“I think the worst fight we [Alfred Hitchcock] ever had was over the ending of To Catch a Thief. We had different ideas. I wrote twenty-seven different endings and still don’t like the one that was used. We had a couple of slam-bang script fights. Still, we got along fine until I got too much press.
When we went to Paris for the premiere of To Catch a Thief, I was getting mentioned everywhere—they value writers in Paris—so I was promptly banned from all public relations events. If I was mentioned in the fourth paragraph of a story, that was okay but not in the first or second. I was becoming known for my dialogue and characterizations. They even talked about “the Hitchcock-Hayes fall schedule” in either Variety or the Hollywood Reporter.
When you show up in the same sentence—Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes—that was more than he could bear. He wanted to be the total creator: Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Hitch was so unkind about giving credit.
In an interview he did with Francois Truffaut years later for example, Hitch tried to make it seem as if he had written the screenplay for Rear Window. I heard about that too late; I tried to contact Truffaut, but he had died. I did a sixty-five-page treatment of Rear Window that Jimmy Stewart committed to, that Paramount committed to. I had met with Hitch once or twice. He had nothing to do with the writing.
I was nominated for an Oscar. When I won the Edgar Allen Poe Award [for Rear Window ], the first time it was ever given for a movie, I showed Hitch the ceramic statuette, and he said, “You know, they make toilet bowls out of the same material.” Then he almost pushed it off the end of a table.”
– screenwriter John Michael Hayes on his relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock
Hehheh…after FIRST reading the quote by Pearl Buck and THEN this piece about Hitcock and Hayes, I've got to say the romanticized description of the "artist as creator" seems pretty ridiculous in this context. The artist also must gain a very thick skin or else the wits to deal with all the other predators out there. Old Hitch played hard-ball: he had to, not because he wanted to create, but because he wanted to survive in the business. Not sure the sensitive soul type really can exist in this business.
I am not enjoying the equation of sensitivity with weakness. I don't believe the Pearl Buck quote mentioned weakness or fragility. I think there will always be writers who are comfortable being part of the business of entertainment, and other writers who just want to write good, meaningful stories. There's probably room for both in film, just more money for the first kind. In this story of Hitchcock and Hayes, my sympathy is with Hayes. Hitchcock movies, and Rear Window especially, are among my favorites, but I've read Hitchcock interviews in which he completely demeaned the role of the writer. I know it's fashionable for other writers to just go along with this as part of the biz, but why not just think for a moment what you're saying?