Book Description
On his 100th birthday and almost two decades after his death, Alfred Hitchcock remains the master of screen suspense. The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book is a tribute to his esteemed career and his continuous eminence among critics and fans alike.The book contains a chronology of Hitchcock's achievements, little-know facts about his films and their stars, and a wide array of quizzes to test any fan's knowledge of Hitchcock's masterpieces. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good Hitchcock trivia
This book has good Hitchcock trivia. However, it is quite restrictive in scope as it deals only with Hitchcock. For readers who are interested in other subjects too, I would recommend the book "Quizzing"

These are hard!
This book is worth it for the list of his cameos alone, but there are sixty-five other quizzes that are just as entertaining and illuminating. I can totally see someone going out and renting "Lifeboat" or anyof his other movies just to answer the always challenging and sometimesthought-provoking trivia questions. Round up your movie nerd friends andhave a ball. This may be more fun than the Kevin Bacon game. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

HauntinglyIllustrated
This book was such a favorite for me and my brothers growing up in the 60's - 70's that it was literally worn to pieces. The illustrations are so creepy, without any goriness, and the stories are so well suited to stimulate the imagination of pre-teens, without causing nightmares - perhaps. I only wish that these stories could be brought to the movie screen while retaining the atmosphere of the book itself. You can't go wrong with this, it really is a classic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I always wanted to be Jupiter!
This is the best juvenile seried there is. I only owned 4 books as a kid, but I read them over and over and over. Now I am trying to buy the rest of them and some are out of print! Oh that I had bought them wheni could (especially since they used to be $$$). I tried to pick up (being a girl) the babysitter's club, but that just didn't do it for me. They were so shallow and predictable. The three investigators series are quality literature, which is rare nowadays. PLEASE reprint all the out-of-print titles. Judging from others comments, many people would buy them! It would be a shame to let these go because there isnt the same calibur of books to replace them! ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Customer Reviews (14)

A Profitable Collaboration
In 1953 John Michael Hayes met Alfred Hitchcock in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel for dinner.After indulging in much wine and food with the legendary director, the 33-year-old writer, who was just starting to earn his spurs as a film scenarist after a luminous period in radio, returned home and told his wife he was certain that Hitchcock would never hire him to collaborate with him on projects.

How wrong Hayes proved to be, to the distinct benefit of himself and the great director.Hayes believed he would not be hired since he frankly criticized some of Hitchcock's earlier films.As things turned out, Hitchcock admitted he had heard very little of what Hayes was saying.Instead he focused on his manner, believing him to be glib and confident of himself.They then went to work on their first project together, with Hayes writing the screenplay adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's renowned short story, "Rear Window."

Steven DeRosa takes us on a fascinating journey with a succinct dual biography of the two men, brilliant creative forces with styles in some ways different, in other ways similar, while also showcasing the four films on which they worked during their collaboration.Despite his formidable background and lengthy film experience, Hitchcock knew where to tread and how to back off, giving Hayes plenty of suggestions on settings while providing him with all the independence he needed to place his own brand on his screenplays, particularly the masterful dialogue that made him sought after from the time he arrived in Hollywood looking for work.We learn that Hayes, before working on films, was a smashing success as a writer on the Sam Spade radio series starring Howard Duff and Lurene Tuttle.It was while cranking out radio scripts and being compelled to meet pressureful deadlines that Hayes developed a discipline that led him later to be branded as "Hollywood's fastest writer."

Another fascinating collaboration was "To Catch a Thief," in which the French Riviera settings form a brilliant visual backdrop to a thriller in which Cary Grant plays a reformed jewel thief who is enticed back into action to help the local police catch that period's successor to Grant.Along the way he finds romance with Grace Kelly, who will not that long afterward return to the French Riviera to reign over Monte Carlo with new husband Prince Rainier.

DeRosa provides interesting details on the remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much," this time, 22 years after the original was released, as a spectacular color film.We learn how this film, starring James Stewart and Doris Day,was crafted in a way to utilize the good points of the original version while building upon that success and providing excellent original material.

This book is a rare effort.Scarcely ever does a reader receive such a close perspective on the important relationship between two master craftsmen, a brilliant veteran director and a young screenwriter at the peak of his powers.

Very recommended
The making of Rear Windows, The Man Who Knew Too Much, To Catcha Thief and The Trouble with Harry in one book!Through interviews with the key production personnel of Hitchcock and writer Hayes, this book covers each detail of how these films were made.Very recommended.

a must for any fan of Hitchcock
This book is about the successful teaming of Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes. Hayes, a native New Englander, and recently a screenwriting professor at Dartmouth, wrote four films for Hitch, including Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and The Man Who Knew Too Much. They worked extraordinarily well together, Hitchcock bringing to the table his mastery of suspense and technique and Hayes his knack for sharp dialogue and strong characters. Predictably, ego, money and a battle for credit soon got in the way and ended their partnership. Steven DeRosa's research is impressive, and his style accessible, entertaining and informative.

Hitchcock at his best
Although the book's main focus is on the four films Hitchcock made with Hayes, and on the personal relationsip between the two, DeRosa provides many insights into the director's collaborations with writers throughout his long career.It becomes quite clear that the very nature of Hitchcock's technique, that of planning everything in advance, made him more reliant on writers than he ever admitted.At the same time, DeRosa shows what it was like to be an up-and-coming screenwriter during that era.

A fresh take on Hitchcock
In almost stupefying detail DeRosa describes how Hitchcock and screenwriter Hayes conceived, wrote, and produced four of Hitchcock's better films, including Rear Window and To Catch a Thief.Along the way DeRosa tells how Hayes' reputation grew to the point that Hitchcock was no longer comfortable maintaining the relationship.Engagingly written, this is a fresh take on Hitchcock which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially after seeing three of the four on the newly released DVD's. ... Read more

Book Description
The introduction gives an overview of Hitchcock's long career, with special attention to the varied influences on his work; themes that run through many of his films, from the "transference of guilt," to the connection between knowledge and danger; the overlooked importance of his presence within his films, including his famous cameo appearances and characters who represent him within the story; his fascination with performance and the ambiguities of illusion and reality; the question of viewing him and his work through the auteur theory; and other issues.Also discussed is the relationship between Hitchcock as a serious, even tormented artist and Hitchcock as a magician with a weakness for cinematic practical jokes.Six chapters then provide in-depth examinations of key films: Blackmail, his first talkie; Shadow of a Doubt, one of his personal favorites; The Wrong Man, which questions the nature of guilt and innocence; Vertigo, arguably his most profound work; Psycho, his most savage look at the nature of evil; and The Birds, his last masterpiece and one of his most widely misunderstood works. David Sterritt is film critic at The Christian Science Monitor and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate Film Division of Columbia University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a MUST for Hitchcock fans
Sterritt's book is somewhat modest compared to the many other tomes on cinema's Grand Wizard; he tackles only a dozen or so of the films in a few unassuming essays -- but he does a brilliant job, adding to the wealth ofinsights on such classics as "Shadow of a Doubt."His piece on"Psycho" is outrageous, claiming that it's actually a film aboutMONEY, and that money is equated with human excrement -- and he proves hiscase!(Marion flushes her calculations down the toilet; Cassidy says,"She sat there while I dumped it out"!)The introductory essayis also very insightful, esp. about Hitch's oversight of his own films. (Sterritt claims that H's cameos are signs that he is ever-present andalways monitoring his creation.)I love Hitch, I have practically everybook written about him and his work, and I can recommend this bookunreservedly. ... Read more

Book Description
The authoritative guide to the world's best-loved and most respected film director. The story combines complete stroy synopes, insightful commentary, and a stunning collection of photographs to capture the essence of the acclaimed Master of Suspense. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

"Must" reading for all Hitchcock fans!
Film director Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense: this survey of his film contributions gathers over 300 photos from throughout his life, providing an excellent collection of revealing images spiced with film reviews and sidebars of facts. Highly recommended for any Hitchcock fan.

The master's canon
Interested in the films he directed, or just a hitchcock fan?Either way this book is a must.Not only does it cover every film he directed, but there are nice little extras on the stars he worked with, the writingprocess and even a look at films he inspired. The book is beautifully laidout, yet if you are looking for close analysis then this is not what youwant.It looks at each film and talks about them, but there is no harddepth to this material - this is just a good look at the entire canon.

Excellent presentation, too little room to develop it
Reference books make great gifts because they can be pretty useful for years to come. Some of them are even attractive enough to leave out on coffee tables for guests to flip through when conversation drags. by Ken Mogg (Taylor Publishing Company,1999) is probably the most attractively produced book on that much writtenabout director. It is well organized, each of the Master's films gettinganywhere from one to five or six pages, well illustrated, with severalspecialized items to keep us abreast of trends in Hitch's career. Forexample, there is a list of all his cameo appearances in his films, a briefexamination of his film techniques, his use of famous locations, and so on.Especially welcome are little inserts of trivia, such as the story behindthe song the children are singing as The Birds are massing outside in theplayground, and a generous number of lobby card reproductions. There isalso a good discussion of his television series and even his paperbackanthologies. In short, Mr. Mogg does not concentrate entirely on the films,although they do take up the bulk of the volume.By the way, listingJanet Leigh as co-author on this website is misleading: she only wrote aone-page introduction that is quite amusing.My only complaint is that211 pages are not enough room to handle this wealth of material; and hereand there I feel much more of value could have been said had the authorbeen given more space. (Hence the one star less in my rating.) Still such acomment merely shows how much I like this book and many of you will too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The story keeps you on the edge of your chair.
The characters are kids you can look up to. The story is thrilling and fast paced. There is nothing about the story that seems unbelievable. It keeps you guessing until the end. I read this as a child and I have never forgotten it. It is one of the best series I have ever read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Casey's review
I liked this book because it was very interesting and I didn't want to stop reading it. This was a puzzle kind of a mystery it was cool. I like how they needed to search for the painting.

Well three investigators are called to find missing parrots but end up trying to find a picture worth a lot of money. In order to find the painting they would have to get all the seven parrots and when they talked they would say a clue to where the picture is.

You would have to definitely be a mystery type reader to really get into this book. It's not a hard book at all its king of hard on some parts but that's it. A boy would like this book better then a girl would like it. You would have to be in at least 7th grade to understand the book. If you consider a 182 pages long then it's to hard for you but it goes by fast I read this in a week! This was an awesome book and there was so much action and adventure and a lot of mystery and there also was a lot of cliffhangers.

Three Investigators Books are Fantastic!!
I used to read my older brother's Three Investigator books when he borrowed them from the school library. I so wanted to live in a trailer with a secret escape hatch like Jupiter had.
I have bought as many books as I could find for my son who is eleven and loves reading about Jupiter, Bob and Pete's adventures. We look in every secondhand shop we can find and are slowly getting the entire series.

Please bring the Three Investigators Back!!!!
I, too, read all of the books when I was a child.Now that I'm looking for books to give to friends' children, I discover that these marvelous books are out of print!I beseech the publisher to re-issue them asap.The stuttering parrot has remained with me all these years, so much so that when I hear a reference to Sherlock Holmes, it is the stuttering parrot's "to to be" thatimmediately pops into my mind.On behalf of a bookwormwho wants to share with the next generation, please bring the boys back!The three investigators may not have been classic literature, but they brought me tremendous pleasure.

Should not be out of print!
The Three Investigators series was the best set of mysteries I ever read, in addition to Agatha Christie's.I read all of them I could find.And yet, years later, I decided to look them up and not a single library had them anymore.These books should not be out of print!There is something special in Jupiter, Bob, and Pete's (I think I got the names right) detective agency, and the mysteries are especially unique and intriguing.This book is especially memorable.To-to-to be, or not to-to-to be...And that's not the only parrot that's odd

It got me hooked!!!
This was the first series book I had ever read. It got me hooked for life. I was never a series kind of guy. I never read Hardy Boys or theSecret Seven, they just annoyed me. After I read this book I bought every other "3 Investigators" I could find and I followed them all the way through to "The Crimebusters." Robert Arthur had an appiffiny when he created these characters ... Read more

Amazon.com
How is it possible to paint a portrait of an artist who left behind none of the notebooks and journals that provide most biographers with important personal details? After exhaustive researching and interviewing, Donald Spoto came to the conclusion that "Hitchcock's films were indeed his notebooks and journals ... [they] are astonishingly personal documents." This account of Alfred Hitchcock's life reads the mind of the man through the making of his films. Spoto argues powerfully and convincingly that movies like Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho can be appreciated not only as masterpieces of entertainment but also as subtle, revealing autobiography.Book Description
This is the definitive life story of Alfred Hitchcock, the enigmatic and intensely private director of Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds, and more than forty other films. While setting forth every stage of Hitchcock's long life and brilliant career, Donald Spoto also explores the roots of the director's obsessions with blondes, food, murder, and idealized love-and he traces the incomparable, bizarre genius from Hitchcock's English childhood through the golden years of his career in America as one of the greatest directors in the history of filmmaking. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

The Champ
Nearly 25 years later Donald Spoto's book on Hitchcock, which caused sch a stir when it appeared, is still the champ.You could read it for its salacious details, such as the real reason he wanted Madeleine Carroll in handcuffs.Or you could read it to see him organize Hitchcock's different films into categories, classifying them not only by way of theme but with reference to studio politics.Think of how different Hitchcock's "Warners" films are than his Selznick pictures, even with the understanding that the same auteur created them.

Spoto is unable to make out what was really going through Hitchcock's head while making VERTIGO.Did he really want the insipid Vera Miles to play the part(s) of Judy and Madeline, and then grow impatient with Kim Novak largely because she was no Vera Miles (thank goodness).If he was so furious with Miles, why did he then cast her in THE WRONG MAN, where she's so dreadfully bland one forgets she's in the picture?(And later he used her in his longrunning TV series.)If, as Spoto says, Hitchcock had an erotic fetish for blondes, did it somehow turn itself off when confronted with Kim Novak, one of the most obsessable women in film?I don't believe it!

However Spoto is spot on when it comes to Hitchcock's last passion, for the actress "Tippi" Hedren with whom he made his two best films.Another reviewer here dismisses Ms. Hedren as a "mediocre performer at best who should have been grateful for a great man's attention and adoration," but under Hitchcock's skilled direction, she was able to pull off quite capably two of the most intense and primal roles ever created in the American cinema.People might have been startled by her work at the time, but it just keeps looking better and better where some of the other performances he elicited aren't looking that good any more, for he could make good actors look bad (Olivier, Fonda, Clift, Paul Newman, etc)--like the cattle he thought of them as.

Our views of Hitchcock will continue to evolve, but we will always be grateful to Donald Spoto for expressing a certain biographical turn with great elegance and, almost, wit.

Scandal-Ridden Junk
Of course, in 2005 we're accustomed to knowing a lot more about celebrities than we really ought to.When this book was first published twenty years ago, this fixation had not quite gotten to where it is today.

No - instead, on the heels of Spoto's "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock," which gave Spoto free access to the late director and to his archives, Spoto insists that knowing way too much information about Hitch's private life is essential, somehow, to understanding his art.

To a certain extent, that's the case.But some of this stuff is simply gratiutous.How relevant to art is the "Marnie" incident with Tippi Hedren?What possible addition to an important body of knowledge does that story make?

If you want gossip, it's here.If you want to gain some insight into our greatest director's artistic character, it's promised here but maybe not delivered.

A fascinating insight into the enigma
"Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table."

...and here is the Master of Suspense.While Hitchcock happens to be one of the better-known directors of the 20th century, he surely is the only master of enigma.Spoto has done an admirable job in depicting the life of a man always shrouded in mystery.

The book follows Hitch from his childhood.A rather unattractive mother's boy, he was an outcast at public school.It continues his story from humble beginnings, through the discovery of genius, and ends at his death in 1980, at the age of 81.Throughout the pages, Spoto covers Hitchcock's life in detail, including his many quirks, obsessions bizarre sense of humour.

Hitchcock's life was indeed bizarre - his personality and obsessions manifesting themselves in his over-eating and his dry, often macabre sense of humour.However, as the author rightly points out, the director also revealed this side of himself through the images of his movies.This makes a fascinating study once you have read the book and you'll never view Hitch's films at face value again.

Because of her desire to protect her father's privacy, Hitch's daughter, Pat, refused Spoto any assistance in the writing of this book.He went instead to a veritable legion of actors and screenwriters who knew him and worked with him.The result is an extremely revealing and often very dark portrait of a man whose character was as shadowed as his films.

But not all is dark and foreboding.There are several amusing anecdotes, which highlight Hitch's macabre sense of humour.Like the time he had a dummy made in his own likeness and sent it floating on its back down the Thames river as a publicity stunt for his movie "Frenzy" in 1972.

My own personal favourite is the story of a woman who accosted him and complained that the "Psycho" shower scene so frightened her daughter that the girl would no longer shower.His laconic reply was, "Then, Madam, I suggest you have her dry cleaned."

He also did not suffer actors gladly.While he did have his stable of favourites that he worked with, he once claimed that actors were cattle.Later he said, "I didn't say that actors are cattle - I said they should be treated as cattle."Another story says that when an actress asked Hitchcock if her right or left profile was better, he told her, "My dear, you're sitting on your best profile."

Some of Spoto's claims I can't help but treat with a little scepticism.I do know that Hitch had a fascination with murder but the tender way in which he presents it in his films is classic Hitchcock.However, the author's statement that scenes in Hitch's movies reflect kind of voyeurism, I feel that with his trademark camera pans through windows, the director was trying to give the audience a bird's eye view of the scene - no more and no less.It is his way of allowing us to enter the private lives of his characters.

When all is said and done, this is a fascinating book of a fascinating man.A genius in his own time, but also a frustrated enigma, with a taste for the truly macabre.I highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in learning about the man behind the mystery, although it is a little heavy at times.

I'll leave the last word to the Master of Suspense himself:

"Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs.

Extremely informative, interesting
Donald Spoto has done a tremendous work in obtaining first-hand accounts from Hitchcock's friends, colleagues, family, and even Alfred, himself.There is not one iota of information about Hitchcock left out of this monumental work.

He traces the ghosts of psychology that haunted Hitchcock from a very young child on until his pitiful death.Hitch's wants, desires, insecurities, and love affairs (one-sided) are intricately outlined and analyzed in a biography that has few contemporaries.This truly is the ultimate work on Hitchcock's life.

The Man Who Knew Too Little
Spoto has done an admirable job at putting together 500 compelling pages of reading.Unfortunately, he mentions the fundamental problem with this book in the very preface...that Hitchcock left few records and let his guard down for few individuals.The Hitchcock most knew was no more personal than what we know from his television persona.So right away, we have a biography that doesn't have much basis.So Spoto tries to compensate by drawing conclusions about Hitchcock based on his films.Kind of silly, really.Spotos analysis of the films could be interesting, but it's very uneven...he'll spend 10 pages on one film, and barely mention the existence of another.And the only revealing passage on anything regarding Hitchcock's life itself is on his Tippi Hedren years.

However, my chief problem with The Dark Side of Genius is Spoto's tendency to excuse Hitchcock when convenient.It's ridiculously facile.EVERY time Spoto reached an unsuccessful Hitchcock film, he explains how Hitchcock was preoccupied, depressed, or altogether uninterested in the that film.Can't we allow that a genius is fallible?His classics were the product of passion; his failures were due do lack of interest.That's way too black and white a stance for any serious biographer or film scholar to promote.He never allows that Hitchcock tried and failed at times.To Spoto, when he failed, it's because he didn't care. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is the best young reader series that has ever existed.
When I was in third grade, I bought "Alfred Hitchcock andthe Three Investigators in the Mystery of the Flaming Footprints"solely because I liked the cover.The neon green flaming footprints "walking" up a flight of stairs intrigued me.But once I picked up the book, I was addicted for life.I bought every Three Investigators book I could lay my hands on and would not let them out of my sight - not even to loan them to my best friend.I am almost 27 years old and still have nearly every book in the series. Unfortunately, I am faced with a new dilemma: my niece loves mysteries and I want to share the Three Investigators with her, but they are out of print and I do not want to let go of my copies.They should be reprinted!!!The series was loaded with positive messages for young readers: young people can be just as smart as adults, it is good to be well-rounded, it is "cool" to be smart, it is O.K. for athletic jocks (Pete) to hang out with handicapped introverts (Bob) and overweight geniuses (Jupiter), etc. Young people need to hear these messages today more than ever before. Someone please help bring them back in print!!! I'm begging!!! ... Read more