Alfred Hitchcock Talks About His Relationship With Actors | The Dick Cavett Show

let me ask you a bit about your thoughts on violence on the screen and all that's interesting because that clip we showed from psycho was from a film that was edited quite a bit when it was shown on prime-time television some of the scenes were considered to some moments of scenes were considered too awful to show and of those days how do you feel about that well there's more permissiveness today but don't forget that's 10 years ago things are quite different man you think if they showed psycho now they would they would be able to show every scene oh my god so without question show really I doubt that because they were they were rather worried that we were showing anything tonight from that well there's a different approach for television than there is for movies oh yes I met on television they don't tell me there you know television the same conditions applied still yeah yeah I see but I'm surprised really that in English television when I was over there they allow a certain amount of nudity on the English television elite nudity on English Dylan yes considering the weather over there I'm surprised they must heat the studio somewhere okay I know what you mean about but the other day how long did I think nudity would last on the screen and I know if he wouldn't think me too vulgar in saying I said that Oh breasts sag eventually you have research to prove that no I'm afraid not down but in that scene from psycho you had a curious effect that it seemed that oh that balsam seemed to be almost floating backwards which added to the the horror of it a bit it was like a dream he seemed to be almost in slow motion a bit as he fell backwards and I realized the second time I saw it that that was where part of the fright came from well the point is that if a person falls they are fighting the fall I mean they don't just drop back you know if you're falling back there's an effort to to prevent didn't you do something special in the shooting of that or having squirrel it was a it was a double printed thing well he didn't fall down a single step he sat in a very comfortable chair just lay there like that is that right yes we made the background first to moving down I'd love to know how you did oh I've got all of those things a lot of the answers for their money you see yeah I'm not having to do the things they're supposed to do you were you called actors cattle once in your career and offended a few well I hint at the time I think I said no I was accused of calling acts as cattle and I said that I would never say such an unfeeling rude thing about actors at all what I probably said was that all actors should be treated like cattle [Laughter] and any went on to do that in a nice swim yes fed them at the right hours and brush them occasionally what do I know you what one actress got you for that somehow by she wants had some cattle brought onto a Saturday that was the famous Carol Don Caroline years and she was a woman with a great sense of humor and I arrived on the set the first day of shooting and she had a Corral built and in it was three live cows with the names of the actors on be dis crowd their necks you know it it is in finding out some of the things that you've done reading about them and all it's amazing how much is the directors work and how little the actors are needed and in a way there's a devastating example you gave from a Russian filmmaker pudovkin we had to do with the actors face and then the well if I may interrupt you a moment Walt Disney had the right idea if he didn't like the axe as he tore them up [Laughter] but you talk about the restauranteur power of film that that's a how strong film compete well I did the production section for Encyclopedia Brittanica for the last edition and in it I describe a scene such as in the picture rear window we have James Stewart a close-up of him and he looks you see and you can't we'll say for example a woman nurse in a baby now you go back to mr. Stewart and he smiles so what are you demonstrated that he's a nice benevolent gentleman now take the middle piece of film away he looks he sees now cut to a girl in a bikini and he smiles now he's a dirty old man and it's the exact same smile exact same smile the same look the subject has changed and he said that there's a more dramatic example that was the Russian filmmaker who showed an actor's face and then a dead baby in the actors face and then a bowl of soup and then the actors face and in each case it was the same shot of the actors face but in the one seemed to be sorrow and the other seemed to be hunger that's a lot of truth yes so you could get an Academy Award performance for an actor with only one shot of him really well I did it years ago with an actress and I found her very difficult and I did all our close options and look here look there look down look across move around and go home and then you may go home another actress and I used all our hands and she was cutting meat and and it was a prelude to a murder scene and you just put everything around it I use the hands only yes is there a scene you wouldn't do over again are you sorry you did so I thinking one specifically the boy with the bomb well that was because I made a terrible mistake of having a boy carry a bomb across the city you the audience knew that was a bomb and I built it up and up until the various clocks and all the holdups and you knew it was going to go off at one o'clock but I let the clock go one minute past 1 2 minutes and work the audience up and then I let the bomb go off and he was on a bastard he blew the whole thing completely and I remember I was at the pressure and a woman critic came up we've both raised fists as it had age of a thing like that even a hard world critic was taken away with the whole thing I'd made the mistake in not relieving them at the end of the suspense in other words if you put a note in through the mill like that you must relieve it the bomb must be found and quickly thrown out of the window then it goes off out there and the audience are relieved and if you had it to do over again I'd never let the bomb go off what would you do with the rest of the movie well you mean well that wouldn't be the last scene in the movie no that's true but is it was it because they were was it also because a child was killed in the scene that they thought it was too brutal no I'd only masteries I think the reason is that an audience gets worked up yeah and they need relief for example if anybody goes on a roller coaster and they scream it goes down the big dip and up and around they're screaming all the time but always get off giggling yeah or you go to the Midway and you pay money to go into the haunted house and skeletons jump up and look floor does all kinds of thing but they always come out giggling now the question why do people pay money to be scared you know the answer schmuck I earn my living doing this better not the question is what would my starving wife and child do without or your starving self we by the way I should explain is always somebody who misunderstands a child was not killed in the making of the movie it was in the scene itself supposedly someone always writes it and misunderstood we'll be back after this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 733,271

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, alfred hitchcock actors, alfred hitchcock interview, alfred hitchcock full interview, alfred hitchcock the dick cavett show, alfred hitchcock dick cavett, actors are like cattle, alfred hitchcock quotes, alfred hitchcock hates actors, worst actors, terrible actors, recasting, recast, famous interviews, classic interviews, alfred hitchcock funny

Id: GuD1yloq5pY

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2019