The Times (27/Dec/1994) - The man who knew too much
(c) The Times (27/Dec/1994)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Cannes Film Festival, Family Plot (1976), Frenzy (1972), Henry Arthur Jones, John L. Russell, John Russell Taylor, Walter Wanger
The man who knew too much
by John Russell Taylor
When the Master sent for John Russell Taylor, the former Times film critic expected the worst Meeting celebrities is one thing, getting to know them quite another. I was reflecting on this in December 1975, while lunching with Alfred Hitchcock in his studio dining room, as had been my wont, every week or so, for the previous three years.
I was preparing to go off for my afternoon class at the University of Southern California when Hitchcock observed, very deadpan: "Oh, do you have to go? I was just going but then, perhaps you wouldn't be interested to suggest you might like to see the first print of the new movie. Family Plot, we're calling it now. It's not quite finished, but I thought it might amuse you..."
As I phoned the university to say that I was unavoidably detained, I compared this very personal screening with the way I had got to see Hitch's previous film, Frenzy, and how nearly disastrous that had been. It all started when my friend Fred heard I was going to spend a month in Hollywood at the beginning of 1972. Fred was in the habit of taking items, difficult to obtain in America, to his Hollywood friends. He knew that I was interested in art nouveau, and thought it would be interesting for me if I took a special kind of mustard from him to the producer Jennings Lang, who had a great collection of Mucha originals I would surely like to see. Lang was subsequently to find fame as the producer of Airport, but at this time, more interestingly, he was best known as the recipient of a bullet from fellow producer Walter Wanger in a famous parking-lot fracas over Wanger's then wife Joan Bennett.
This did not seem to be quite a tactful subject of conversation, but Mucha was all right, so when I arrived in LA I called Lang and was invited to go round for drinks the following evening. An hour later his secretary called back and asked whether I like to make it that very evening: he was screening the new Hitchcock film, Frenzy then three or four months away from release and thought I might like to see it. Wouldn't I just! When this all happened, I should say, I had met Hitchcock a couple of times, as film critic of The Times, and had lurked on the sidelines during quite a bit of the London shooting of Frenzy. So the chance of stealing a march on the world was irresistible.
I duly arrived that evening at Lang's house, carrying Fred's mustard. Lang was amiable enough, but somewhat distrait, with, I felt, half an eye on the clock. Eventually he said: "Fred tells me you are interested in Mucha. Perhaps you'd like to take a quick look at my collection. Very quick, I'm afraid, because I'm running a movie for guests at seven." I said, rather pointedly: "Yes, I know. That's what you asked me to come for."
Anyway, we chatted as we looked at his pictures, and he said: "Well, stay for another drink. Maybe Robert De Niro will not turn up after all, and then I can certainly show you the movie." And, in the end, I got to see Frenzy, just about the first kid on any block to do so.
Of course I loved it, and told Lang. He was apparently silly enough to confess what he had done to Hitchcock, urging my high opinion of the film in compensation. The result was that Hitch was furious with him for showing it to the critic of an important paper, and never spoke to him again.
But how did that leave him feeling about me? Come the next Cannes Festival I was to find out. Frenzy was receiving its world premiere there. A couple of days before the festival screening I received a mysterious summons. Would I come to lunch with Mr Hitchcock at noon the following day?
When I arrived at his hotel he whisked me away immediately in a chauffeur-driven car, along the coast to a restaurant in the midst of some dreary terrain vague, looking like a location for The Postman Always Rings Twice. The place was absolutely deserted, though obviously Hitch was well known there, and was made much of. Once we were seated Hitch turned to me and, in his most magisterial fashion, intoned: "I expect you're wondering why I wanted to see you quite privately like this."
A long, significant pause. "I wanted to talk to you about ... your book The Rise and Fall of the Wellmade Play. It's an absolute classic. Whenever aspiring writers ask me about script construction I tell them to read it. Now, what I wanted to ask you was..."
I cannot remember what it was he wanted to ask me: something about Henry Arthur Jones, I think. But anyway, we sat there alone until 4.30pm chatting happily about the London theatre of his youth, about which, needless to say, his knowledge was encyclopaedic and his enthusiasm profound. And never a word about Frenzy, let alone Lang and his faux pas. I suppose I had passed some kind of test.
