Hitchcock (2012)

Anthony Hopkins: Alfred Hitchcock

Photos 

Quotes 

• Alfred Hitchcock : I will never find a Hitchcock blonde as beautiful as you.

  Alma Reville : Oh, Hitch. I've waited thirty years to hear you say that.

  Alfred Hitchcock : And that my dear, is why they call me the Master of Suspense.

• Alfred Hitchcock : You may call me Hitch. Hold the "cock."

• Geoffrey Shurlock : Is there any improper suggestion of nudity in this, uh, murder in the shower scene?

  Alfred Hitchcock : She won't be nude, she'll be wearing a shower cap.

• [Hitchcock has handed round very graphic photos of Ed Gein's victims at the press launch of the Psycho project] 

  Whitfield Cook : I've seen happier faces on a school bus going over a cliff.

  Alfred Hitchcock : But they can't stop looking, can they?

• Alfred Hitchcock : [wakes Alma in the middle of the night and hands her Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho"]  I just want you to read this little bit here. It takes place in the motel bathroom.

  Alma Reville : "Mary started to scream. And then the curtains parted farther and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream and her head." Charming. Doris Day should do it as a musical.

• Alfred Hitchcock : I'm under extraordinary pressures on this picture and the least you can do is give me your full support.

  Alma Reville : Full support! We've mortgaged our house! I'm your wife! I celebrate with you when the reviews are good. I cry for you when they are bad! I put up with all those people who look through me as if I were invisible because all they see is the great and glorious ALFRED HITCHCOCK!

• Alfred Hitchcock : [wrestling to keep his snack bowl]  Beware, all men are potential murderers. And for good reason.

• Alfred Hitchcock : My contract guarantees me final cut.

  Barney Balaban : Your contract also says Paramount isn't required to distribute any film that could cause us embarrassment.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Unlike the last five Martin and Lewis films you're all so proud of.

• Peggy Robertson : MGM wants you to do the Ian Fleming book "Casino Royale" with Cary Grant. Definitely your style.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Doesn't she know I just made that movie? It was called "North by Northwest". And "style", my dear, is mere self-plagiarism.

• Alfred Hitchcock : The only thing worse than a visit to the dentist is a visit to the censor.

• Janet Leigh : I do have a concern or two. Well, I'm an actress, of course, but I'm first a wife and a mother. And I'm just curious to know - um - how are you going to shoot this shower scene?

  Alma Reville : Yes, you and the Shurlock Office.

  Janet Leigh : It's only that, well, from here up, I'm not exactly boyish, so...

  Alfred Hitchcock : Allow me to set your mind at rest, my dear. I will be shooting short bits of film from various angles. Cut together, the montage will only suggest nudity, suggest violence. Nothing will actually be shown. But of course, having you in the shower will make it all that more, well - titillating.

  Alma Reville : Will you excuse me?

• [first lines] 

  Henry Gein : It's lucky it didn't reach the house.

  Ed Gein : Yeah.

  Henry Gein : You know, there's gonna be a lot more jobs at that factory in Milwaukee come June. I could put in a word.

  Ed Gein : You can't leave us, Henry. She needs us both.

  Henry Gein : Can you stop being a mama's boy for one second? I'm not trying to hurt you, but Jesus, you gotta live your own life sometime. That woman can take care of her own god...

  [Ed hits Henry with a shovel] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : Good evening. Well, brother has been killing brother since Cain and Abel, yet even I didn't see that coming. I was as blindsided as poor old Henry down there. And apparently, the authorities shared my naïveté. In other words, they believed the young man's story. That Henry fell, hit his head on a stone and died of smoke asphyxiation. On the other hand, if they hadn't believed him, Ed Gein would never have had the opportunity to commit those heinous crimes for which he became most famous. And we, of course, well

  [pause] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : we wouldn't have our little movie, would we?

• Alfred Hitchcock : [to Janet]  Hope you don't mind, I told Mrs Bates she could use your dressing room.

• Ed Gein : This is my favorite place. Just shut the door, make the world go away.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Don't you ever get lonely, out here?

  Ed Gein : I can always talk to my mother.

  [the police start to raid Ed's house] 

  Ed Gein : That's strange.

  [the police move upstairs] 

  Ed Gein : That's my mother's room. That's my mother's room.

  Ed Gein : [starts crying]  You can't go in there! That's my mother's room!

  [sobs] 

• Alfred Hitchcock : Did you read that little snippet from A.H. Weiler's review in the New York Times? He said he found the climax to be "overdrawn".

  Alma Reville : Yes, well I doubt Mr Weiler has had a climax in years.

• Rita Riggs : Is this really going to be your next picture?

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes Madam! Oh by the way, try the finger sandwiches. They are real fingers.

• Alfred Hitchcock : [after viewing the shower scene with Bernard Herrmann's score for the first time]  It's getting there.

• Alfred Hitchcock : I'm treading water, Peggy. I need something fresh, something different. Without expensive stars to pretty it up.

  Peggy Robertson : Fox is offering you The Diary of Anne Frank for the third time.

  Peggy Robertson : The audience would spend the entire picture waiting for Miss Frank to discover the corpse I'd hidden in the attic. Wouldn't you agree, Nunzio?

  Nunzio : Si.

• [last lines] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : Good evening.

• Alma Reville : I'm going to ask you this once, and I'll never mention it again. Why this one, Hitch? It's not just because so many people are saying *no*, is it?

  Alfred Hitchcock : Do you remember the fun we had when we started out all those years ago? We didn't have any money then, did we? We didn't have any time, either. But we took risks, do you remember? We experimented. We invented new ways of making pictures because we had to. I just want to feel that kind of freedom again. Like we used to, you know?

• Geoffrey Shurlock : I distinctly saw both the stabbing and the nudity.

  Alfred Hitchcock : What you think you're seeing is purely informed by the power of suggestion. I assure you, once you view the final version, with Mister Herrmann's lovely, lyrical score...

  Geoffrey Shurlock : A lyrical score is not going to change my opinion.

• Alfred Hitchcock : If this picture fails, Alma, we'll be in for a long, humiliating bout of crow-eating.

  Alma Reville : It'll be splendid.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Are you sure?

  Alma Reville : Of the movie? Not at all. But of you? Unquestionably.

• [last lines - talking to camera] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : And so, gentle viewers, Psycho turned out to be one of my greatest achievements, and Alma and I got to keep the house and the swimming pool. But you know what they say in Hollywood: "you're only as good as your last picture". So if you will excuse me, I had better toddle away to begin the exhaustive search for my next project. Unfortunately I find myself once again quite bereft of any inspiration. However, I do hope something comes along soon.

  [a large black raven lands on his shoulder and then flies away] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : Good evening.

• Lew Wasserman : We are about to propose a re-structured deal for "Psycho."

  Barney Balaban : I'm listening.

  Lew Wasserman : We finance it, independently. Hitch waives his directorial fee. Paramount *only* distributes it, in exchange for 40% of the profits.

  Barney Balaban : Interesting. But what exactly is Paramount distributing? Is this still a picture about a queer killing people in his mother's dress?

  Lew Wasserman : What this picture is about is the reputation of Alfred Hitchcock.

  Barney Balaban : No one is arguing that.

  Lew Wasserman : Barney, it's very simple. This is Mr Hitchcock's next film. Are you in - or are you out?

  Barney Balaban : Fine. We'll take that deal. If you can get the money.

  Alfred Hitchcock : We already *have* the money, Barney.

  [pulls out his checkbook] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : Who do I make it out to?

• Alfred Hitchcock : Everyone in Hollywood resents me. I make them millions of dollars and every year I sit at those dreadful award show dinners waiting for someone just to say,"You're good." They take sadistic pleasure in denying me that one little moment.

• Alma Reville : Oh, you imp. You've got nudity in there!

  Alfred Hitchcock : Well, her breasts were rather large. It was a challenge not to show them.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Tell me, my dear, do you think I'm too old?

  Alma Reville : Yes, you're a true relic. And lest we forget, a notably corpulent one.

  Alfred Hitchcock : You always know precisely where to plunge the dagger, don't you?

  Alma Reville : Right between the shoulder blades. I learned it from your pictures.

• Alma Reville : You'll feel better when you find a new project. Hasn't Peggy unearthed any decent books for you recently?

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes, sleeping pills with dust jackets.

• Alfred Hitchcock : "The New Masters of Suspense." Why do they keep looking for new ones when they still have the original?

• Alfred Hitchcock : What if someone really good made a horror picture? Just think of the shock value. Killing off your leading lady halfway through. I mean, you are intrigued, are you not, my dear? Come on, admit it. Admit it.

  Alma Reville : Actually, I think it's a huge mistake. You shouldn't wait till halfway through. Kill her off after 30 minutes.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Nice, clean, nasty little piece of work. That's what I'm looking for.

  Peggy Robertson : I shall see what I can find.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Graphic elements of brutal violence, voyeurism, transvestitism and incest. Very nice. Not your average run-of-the-mill nutcase, is he, dear?

• Geoffrey Shurlock : No American movie has ever found it necessary to show a toilet - let alone to flush one.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Well, perhaps we ought to shoot the film in France. Use a bidet instead.

• Alfred Hitchcock : They just want the same thing over and over and over. They've put me in a coffin, and now they're nailing down the lid.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Peggy, I want you to summon your minions.

  Peggy Robertson : Minions?

• Alfred Hitchcock : I have to confess, Mister Stefano, it boggles my brain just trying to imagine what on earth you and your shrink could possibly talk about every day.

  Joseph Stefano : Just the usual. Sex, rage, my mother.

• Peggy Robertson : Are you sure about this? It's just so unlike you.

  Alfred Hitchcock : That is exactly the point, my dear.

• Alfred Hitchcock : If I could get Grace Kelly to play the girl they'd let me get away with murder.

  Alma Reville : Well, you can't. She's a princess now, which makes her permanently unattainable.

  Alfred Hitchcock : And all the more desirable.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Of course, the real secret of Mrs. Simpson's appeal to the Duke of Windsor was that she could make a toothpick feel like a cigar.

• Alma Reville : There will be no more shipments flown in from Maxim's of Paris. We can't afford it. The foie gras at Chasen's is more than adequate.

  Alfred Hitchcock : But those geese are from Barstow, not from Marseille.

  Alma Reville : Yes. Well, we all have to make our sacrifices for the greater good. Don't we, Alfred?

• Alfred Hitchcock : Don't ask me. I'm just a man hiding in the corner with my camera, watching. My camera will tell you the truth, the absolute truth.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Stop following me around like a puppy dog and get me a drink.

  Peggy Robertson : It's not even three!

  Alfred Hitchcock : Then give me the key to the cabinet.

• Alfred Hitchcock : You think you can get away with it, don't you? But you can't. You think they can't tell, but they can. They know. You can feel that noose tighten around that breakable little *neck*. You could return the money secretly, but what would that prove? It's too late. Poor Marion Crane, always so tight, so respectable, so prim and so proper. Perfect, untouchable, unsullied Miss Crane. Daddy's perfect little angel. And now they all know - those dirty little secrets you've been hiding so long. Messy, sticky, little lunchtime trysts with that oh-so-handsome failure Mister Samuel Loomis. They'll smirk, they'll gossip and they'll whisper. Even your boss, strait-laced, hatchet-faced Mister George Lowery, why even he can smell the rancid, pungent scent of *sex* all over you!

• Alfred Hitchcock : Darling, just fake it. You know how to do that. Act.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Why are you spending all the hours of day and night with that talentless mummy's boy?

• Alfred Hitchcock : I was going to make her into a star; but, she chose the life of a housewife instead. Why do they do it, I wonder? Why do they always betray me?

• Alfred Hitchcock : I think the big failure is the relationship between the heroine and the hero, you see? Probably, if you weren't so smitten with your friend Whitfield Cook, you'd be able to see that, wouldn't you? But then I suppose women never really care to face the truth - when their hearts are involved, do they?

  Alma Reville : How would you know what really goes on between a man and a woman?

• Alfred Hitchcock : [filming the shower scene]  More! More! Use some guts! Come on! No! More anger! All right, cut! Cut, cut! For God's sake! Will someone get me a proper stunt double? Now, give me the knife! Like this! Ungovernable rage! Homicidal violence! Cut! Cut and print. We've got it.

• Janet Leigh : I thought you only liked those Fauchon chocolates.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Well, needs must when the devil drives, my dear.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Poor old Whit. He isn't worth a damn when he's not working with you. Neither am I. I couldn't pull off the picture this time. It just sits there. Refusing to come to life.

• Alma Reville : You may not be the easiest man to live with, but you do know how to cut a picture better than anyone else.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Except for you.

• Alfred Hitchcock : Why didn't you stay with me? I would have made you as big a star as Grace Kelly.

  Vera Miles : Well, unlike Grace Kelly, I can pick up my own dry-cleaning. I've got a family, Hitch, a home. That blonde woman of mystery you're always after? She's a fantasy. She doesn't exist.

• [Wasserman comes to Hitchcock with news after Paramount screens "Psycho"] 

  Alfred Hitchcock : Well, what's the verdict?

  Lew Wasserman : Let's just say it was a four-letter review and it wasn't "good". Screw him! It's too late for Paramount to back out, no matter what Balaban says. You know, the other option is to recut it as a two-parter for the TV series. Because of the budget and the Hitchcock name, we stand a good chance of breaking even. Look, I made Jimmy Stewart a millionaire on "Winchester '73". And that was a dog. At least I could sit through your picture.