How the Great Become Great - A Few Excerpts

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

. . . No doubt Alfred Hitchcock was born "anxious", or at least "inhibited". Still that doesn't exactly book you straight into Norman Bates' motel. What Hitch needed was a little something extra, something right at the outset to give him a definite jump on the competition, to pump his little "needs and insecurities" up into a fullblown fear -- an awful, endless, abiding fear of a chaotic, unpredictable and overwhelming world, the kind of world that'd smother little Fred with love, and then forget to feed him, that'd keep him so scrubbed up and tidy he probably figured his dipes were starched - the kind of world that only a mother could provide.

And not just any mother. What Hitch needed was a special kind of mother; in his case an Irish catholic mother from a "stern" cockney, working class background; a "meticulous", "neat" mother who "wouldn't venture out of her room" unless she was "perfectly dressed"; a mother unexpectedly blessed with one last little baby boy, a baby who obviously "needed" her.

And Hitch got that little something extra, that early jump on the competition. He got himself "surrounded" with momma's "doting affection", with a "devotion" that was somehow "too intimate", too "overwhelming", too "intrusive"; a devotion that "imprisons rather than frees", a devotion that must have driven Emma's little bundle of joy ever further into retreat; into sitting "quietly in a corner", ever vigilant -a "loner and a watcher" - "saying nothing", just "looking and observing a great deal"; a devotion that no doubt drove him even further yet - into that secret world of dreams and fantasies - of escape, and safety, and, yes, revenge; into that inner world where little Freddy finally got his hands on the joy stick, where he could keep the milk trains running right on time, and watch the mud pies come flip-flopping, flying, splashing down, and SPLAT -- all drippy, black and brown, and gooey down the wicked witch's back.

OK, not exactly Psycho, but still, not a bad start for five. You could say Hitch got his first big break just when he needed it, and her name was momma ... ...

On to Einstein
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