by Benn Levy
Alfred Hitchcock was intrigued by the style of French and Italian “new wave” directors of the late 60s. He devised a story of a sexual predator, to be shot in a dressed-down documentary style. Some test footage (which can be seen in Dial H for Hitchcock) was shot, but the studio balked. Hitch was imprisoned by his own reputation. As much as he may have wanted to experiment, the backers preferred a typical Hitchcock suspense movie. The script, (sections of which are available in Hitchcock’s Notebooks) was alternately called “Kaleidoscope” and “Frenzy.” Years later, Hitch recycled certain ideas for his 1973 film, Frenzy, but it was not the same story overall. Find out more at Steven DeRosa’s Writing with Hitchcock website.