Not So Psycho

A making-of movie downplays the darker side of Hitchcock

"I couldn't make psycho without my tongue in my cheek," Alfred Hitchcock once said. Director Sacha Gervasi takes the same ironic approach in Hitchcock, in which the master of suspense (Anthony Hopkins) makes a transition to straight-up horror and rediscovers the love of a good woman: his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). It's a feel-good frolic, which is fine for those who prefer their Hitchcock history tidied up--absent the megalomania, condescending cruelty and propensity for sexual harassment that caused The Birds star Tippi Hedren to declare him "a mean, mean man."

On the set, Hitchcock is in his element: nervy, pervy...

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