even after Hitchcock withdrew, Lehman still felt guilty about MGM paying for the courtroom scenes he had written for.
So he offered to have the two work together on a new film, and they ended up making one of the most memorable films of all time and becoming a model for spy thrillers and Gary Grant and Hitchcock's masterpiece, North by Northwest.
blindman
1960
Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest and the French Riviera in To Catch a Thief are both landmark-based plots designed by himself. In order to surpass the above films, he plans to make another film, filmed at Disneyland with Ernest Lehman.
Hitchcock and Lehman crafted a story about blind pianist Jimmy Hilling, who regained his sight after undergoing a corneal transplant from a murder victim. While watching the Wild West show at Disneyland, Shirin saw the murder of the dead and saw the image of the murderer on his retina.
"To Catch a Thief"
Hitchcock intends to have James Stewart play the lead role, and the story culminates in a chase scene aboard the Queen Mary. According to the British Film Institute, James Stewart apparently withdrew from the project, and Walt Disney was unfortunately canceled because he was disgusted with "Horrors" and also refused Hitchcock's filming rights at Disneyland.
Most of the script was written by Lehman and later polished, and Blind Man became a 2015 BBC radio drama starring Hugh Laurie.
Mary Rose
1964
According to the British Film Institute, Hitchcock wanted to adapt J.M Barry's play Mary Rose in London in the early 1920s.
The film tells the story of a woman who disappeared twice: first for three weeks off the coast of Scotland as a child, and the second when she returned to the island as an adult.
In the 1950s, Hitchcock proposed the idea to Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox to star in the film, but both companies remained reluctant to fund the project.
"The Thief"
About 10 years later, when Hitchcock collaborated with screenwriter Jay Presson Allen on "The Thief," he commissioned her to write a similar story. Hitchcock wanted to work with Tippi Headley again in a later project, but Universal also rejected him, citing audiences wanting to see more thriller elements from Hitchcock's films.
While one can never see Hitchcock's version, the sci-fi elements of time travel in the film seem to have given Christopher Nolan a lot of inspiration.
R.R.R.R.
1964-1965
There is an article in Hitchcock: Past and Future about the original project R., which Hitchcock has been eager to develop since 1935.
For Hitchcock, the attempt may have taken a different turn, with the style of the film close to the later fire of "The Mysterious Quest for Murder", a comedic murder film. The film is set in a new York hotel (much like 1932's The Grand Hotel), where an Italian criminal family is brought to the United States by reformed relatives who plan to steal valuable jewelry and coins.
《The Grand Hotel》
Hitchcock worked with the Italian screenwriters to draft the screenplay for the film, but the language barriers were so overwhelming that they were unable to write a satisfactory script. After the failure of The Thief, Hitchcock apparently wanted to go into Europe, especially Italy, to direct films, perhaps inspired by The Bike Thief.
When Hitchcock realized he couldn't fit into the New Wave, he turned his attention to Breaking the Iron Curtain, which unfortunately failed again.
Berserk
1967-1968
In the late 1960s, after the defeats of works such as The Thief and Breaking the Iron Curtain, Hitchcock was in trouble. His last film was Mad Men, about a London serial killer, but it was a very different film he had tried years earlier.
As a prequel to the 1943 psychological thriller Hot Hand, which starred Joseph Cotton and Teresa White.
"Hot Hands Destroy flowers"
Hitchcock himself and French director François Truffaut had both written the script for this edition of Berserk, which had actually been in preparation for a long time before it was shelved. The storyline was inspired by the real serial killers Neville Heath and John George Hague, who had plunged England into horror a few years earlier.
The film will detail the story of Joseph Cotton's portrayal of the merry widow murderer in "Hot Hands Destroying Flowers" before visiting his family, where he is a handsome bodybuilder who kills young women. Just as his niece tries to catch him in "Hot Hands", in this film the New York police officers are seen using a policewoman as bait to set a trap to catch him.
Hitchcock had sketched out the three major murders he wanted to depict: one on a waterfall, another in a closed battleship, and the last in an oil refinery.
Universal quickly rejected the film because the picture was so dark and terrifying that it was too much for Hitchcock. Apparently, there was too much sex and violence in the script, which seemed a little different from his previous work, and was too shocking for the horror clips that Hitchcock was expecting.
He was very disappointed that Berserk was canceled, as there were already rumors that big names like Robert Redford would be the protagonist, and he now realizes that he doesn't have the full freedom to do what he wants.
Hitchcock and Truffaut
Short nights
1978
Short Nights was Hitchcock's last attempt at making his own 007 film. He had tried it in Breaking The Iron Curtain and Spy Spirits, and it was strange that Hitchcock didn't realize that his North by Northwest was already there.
The film will tell the story of a British double agent who escapes from prison to find his wife and children, while an American agent who tries to stop him falls in love with his wife. The film was probably the strongest cast in Hitchcock's cast, with Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood in the lead role, while Walter Marceau played the villain.
Breaking the Iron Curtain
Hitchcock collaborated with several screenwriters on the screenplay, even though he fell out with each writer. One screenwriter was worried about Hitchcock's deteriorating physical condition and that the film would never be made, so Hitchcock fired him and tried to write it himself.
According to the British Film Association, Hitchcock eventually realized that his health had completely deteriorated and had to give up before retiring in 1979.
(Author |.) Jordan Williams）