Hitchcock and Herrmann The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema

by Smith, Steven C.

• ISBN13: 9780197681282
• ISBN10: 019768128X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197681305
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-10-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

This is the story of the game-changing collaboration between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann, who channelled their inner fears and desires into films that would become the nightmarish narratives and soundtracks of our lives.

The 11-year collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann is often called the greatest director-composer partnership in cinema history. Their eight films together include such classic thrillers as Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. In Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema, Steven C. Smith delivers an intimate account of how the reserved, but deeply anxious, Hitchcock found his ideal creative partner in the cantankerous, but deeply romantic, Herrmann. Smith draws on four decades of research, including previously unpublished documents and new interviews, to deliver a riveting account of what made the teaming of "Benny and Hitch" so memorable and influential -- and why it came to a bitter end.

Their story involves the tumultuous changes in Hollywood from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, as the collapsing studio system gave way to independent, counterculture filmmaking. It also involves the key figures in Hitchcock and Herrmann's inner circle including the director's gifted wife and most valued critic, Alma Reville; Herrmann's beautiful, put-upon spouse, Lucy Anderson; and talent agent-turned-studio mogul Lew Wasserman. Wasserman's negotiations made Hitchcock's greatest filmmaking period possible, but over time Lew's commercial instincts as head of Universal Studios clashed with Herrmann's pure artistic vision.

Hitchcock and Herrmann is both a deeply researched historical study and a fast-moving, cinematic narrative -- one that puts readers on the film sets and scoring stages of Hitchcock masterworks. Their collaboration ended in a bitter break; but today Herrmann's pulse-quickening music has become the soundtrack of our own anxious times. The music from their movies is more popular than ever, heard in Quentin Tarantino blockbusters and Lady Gaga music videos. In Smith's expert telling, readers get an an intimate look at two legendary creators who, despite seemingly opposite personalities, found in each other artistic completion.

Author Biography

Steven C. Smith is a four-time Emmy-nominated documentary producer and award-winning author. His over 200 documentaries about film and music include collaborations with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Stephen Sondheim, John Williams, Julie Andrews and Sidney Poitier. His biographies of composers Bernard Herrmann and Max Steiner each received the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor / Virgil Thomson Award. He has lectured at the Library of Congress, American Film Institute, Academy of Motion Pictures Museum and other organizations. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times.

Table of Contents

Prelude
1. Shadows of Doubt
2. Troubles with Harry
3. The Team that Knew So Much
4. Wronged Men
5. I Want You So to Love Me: Vertigo, Part One
6. We'll Just Have the Camera and You: Vertigo, Part Two
7. On the Rocks
8. Something Terrible is Going to Happen: Psycho, Part One
9. The Real Psycho Theme: Psycho, Part Two
10. Electronic Assassins
11. Murder by Television
12. Torture the Women: Marnie
13. The Curtain Falls, Part One
14. The Curtain Falls, Part Two
15. Coda: Hitchcock's Secret
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index