Hitchcock Chronology: 1957

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Month by Month

January

• 9th-11th - Hitchcock directs the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "One More Mile to Go".
• 12th - Feeling unwell, Hitchcock is confined to bed.
• 17th - Still in pain, Hitchcock is admitted to the Cedars of Lebanon hospital where he undergoes surgery for a navel hernia. He is also diagnosed as suffering from colitis.

February

• Hitchcock, still recuperating at home from colitis, holds initial face-to-face meetings with Samuel A. Taylor to discuss the script for Vertigo. Hitchcock also reads The Wreck of the Mary Deare, a property MGM are interested in adapting.
• 8th - Actor Miles Mander, who starred in The Pleasure Garden (1925), dies of a heart attack whilst dining at a Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles.

March

• 9th - Hitchcock is rushed to the Cedars of Lebanon hospital, where he is operated on to remove obstructing gallstones on March 11th. He spends the rest of March in hospital.
• Actress Vera Miles telephones Herbert Coleman towards the end of March to inform him that she is pregnant. If she is still to play the role of Madeleine/Judy in Vertigo, the start date would need to be delayed.

April

• 7th - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "One More Mile to Go", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.
• 9th - Hitchcock finally returns home from hospital. He spends the rest of April recuperating at home from the gallstones operation.
• Hitchcock, Lew Wasserman, Herman Citron and James Stewart meet at the end of April to discuss who should play the role of Madeleine/Judy in Vertigo. Wasserman favours rising star Kim Novak instead of the pregnant Vera Miles.

May

• Hitchcock holds script meetings with Joan Harrison during the first week of May to discuss the Suspicion episode "Four O'Clock".
• Hitchcock holds Vertigo script meetings with Samuel A. Taylor during the first week of May.
• 9th - Herbert Coleman writes to Kay Selby at Paramount British Productions Ltd. in London asking for her help in tracking down a recording of Norman O'Neill's score for the 1920 production of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose. Hitchcock is keen for Bernard Herrmann to hear the recording and use it as a guide for Vertigo.
• 17th - Kay Selby at Paramount British Productions Ltd. replies to Herbert Coleman to say she has managed to track down possibly the only surviving recordings of Norman O'Neill's score for the 1920 production of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose. The old recordings are held by Schott Music and are "scratched and ghastly".

June

• 17th - Actor Esme Percy, who played the role of Handel Fane in Murder!, dies aged 69.
• Over lunch in late June, at Hitchcock's home on Bellagio Road, Kim Novak voices her concerns about playing Madeleine in Vertigo. Samuel A. Taylor is also present.

July

• 17th-19th - Hitchcock directs the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Perfect Crime".
• Hitchcock directs the Suspicion television episode "Four O'Clock" in late July.

August

• Hitchcock holds final script meetings with Samuel A. Taylor to refine the script for Vertigo.
• Ernest Lehman expresses his doubts about adapting The Wreck of the Mary Deare to Hitchcock. Instead, Hitchcock suggests that they work on an original idea for a film, which will eventually become North by Northwest.
• 18th - Musical director and composer Louis Levy, who worked with Hitchcock on Waltzes from Vienna, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, The Lady Vanishes, Under Capricorn and Stage Fright, dies aged 62.

September

• 30th - Hitchcock begins filming Vertigo in San Francisco.

October

• 14th - Journalist Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. writes to Hitchcock handing over his idea of a innocent man who is mistaken for a fictional spy. Together with screenwriter Ernest Lehman, the director expands the concept into the screenplay for North by Northwest. Guernsey receives $10,000 from MGM for the transfer of story rights.
• 20th - The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Perfect Crime", directed by Hitchcock, premiers on US TV.

November

• 4th - Hitchcock hosts an Alfred Hitchcock Presents party at the Coconut Grove (part of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles) for TV magazine editors.
• 6th - Hitchcock hosts a "Chuckwagon Diner" party at Republic Studios for newspaper columnists.
• 14th - Over lunch, Hitchcock offers Vertigo actress Barbara Bel Geddes the staring role in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Lamb to the Slaughter".

December

• 16th - Hitchcock shoots Vertigo's famous "revolving kiss" scene. On the second take, James Stewart slips and falls -- filming is interrupted for an hour whilst Stewart visits the studio doctor.
• 18th - Hitchcock shoots Vertigo's opening rooftop chase sequence.
• 19th - Around lunchtime, Hitchcock shoots his cameo scene for Vertigo.
• With filming on Vertigo completed, Alfred Hitchcock and Alma spend Christmas holidaying in Miama and Montego Bay, along with a brief trip to Cuba. They are accompanied by Lew Wasserman and his wife.

See Also...

• articles from 1957
• births in 1957
• deaths in 1957

Notes & References

Hitchcock Chronology
1890s	1890	1891	1892	1893	1894	1895	1896	1897	1898	1899
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