Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: As a great Hitchcock fan, I really looked forward to this book. However, it reads like a high school freshman's term paper and the only really interesting thing you learn about Alma is that she was petite. If you want a list of all his movies by date, release date, foreign distribution date, etc., etc., then you'll enjoy this. I would have rather spent my time reading a calendar.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing insight only Hitchcock's daughter could provide!
Review: I have been a Hitchcock fan for years and have always been intrigued by the quiet, petite woman beside the giant behemoth of a man. Now I know her story thanks to this intimate memoir written by the Hitchcocks' only child Pat Hitchcock O'Connell. Pat delves deep into the recesses of her memory, it seems, to bring the reader the details of life in the Hitchcock home. Alma was a remarkable woman, very instrumental in the production of all of her husband's films and a wonderful homemaker to boot. She was a little spitfire of energy, but also quite reserved. She put "Hitch" in his place when he acted up and she was always there by his side when he needed her--which was always! The photos and Alma's recipes and menus in teh back of the book add another level of intimacy to this memoir, practically bringing the reader into the family fold and the Hitchcok world. Alma was quite the successful gourmet cook--as her husband's corpulence proved! While it seemed Pat included a bit too many interviews with friends and family, it just only served to confirm Alma's enormous influence and presence in the Hitchcock legacy.

I highly recommend this book to ALL HITCHCOCK FANS and to all who love to read a good family biography! Thank you, Ms. Hitchcock O'Connell for this long-awaited glimpse into your family life.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I have been eager for someone to write a bio of Alma Hitchcock who is said to have been an even greater cinematographer than her husband. When I saw her daughter had a bio coming out I rushed to get it.

I can't tell you how disappointed I am. The writing is terrible. The book is extremely disorganized. The author is obviously uncomfortable referring to her parents as Alma and Hitch rather than Mama and Daddy so she constantly switches back and forth. Worse than that she praises and affirms her mother's choice to be "modest" and not claim for herself the MAJOR role Alma played in nearly all Hitch's films once they met. Pat praises Alma's choice to emphasize being mother, wife, cook when the reality is still that Alma never gave up her career and actually codirected a number of "his" films - a fact she gives passing reference to.

Also in spite of the fact that the rumors that he was, at the least, difficult to live with abound, she paints an idyllic picture of family life with virtually few ripples. She is not a good story teller. Having just finished reading "An affair to Remember" (Hepburn and Tracy)and being nearly wiped out by the emotion of it, I found this one is as far opposite as one could get. I guess it will fall to someone else to write honoring and analysing rather than simply refering to the amazing art of Alma Reville Hitchcock.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I have been waiting for someone to write a book that would recount the huge contribution that Alma Reville Hitchcock made to the films for which she received little or no credit. Unfortunately Pat's book does not do this in any depth.

The book is poorly written and disorganized skipping from one time period to another without transition. At times it is difficult to know who the speaker is with the use of many long quotes.

She is obviously uncomfortable calling her parents Alma and Hitch and so switches back and forth between those names and Mama and Daddy.

The book is not a bio of Alma but rather a blend of the work of Alma, Hitch, and Pat. There is little fleshing out of characters and aside from mentioning that Hitch listened to Pat or that Pat codirected or wrote a film script there is little detail of what Alma did.

Alma is portrayed as a mother of her time who was content largely to stay at home and cook. Pat portrays an idyllic family with a "daddy knows best" philosophy. If this book is intedned to document Alma's huge contribution to Hitch's films, it falls short.

Rating:
Summary: A daughter's tribute to her mother
Review: I really enjoyed reading this biography because I have been a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock for years and have always wondered what his family life was like. Who better to tell us than his and Alma's one and only daughter. While it was interesting to read about the film stuff in this book, I am so happy she did not go into analyzing them because ultimately I don't see this as a critical film book. As a family memoir and biography, this worked for me. While I would never try them, I loved reading through the menus and recipes in the back of the book because it gives you and extra special peek into the Hitchcock daily life. Alma was a wonderful woman, feisty like nothing else, a huge contributor to his films and others, and obviously a wonderful mother. Pat Hitchcock did a great job bringing us into her childhood and family life.

Rating:
Summary: a worthwhile addition, but nothing special
Review: In skmming through the other customer reveiews for this book, it seems that they split between the typically gushing five-star reviews and the typicallly dismissive one-star reviews that are the bane of this website. Folks in both camps... please learn how to be sensible. You're not helping anybody by being shutter-eyed.

That said, maybe this review will provide some actual perspective on the book. Pat Hitchcock O'Connell's aims with her memoir are to chronicle her mother's contributions not only to Alfred Hitchcock's films, but to the emerging medium of film itself.

Is she successful in these aims? Well, not, not really. The book is not insightful enough to become truly noteworthy; too many of the passages are merely reflections, as opposed to examinations. But neither does she totally fail. After reaing the book, it is impossible to not feel as though Alma was, indeed, a tremendous part of what we now think of as the Hitchcock legacy. We may not find out as much about her contributions as we would like, but this book does seem once and for all the establish Alma as a vital element in Alfred's films.

Another problem: the book is way too breezy. When the making of a seminal masterpiece like "Rear Window" is covered in a mere page or two, something has gone wrong. I suspect that much of this is due to O'Connel's lack of any real knowledge of what went on collaboratively between alma and Alfred.

This breeziness is also something of a virtue, as well. It makes a relatively swift journey from the beginning of the Hitchcocks' careers through to their deaths, and that approach may not be terribly detailed, but it is easy to digest, in the same way that a suite from a musical is easy to digest when compared to the whole score. It cannot, and never should be, a replacement for the whole score; but it's satisfying enough in and of itself.

I also rather enjoyed the section in which many of Alma's recipes and dinner menus are reprinted. This may actually be the book's most significant contribution to the Hitchcock mythos, as it provides a peek into the inner workings of the family that no other writer has yet offered. I can't make much of an analysis of the recipes, since I am anything but a good cook; but they made me hungry as I read through them, and seemed sufficiently challenging to a culinary doofus like myself to make them seem to be genuinely good recipes.

Final thoughts: if you're a serious Hitchcock fan, then this book ought to be on your shelf. Don't expect any sort of a masterpiece, but it is certainly well worth reading.