Alfred Hitchcock Predicted The Atom Bomb | The Dick Cavett Show

during the break in the studio someone asked mr. Hitchcock what the ending of the birds meant and he made a very bold statement I thought you said you had no idea well the point was where do you in had I gone further with it then the next shot would have been the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco covered in birds and I thought shy of doing that because I thought wherever we gonna get that number of birds from and then the residuals would have been enormous two or three has there been anything that they told you you just couldn't do that you wanted to do and they wouldn't let you either for censorship well for censorship purposes in a film no no I'm much too respectable I say be involved in anything so soldiers was that of course I should have known before asking yeah is there anything that you haven't done that you really want to get yet is there anything that you'd like to experiment with with the camera with a spin so something that you you know wait till the subject comes along and then tackle it from there on you know because every subject brings new challenges yeah if you had to take one of your films if they said I'm sorry there are too many films in the world and we're gonna have to select one from each director and destroy the rest could you instantly go to one of your films well I prefer you mean well well of course it's always the last one but that's to conventional answer no I film I made years ago called shadow of a doubt I like because it was true it was a character picture and it was a family in the northern Italia Californian town and beloved uncle Charlie comes to see with them and what the family don't know is that uncle Charlie is a mass murderer where did many women though the suspense is how long will it be before the family find out the truth it's a good one they never do I think notorious is one that I can watch every time it's on television and and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that film and yeah and it was made quite a number of years ago nineteen forty four and that's where I put in uranium as the MacGuffin yes we all remember that word boys and girls uh a year before Hiroshima yeah and no one could forget later how you did that because when you see the film now you take the atom bomb for granted but there was not an atom bomb and no new year in the course of manufacture and I went with the right of been hacked because one of the read of the Germans experimenting with heavy water in Norway Anatoly and I went with Ben Hecht the writer to Caltech and we walked into the office of dr. Millican the famous professor there and said how big would an atom bomb be and there was silence and then he spent an hour telling us how impossible the whole thing was and I understand I was watched by the FBI for three months afterwards but how did you know to use uranium if they deny the uranium Lord Rutherford split the atom in 1920 and I knew that would be the way that in which the atom bomb would be made then I heard of a place in New Mexico where men went in and never came out again where is that Alamogordo of Cola you know the first bomb was shut off and you knew that within did you know that within a year there would be an atom bomb but just went wow I didn't know when but I knew it was possibly coming and the producer didn't believe in it he said I think that's a lot of nonsense yes it I said you're worrying about the MacGuffin I said this is a love story Prine Ingrid Bergman don't carry drama don't worry if you don't like Iranian women can industrial diamonds the years afterwards when the film was shown in Germany he said to me well he said you know those Germans are very clever now the uranium is ality they've changed it to narcotics really okay when you were a kid what we like where were you nice where we a sweet boy we parlor fine didn't have a lot of a dignified kept to myself didn't have a lot of little friends no never fought other boys was very diligent and which remind me may I tell you a story yes about a nice little boy his father managed to get him into the best school in England Eton College you've heard of that I went to visit him after a week and the boy was scratched and bruised terrible state it's it what happened he said they don't like me here father they called me a dirty little Jew he said don't you fight back they'll throw you out of the school keep away from them he waits a week visits the boy again and he's still badly cut up he said they still calling you daddy - just now he said you tell them that Jesus Christ was a Jew was a cure and that'll stop them sure I Carla goes away third week you got two black eyes he said what they're still calling you that is it didn't you tell them what I told you to tell he said I tried to father but I forgot the gentleman's name that's a story I wouldn't I have never heard and would not expect to hear anywhere else there's a charming story it's a nice story it pulls in several directions you I think everyone's you say I don't know if you know that I know this or if I even remember it but someone who works for me once had a friend who called you from a magazine to interview you and he asked you if you were Catholic because he said we're we're the catholic digest let's say it was magazines name and we want to do an article about you and you said what is the circulation that's a very funny story is it oh yeah yeah it doesn't always you can't always tell by the amount of laughter but did you ever tell the man or once he told you what the circulation well that's I told him yes I was a Jesuit educated yeah and that's where I learned about fear tear we were terrorized by your teachers let's scare the hell out of me how did they restrict did they threaten physical violence on you oh no no no no but it's just see where you're brought up and how would they how would they frighten you if you didn't do your lessons properly well if you were not obedient what what bothered them well it was a the were certain punitive measures may I call taken physical physical yeah not desperately physical but enough to deter one in future occasions their age yes hey we have a message we'll be back [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 296,516

Rating: 4.95507 out of 5

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, atom bomb, atomic bomb, alfred hitchcock favourite film, alfredd hitchcock best movie, alfred hitchcock movies, Shadow of a Doubt, Shadow of a doubt hitchcock, shadow of a doubt 1943, shadow of a doubt full movie, hiroshima, predictions, alfred hitchcock filmmaker, alfred hitchcock director, alfred hitchcock interview, alfred hitchcock dick cavett

Id: 2t8G5cPqNAc

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/OrkBegork]

He's not the only one. It wasn't all that difficult to figure out that people were working on this if you had a bit of scientific knowledge and kept up to date.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadline_(science_fiction_story))

[u/Hoppingllama]

It strikes me how different the tone of this talk show is to the ones we have today. It's like two regular people having a normal conversation with no frills added, and the entertainment is found in what they are talking about, not how they say it (to a certain extent).

[u/MontaEllaHaveItAll]

He didn't predict the atomic bomb itself but predicted it being used, more or less, which was gonna happen. This reminds me a bit of people being impressed that David Bowie "predicted" the internet being massive a few years after it became clear and common knowledge just how powerful it was.

[u/mizzyally]

IIRC it was H.G. Wells in his 1914 book "The World Set Free" that predicted the atomic bomb.

Ernest Rutherford himself playfully suggested, upon discovering the immense energy released by radioactive decay, that "some fool in a laboratory might blow up the universe unawares". This was in 1903.