Hitchcock (2012)

 Alfred Hitchcock is the acknowledged master of the suspenseful thriller.  He was never the recipient of a Best Director Academy Award (although they did honor him with a Lifetime Achievement award shortly before his death).  He was well known for sleeping with his leading ladies, for blacklisting them if they defied him, and for ruining careers.  Not a very nice man, all in all, but a very talented film maker.

This movie is about the making of the movie 'Psycho' in 1959.  He owed Paramount Studios one more movie on his contract, and they wanted to tell him what to make--he didn't take kindly to young actresses going against his will, but he was no happier when it was studio executives trying to wield power.  He ended up financing the movie with his own money, and with the full support of his wife, Alma.

This movie is equal parts Hitchcock and the obsession he had with this particular movie with the part that his wife played in his success.

Alma was in the film business when she met Hitchcock and she had a genius for editing--editing scripts, but most of all for editing movies.  The story goes that Hitchcock screened 'Psycho' for the studio executives and they hated it.  Worse yet, he hated it too.  So what to do?  Alma rolls up her sleeves and goes about editing the film scene by scene, frame by frame at times, and no surprise here, it worked.

What probably did not happen in real life (though it is depicted in the movie) is the thanks.  She was seen by people in the know as being the great woman who was standing behind the great man.  But how much of his greatness would have laid fallow without her--so part of his talent was to see what she brought to his work, and  kept her involved with him for his entire career.

This is not a magnificent film, but it is an enjoyable one.