This is a book that Alfred Hitchcock probably would not like. No matter how much fame, fortune and celebrity the director enjoyed, he guarded his critical reputation carefully, and he was reluctant to share the limelight with his collaborators. When interviewed about his work, he took the position of the great auteur whose singular creative vision was the source of his films’ genius. From 1942, Hitchcock’s name was above the title in the credits of his films, and he wanted them to be understood as Hitchcock films through and through. This despite the fact that, particularly in his 1950s and early 1960s prime, he had long and fruitful working relationships with some of the best in the business: assistant director and associate producer Herbert Coleman, cinematographer Robert Burks, costume designer Edith Head, titles designer Saul Bass, editor George Tomasini and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, not to mention Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, who advised him on every step of the production process, from the selection of stories to the final edit, throughout his entire career. Since Hitchcock’s death in 1980, biographers, film historians and critics have gradually brought these ‘below the line’ names to the fore and Hitchcock’s own collected papers, archived at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, have been especially helpful in this. The scripts, production notes and correspondence demonstrate the collaborative nature of the filmmaking process. 

The beauty of Steven C Smith’s new book on Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann is not just that Smith reveals how Hitchcock and Herrmann worked together, but also that he is able to explain Herrmann’s technique as a composer and to interpret his film scores in an illuminating and engaging