Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes

In spring 1953, the great director Alfred Hitchcock made the pivotal decision to take a chance and work with a young writer, John Michael Hayes. The four films Hitchcock made with Hayes over the next several years Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much represented an extraordinary change of style. Each was distinguished by a combination of glamorous stars, sophisticated dialogue, and inventive plots, and resulted in some of Hitchcock s most distinctive and intimate work, based in large part on Hayes’s exceptional scripts.

Screenwriter and film historian Steven DeRosa follows Hitchcock and Hayes through each film from initial discussions to completed picture and also reveals the personal story filled with inspiration and humor, jealousy and frustration of the initial synergy between the two men before their relationship fell apart. Writing with Hitchcock not only provides new insight into four films from a master but also sheds light on the mysterious process through which classic motion pictures are created.

This updated edition includes previously unpublished archival material such as Alfred Hitchcock’s dubbing notes for Rear Window, deleted script sequences, Hitchcock’s own notes on John Michael Hayes’s screenplay for The Man Who Knew Too Much, and forty-four illustrations.