Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes

This book easily ranks as the most important about Hitch's filmmaking to come in the last decade. Not only does it give a vividly detailed account of the making of Hitch's ultimate masterpiece, Rear Window, but of three additional titles as well. Complete with juicy behind the scenes stories and interviews, facts and figures from the archives, a full accounting of how each script was prepared and what storylines and dialogue nearly reached the screen. And if that weren't enough, this book is also an exceptional bio of a gifted screenwriter as well, John Michael Hayes. I hadn't realized how many other movies he'd written, let alone how many scripts he wrote that were never made. And this book really gives a sense of what it was like to write in Hollywood in the glory days of the fifties and sixties.

One of the most important writers to work side by side with Alfred Hitchcock was John Michael Hayes, who collaborated with the director on Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. These films made over a two-year period (1953-55) lifted Hitchcock to a level of popularity at a time when he seemed to be growing out of touch with his audience. This fascinating book details the relationship between Hayes and Hitchcock, exploring how the two collaborated on the writing and production of the films. Relying on a mass of documents from studio records to Hitchcock's and Hayes' personal papers, as well as anecdotal accounts, Steven DeRosa chronicles the ups and downs of this collaboration, and then analyzes the films themselves. DeRosa presents a fresh and complex portrait of the director while also providing one of the best accounts of the process of writing for film and the indignities screenwriters often endure.

This book is really amazing. I thought that this was a very detailed book about John Michael Hayes and his rise to being a screenwriter, and how he came to work with Alfred Hitchcock. There are some great photos included that I've NEVER seen anywhere else before from Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and more. I must say this is the best book that I've read about Hitchcock (and especially the best when it comes to talking about Rear Window). Whether you read this book for educational purposes or just pure enjoyment, you will be glad that you got it. I really recommend this to anyone that may wonder how a movie really comes about....how the REAL men do it!

With big thumbs up from the likes of Donald Spoto (Hitch's biographer) and Joseph Stefano (screenwriter of Hitch's "Psycho") there's no question Steven DeRosa's "Writing with Hitchcock" is compulsory reading for the serious Hitchcock fan. But written with a style both enjoyable and accessible, this book will entertain and enlighten anyone with even a casual interest in the movies, mostly because there's a darn good story hereThe jumping off point for this story is when Hitchcock was getting ready to film "Torn Curtain", one of his less successful spy adventures. Hitchcock ignored pleas from those close to him to call on John Michael Hayes for a rewrite. The resulting film was a disaster. The author then brings us back ten years to when Hitchcock himself called on Hayes to pen "Rear Window" The results were so successful, the director kept Hayes on board for the next three films, which include: "To Catch a Thief," "The Trouble with Harry," and "The Man Who Knew Too Much." The author describes the making of each film, with particular attention to the writing, as suggested by the title, while always providing a sense of the ever-changing dynamic between a powerful producer-director and a young Hollywood writer, courtesy of interviews with Hayes himself, as well as other surviving crew members. The story of their breakup is sad, but typical of Hollywood, where many make the mistake of beginning to believe their own press.

At last someone has challenged the myth that Hitchcock did everything himself. Not so. He had some very skilled writers whose talents helped make his films so memorable. One of those writers - perhaps the most important - was John Michael Hayes, whose screenplays for Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Trouble with Harry and the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, had a tremendous impact on Hitchcock's films of the fifties, and on the way we view Hitchcock today. In "Writing With Hitchcock", Steven DeRosa gives Hayes his long overdue credit. Hayes' contributions to each of the films are described in detail, as are the steps taken by the censors to reign things in - to protect audiences from the idea that Cary Grant and Grace Kelly would have premarital relations, or that Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day's boy was kidnapped, are just a couple of examples! Each film is gone over in detail from the writing phase to release, and the reader is given a chance to see the relationship between the writer and director blossom, and then die. There are lots of anecdotes and a summarizing of both Hitchcock and Hayes' careers after they parted which is very illuminating, especially the potential sequel to Rear Window that Hayes worked on that would have been far more interesting than the Chris Reeve tv version. The final chapter is an analysis of each of the screenplays, and this was especially interesting to me as an aspiring screenwriter. Well worth the price of admission! I only wish it was in hardcover.