Alfred Hitchcock's Unrealized Projects

The following is a partial list of unproduced Alfred Hitchcock projects, in roughly chronological order. During a career that spanned more than half a century, Alfred Hitchcock directed over fifty films, and worked on a number of others which never made it beyond the pre-production stage.

''Number 13'' (1922)

This was to be Hitchcock's directorial debut, after working in the art department on twelve films previously, but budgetary problems canceled the production after only a few scenes were shot. Studio records indicate that its title was to be ''Mrs. Peabody''.

''Forbidden Territory'' (1933–1934)

British thriller writer Dennis Wheatley had been a guest on the set of many of the early Hitchcock movies, and when ''The Forbidden Territory'' was published in January 1933, he presented the director with a copy. Hitchcock so enjoyed the book that he wanted to make a film of it, but he was just in the process of moving to Gaumont-British studios to work for Michael Balcon; he asked Wheatley to hold onto the rights until he could persuade his new employer to purchase them. When the time came, however, Balcon wasn't interested and instead insisted that Hitchcock direct the musical '' Waltzes from Vienna''. Hitchcock then approached Richard Wainwright, a distinguished producer who had been head of UFA films in Germany, and had recently relocated to Britain. Wainwright was keen to pick up a promising subject for his first British film, and immediately bought the rights. Although there was a verbal understanding that Hitchcock was to direct, Balcon refused to release him, and instead began production of '' The Man Who Knew Too Much''. Wainwright, committed to studio space, technicians and actors, had no alternative but to proceed without him, and placed the film into the hands of American director Phil Rosen. In 1936, at Hitchcock's instigation, Wheatley wrote a screenplay ''The Bombing of London'', but the controversial project could find no backer and was shelved.

''Greenmantle'' (1939–1942)

Hitchcock very much wanted to direct a follow-up to '' The 39 Steps'', and he felt that ''Greenmantle'' by John Buchan was a superior book. He proposed that the film would star Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, but the rights from the Buchan estate proved too expensive.
from Ordinary Least Square

Unnamed ''Titanic'' project (1939)

Hitchcock remarked in a British film journal interview just before leaving for Hollywood that he hoped to make a film about the tragic loss of as the inherent drama of the ocean liner's sinking appealed to him. Indeed, it was to be the first production of Hitchcock’s new contract under David O. Selznick, who had long wished to make a lavish telling of the event. Several problems complicated its genesis, including conflicts with legalities, objections from the British shipping industry, and competing plans from other producers. Both Hitchcock and Selznick eventually became disenchanted with the project and they proceeded with ''Rebecca'' instead.

''Escape'' (1940)

Hitchcock desperately wanted to direct Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, and Conrad Veidt in one of the first World War II dramas, ''Escape''. Hitchcock, a long-time admirer of Shearer's acting, had sought for years to find a suitable project for her. However, Hitchcock was shut out of the project when the novel ''Escape'' by Ethel Vance (pen name of Grace Zaring Stone) was purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Hitchcock knew he could never work for the notorious MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, who selected Mervyn LeRoy to produce and direct the film, which indeed starred Shearer and was released in late 1940. Years later, Hitchcock made the statement about the lack of true Hollywood leading ladies with the quote, "Where are the Norma Shearers?"

Unmade Nazi documentary (1945)

In 1945, Hitchcock was brought in as a supervising director for a documentary film about Nazi crimes and Nazi concentration camps. The film was originally to include segments produced by military film units from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. Cold War developments meant that the USSR segment was withdrawn, and the film remained uncompleted, with some footage kept in the collection of the Imperial War Museum.

However, a reconstruction of the film was aired as ''Memory of the Camps'' in 1984–1985 in the United Kingdom and the United States. The United States version was shown on the PBS series ''Frontline'' on May 7, 1985. In October 2014, a new documentary about the unfinished film, ''Night Will Fall'', premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.

''Hamlet'' (late 1940s)

In the late 1940s, Hitchcock had plans to make a modernized version of the Shakespeare story. Hitchcock's Shakespearean vision was of a "psychological melodrama" (set in contemporary England, and starring Cary Grant in the title role). The project was scrapped when Hitchcock's studio caught wind of a potential lawsuit from a professor who had already written a modern-day version of Hamlet.

''The Bramble Bush'' (1951–1953)

''The Bramble Bush'' would have been an adaptation of a 1948 novel by David Duncan about a disaffected Communist agitator who, on the run from the police, is forced to adopt the identity of a murder suspect. The story would be adapted to take place in Mexico and San Francisco.

The project, originally to come after '' I Confess'' (1953) as a Transatlantic Pictures production to be released by Warner Bros., had a high budget which made it a difficult project. Hitchcock did not feel that any of the scripts lifted the movie beyond an ordinary chase story, and Warner Brothers allowed him to kill the project and move on to ''Dial M for Murder'' (1954).

The theme of the hero assuming a dangerous new identity would become the kernel of the script for ''North by Northwest'' (1959). Michelangelo Antonioni's film '' The Passenger'' (1975) tells a similar story, but is not based on Duncan's book. The 1960 film ''The Bramble Bush'', starring Richard Burton and Barbara Rush, and released by Warner Bros., was based on a Charles Mergendahl novel, and had no relation to Duncan's book.

''Flamingo Feather'' (1956)

This was to be a big-budget adaptation of Laurens van der Post's novel of political intrigue in Southern Africa. James Stewart was expected to take the lead role of an adventurer who discovers a concentration camp for Communist agents; Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly to play the love interest.

After a disappointing research trip to South Africa where he concluded that he would have difficulty filming, especially on a budget – and with confusion of the story's politics and the impracticability of casting Kelly, Hitchcock deferred the project and instead cast Stewart in '' The Man Who Knew Too Much'' (1956). Hitchcock travelled to Livingstone near Victoria Falls and was a guest of Harry Sossen, one of the prominent inhabitants of this pioneer town. Hitchcock and Sossen were photographed together at the newly opened Livingstone Airport and the event was recorded in the local papers. Sossen was also in communication with Laurens van der Post who gave him a signed copy of the book ''Flamingo Feather'' during a visit to the Falls (staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel). Sossen's daughter Marion is in possession of the book today and a number of letters between her father and van der Post.

''No Bail for the Judge'' (1958–1961)

''No Bail for the Judge'' was to be an adaptation of a thriller novel of the same title by Henry Cecil about a London barrister who, with the assistance of a gentleman thief, has to defend her father, a High Court judge, when he is accused of murdering a prostitute. In a change of pace from his usual blonde actresses, Audrey Hepburn would have played the barrister, with Laurence Harvey as the thief, and John Williams as the Hepburn character's father. Some sources, including ''Writing with Hitchcock'' author Steven DeRosa say that Hitchcock's interest in the novel started in the summer of 1954 while filming ''To Catch a Thief'', and that Hitchcock hoped to have John Michael Hayes write the screenplay. Hepburn was an admirer of Hitchcock's work and had long wanted to appear in one of his films.

Samuel A. Taylor, scenarist for ''Vertigo'' and ''Topaz'', wrote the screenplay after Ernest Lehman rejected it. The Taylor screenplay included a scene, not in the original novel, where the heroine disguises herself as a prostitute and has to fend off a rapist. Hepburn left the film, partly because of the near-rape scene, but primarily due to a pregnancy. (Hepburn suffered a miscarriage during the filming of the 1960 film '' The Unforgiven'' and then gave birth to son Sean Ferrer in July 1960.) Laurence Harvey still ended up working with Hitchcock in 1959, however, on an episode that Hitchcock directed of ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents''.

Without Hepburn, the project didn't have the same appeal for Hitchcock. Changes in British law concerning prostitution and entrapment — changes that took place after the novel was published — made some aspects of the screenplay implausible. Hitchcock told Paramount Pictures it was better to write off $200,000 already spent on the film's development than to spend another $3 million for a film he no longer cared for. In the fall of 1959, a Paramount publicity brochure titled "Success in the Sixties!" had touted ''No Bail for the Judge'' as an upcoming feature film starring Hepburn, to be filmed in Technicolor and VistaVision.

''The Wreck of the Mary Deare'' (1959)

The Hammond Innes novel was optioned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the intention of having Hitchcock direct the picture, starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. Hitchcock had long wanted to work with Cooper, who had been asked to star in ''Foreign Correspondent'' in 1940, and Lancaster, who had been asked to star in '' Under Capricorn'' in 1948.''Detroit Free Press'', June 12 1948, p17
/ref> After developing the script with Ernest Lehman for several weeks, they concluded that it couldn't be done without turning the movie into "a boring courtroom drama".

Hitchcock and Lehman made an appearance before MGM executives telling the story of ''North by Northwest'', and said that MGM would get two films out of Hitchcock under his contract with MGM. However, Hitchcock eventually abandoned the idea of ''The Wreck of the Mary Deare'' (which MGM proceeded to make with Cooper and director Michael Anderson) and went ahead with ''North by Northwest'' instead.

''The Blind Man'' (1960)

Following '' Psycho'', Hitchcock re-united with Ernest Lehman for an original screenplay idea: A blind pianist, Jimmy Shearing (a role for James Stewart), regains his sight after receiving the eyes of a dead man. Watching a Wild West show at Disneyland with his family, Shearing would have visions of being shot and would come to realize that the dead man was in fact murdered and the image of the murderer is still imprinted on the retina of his eyes. The story would end with a chase around the ocean liner RMS ''Queen Mary''. Walt Disney reputedly barred Hitchcock from shooting at Disneyland after seeing '' Psycho''. Stewart left the project, Lehman argued with Hitchcock, and the script was never shot.

Lehman's unfinished script was later completed as a radio drama by Mark Gatiss and presented on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

''Village of Stars'' (1962)

Hitchcock bought the rights to the 1960 novel ''Village of Stars'' by David Beaty (written under the pen name Paul Stanton) after ''The Blind Man'' project was canceled. The book follows a Royal Air Force V bomber crew given an order to drop a nuclear bomb, only to have the order aborted. Unfortunately, the bomb is resisting attempts to defuse it and the plane can only stay in flight for a limited time.

''Trap for a Solitary Man'' (1963)

''Trap for a Solitary Man'' was scheduled to be directed by Hitchcock in widescreen by Twentieth Century-Fox. The story, based on the French play ''Piege Pour un Homme Seul'' by M. Robert Thomas, follows a young married couple on holiday in the Alps. The wife disappears, and after a prolonged search the police bring back someone they claim to be her; she even says she is the man's wife, but the man has never seen her before. The play was later adapted three times as television films: ''Honeymoon With a Stranger'' ( ABC, 1969), '' One of My Wives Is Missing'' (ABC, 1976) and '' Vanishing Act'' ( CBS, 1986). It had previously been broadly adapted (without attribution) as the 1958 Associated British-Pathé feature '' Chase a Crooked Shadow''.

''Mary Rose'' (1964)

Hitchcock had long desired to turn J. M. Barrie's 1920 play ''Mary Rose'' into a film. In 1964, after working together on ''Marnie'', Hitchcock asked Jay Presson Allen to adapt the play into a screenplay. Hitchcock would later tell interviewers that his contract with Universal Pictures allowed him to make any film, so long as the budget was under $3 million, and so long as it was not ''Mary Rose''. Whether or not this was actually true, Lew Wasserman was not keen on the project, though Hitchcock never gave up hope of one day filming it.François Truffaut, Hitchcock Revisited (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985)

''The Three Hostages'' (1964)

In 1964, Hitchcock re-read another Richard Hannay novel by John Buchan, ''The Three Hostages'', with a mind to adapting it. As with ''Greenmantle'' a quarter of a century earlier, the rights were elusive. But also the story was dated, very much rooted in the 1930s, and the plot involved a villain whose blind mother hypnotizes the hero. Hitchcock, in interviews, said that he felt that the portrayal of hypnosis did not work on film, and that films that attempted this portrayal, in Hitchcock's opinion, turned out poorly.

In 1977, the BBC
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