Audio Transcript in English

FOLGERS (voice):
How can such a pretty wife make such bad coffee?!
Oh, is coffee a problem?
Try 'Folgers'! The mountain grown coffee.

WALTER CRONCKITE:
Good evening. For four days now, some of the 20th century’s most extraordinary diplomatic maneuvers have been taking place in Moscow. Vice-President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have thrown away the rules of polite diplomacy, it would seem, and are engaging in a rough-and-tumble impromptu debate. The topics ranged from rockets, communism and capitalism, war and freedom, to color television and the kitchen sink. The words sound fierce and harsh, as if they might increase international tensions and plunge the world into a new
Cold War crisis.

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Uhm, the word MacGuffin... [rewind]

MARK PERRY:
I’ll do it in sections, ok?
— Just, yeah…

HITCHCOCK:
Uhhm, the word MacGuffin,[rewind]
the word MacGuffin,

MARK PERRY (img+voice):
The word MacGuffin could be a Scottish name.

HITCHCOCK (voice) + MARK PERRY:
Comes from a conversation between two men [repeats]

HITCHCOCK (voice) + MARK PERRY:
Euh, in a railway train. [repeats]

HITCHCOCK (voice)+ MARK PERRY:
One says to the other... [repeats]

HITCHCOCK and MARK PERRY (together):
What is that package you have above your head, on the luggage rack?
He says: ‘Oh uh, that’s a MacGuffin!’
And the man says: ‘What is a MacGuffin?’

HITCHCOCK IN PRISON:
[cop in prison:]
Take your hat off. Name: Hitchcock, comma, Alfred. Height: five foot
six. Weight: prisoner refuses to make a statement. Here is his record: 1940: picked up on Suspicion. 1942: Spellbound. 1944: Notorious. 1955: Rear Window. 1956: The Men Who Knew Too Much. Anything to say, Hitchcock?

[Hitchcock:]
Well, Sir, I know it ain’t got a good record. But I’ll try to do better.

[cop:]
Better? You call this doing better: appearing on television?

[Hitchcock:]
I’m sorry, Sir! But my family was hungry.

[cop:]
Now, take him away.

[Hitchcock:]
Wait a minute, Sir! You’ve got the wrong man!

TITLE ANIMATION:
ZAP-O-MATIK PRESENTS:
DOUBLE TAKE

NEWSREEL (voice):
New York City was shrouded in a smothering blanket of fog. When scores of people heard a low-flying plane heading South. Then an explosion. An army bomber, lost in the overcast, had crashed into the towering Empire State Building. Parts of it blasting completely through the 79th floor and landing across the street in a disaster that remains the most singular in New York City’s history ... the disaster on 34th Street .

HITCHCOCK (voice):
I think my mother scared me when I was three months old.
She said: ‘Boo!’

[Laughter]

TITLE ANIMATION CONTINUES:
a film by JOHAN GRIMONPREZ
story by TOM McCARTHY
inspired by “25 August, 1983”
an essay by J.L. BORGES

HITCHCOCK:
This evening’s tale begins with a nightmare-like experience, but that is only a prelude to the terrifying events which follow.

STORY:
They say that if you meet your double, you should kill him. Or that he will kill you. I can’t remember which but... the gist of it is that two of you is one too many. By the end of the script, one of you must die.

HITCHCOCK:
But first we have another device, which can bring tears to the eyes of the more fastidious: a television commercial.

FOLGERS AD #1:
[Janey:] Oh, Mister McGregor! Oh, thank heavens, you’re still here!

[Mister McGregor:]
I was just about to go home. What’s wrong, Janey?

[Janey:]
I’ve got to do something about my coffee!

[Mister McGregor:]
Is your coffee really that bad, Janey?

[Janey:]
Jim says it’s awful. What can I do?

[Mister McGregor:]
Better try this!

[Janey:]
Instant Folger’s? Is it good?

[Mister McGregor:]
Tastes good as fresh-perked!

[Janey:]
I’ll try it.

[back at home]
[Jim:]
Great coffee! And the folks loved it!

[Jamie:]
It’s instant Folgers, tastes good as fresh-perked!

TITLE:
TASTES GOOD AS FRESH-PERKED!

HITCHCOCK:
And now join me if you will, while we contemplate the perfect crime.

STORY: I have pondered many times, but somehow never understood, the meaning of that fateful encounter one August afternoon in 1962: a story, I was to find out, that was scripted nonetheless by me.

I have chewed the details over and over so repeatedly that the memory of it has become inaccurate, like a film scratched and faded by the years.

The episode seems too strange to be real.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL
NEWS SUSPENSE STORY:
NAT’L PRESS CLUB HEARS HITCHCOCK
VOICE: ED HERLIHY

REPORTER (voice):
The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, has some comments about his latest picture ‘The Birds’.

HITCHCOCK:
For over thirty years now, I have been indulging in the occupation of raising goose flesh domestically and in England. I have only recently completed work on a latest picture, the title is quite short: just two words. There were three, but we cut the first word ‘for’ --- and called it simply ‘The Birds.’

TITLE:
ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S “THE BIRDS”

STORY:
We had replicated Davidson’s pet shop on a set at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

TITLE:
LOS ANGELES, 1962

STORY:
We were shooting an episode that my audience had already come to expect: the scene in which I myself make a fleeting appearance, my two white terriers, Geoffrey and Stanley, trotting along the sidewalk in front of me, quite oblivious to the threat massing in the sky above.

I substituted a body double for myself so that I could oversee a walk through of the shot once more.

I was about tot re-insert myself into the scene when my assistant informed me that I had an urgent phone call waiting for me in the studio offices. I called a 12 minute break.

As I left the set and navigated the studio staircases and corridors, I experienced a sense of déjà vu. I had indeed walked through this environment several times before, but now it felt different.

Whereas the security guard always addressed me by name and with a certain reverence, on this occasion, strangely enough, he failed to recognise me. And then, when he did, he gasped: ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Hitchcock, I thought you’d already gone upstairs.’

— ‘You were mistaken,’ I responded.
— ‘Yes, perhaps’, he replied. ‘The other gentleman was older’.

The exchange left me rattled. Yet it was the least of the surprises I would encounter that day.

TITLE:
THE NIXON-KHRUSHCHEV “SUMMIT MEET”
NEWS OF THE DAY

NEWSREEL (voice):
Vice-president Nixon escorts Soviet premier Khrushchev on a preview of the United States Fair in Moscow. It’s the official opening of the American exposition dedicated to showcasing the highest standard of life in our country.

But on this occasion, traditional diplomacy goes by the board by a crackling exchange between Nixon and Khrushchev. Begun off camera and finished off before the American Ampex colour videotape recorders.

TITLE:
TELEVISION
MAGIC IN THE AIR
NIXON-KHRUSHCHEV
MOSCOW DEBATE

REPORTER WALTER CRONKITE, CBS News (voice):
This is a special report on one of the most unusual, diplomatic events in recent history.

REPORTER RON COCHRAN, CBS News (voice + image):
Featuring on the one hand Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev,

TITLE:
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
U.S.S.R. CHAIRMAN

REPORTER RON COCHRAN, CBS News:
the irrepressible and outspoken leader of communism. On the other the vice-president of the U.S. Richard Nixon,

TITLE:
RICHARD NIXON
U.S. VICE-PRESIDENT

REPORTER RON COCHRAN, CBS News:
cast in the role of defender of capitalism and American foreign policy. Part of the unscheduled fireworks was recorded on videotape.

TITLE:
THE KITCHEN DEBATE:
FIRST TELEVISED SUMMIT
MOSCOW – JULY 24, 1959

KHRUSHCHEV:
[speaks Russian, being translated]

TRANSLATOR (voice):
We only want to live with Americans in peace and friendship, because we ourselves are a powerful country. And we will be friendly with each other, other countries will be friendly too. And if anybody comes in a fighting mood, we can pull his ear ever so little and tell him: ‘Don’t dare. Wars are not allowed now!’

This is a time of atomic weapons. Any fool can start a war but no person in his right mind would want a war to continue…

[WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO by THE SUPREMES]

HITCHCOCK:
Good evening. I can tell by the rude noises you are making that you are impatient to see our film. However, there will be a slight delay.

Tonight, as a special attraction, we shall present some television commercials.
They will be injected at various points during our picture, to keep you from getting too engrossed in the story.

FOLGERS AD #2:
[Jane:]
You mean it’s as bad as yesterday?

[Harold:]
Uh-huh.

[Jane:]
No improvement at all?

[Harold:]
Mu-huh!

[Jane:]
Now, what I’m gonna do?

[at the supermarket]
[Jane:]
Oh, Mary, hi!

[Mary:]
Hello Jane!

[Jane:]
Oh listen, help me out, will you? Harold hates my coffee! What kind do you use?

[Mary:]
Instant Folger’s!

TITLE:
FOLGER’S COFFEE TASTES GOOD AS FRESH-PERKED!

[Jane:]
Instant Folger’s?

[Mary:]
Tastes good as fresh-perked!

[back at home]
[Harold:]
Gee, this coffee is delicious!

[Jane:]
Uh-huh.

[Harold:]
It’s not the same kind we’ve been using, is it?

[ Jane:]
Muh-huh.

STORY:
As I advanced towards my assignation, I felt a deep sense of foreboding, as though I were entering some kind of trap—instigated by another mind, another director.

When I opened the door and stepped into what I expected to be the production office, I found another scene entirely. In some respects, it was like the tearoom at Chasen’s in Los Angeles. In others, it was like the salon at Claridges back in London. And yet it precisely resembled neither.

TITLE:
MR. HITCHCOCK WOULD LIKE TO SAY A FEW WORDS TO YOU

HITCHCOCK:
How do you do? My name is Alfred Hitchcock and I would like to tell you about my forthcoming lecture. It is about the birds and their age-long relationship with man.

TITLE:
SUSPENSE AND SHOCK
BEYOND ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN OR IMAGINED!

SENATOR Lyndon B. Johnson (voice):
There is something new in the heavens. Something that has never been there before.

[bleeping sounds of Sputnik]

REPORTER Douglas Edwards, CBS News (voice):
Until two days ago, that sound had never been heard on this earth.

TITLE:
OCTOBER 4, 1957

REPORTER Douglas Edwards, CBS News (voice):
Suddenly it has become as much part of 20th century life as the whirr of your vacuum cleaner.

TITLE:
REDS LAUNCH BABY MOON!

REPORTER Douglas Edwards, CBS News (voice):
It’s a report from man’s farthest frontier: the radio signal transmitted by the Soviet’s Sputnik, the first man made satellite as it passed over New York earlier today.

RUSSIAN VOICE:
[translated from Russian]
A new moon born of our earth: Sputnik!

THE KITCHEN DEBATE #2

NIXON:
There are some instances where you may be ahead of us, for example in the development of your rockets for the investigation of outer space.
There may be some instances, for example colour television, where we are ahead of you.

COMMERCIAL (voice):
And here it is! Seven function remote controlled color television. So beautiful it enhances any décor!

NIXON:
But in order for both of us… , for both of us to benefit… , for both of us to benefit…. (laughs). You see, you never concede anything!

KHRUSHCHEV:
[addresses Nixon in Russian; taken over by translator]

TRANSLATOR (voice):
In what are they ahead of us? Wrong! Wrong!

REPORTER Walter Cronkite, CBS News:
The competition for leadership in space, the race run by rockets, where is the finish line? Do we end up in a nuclear war? Or do we try to live with the constant fear of one?

KHRUSHCHEV:
[addresses Nixon in Russian; taken over by translator]

TRANSLATOR (voice):
I share the enthusiasm of Soviet engineers about the cleverness of the American people, but we too, as you know, don’t kill flies with our nostrils. For forty-two years we’ve gone ahead and when we shall overtake you at the crossroads we shall wave at you.

US SENATOR LYNDON B. JOHNSON (voice):
It took the Soviets four years to catch up with the atomic bomb. It took the Soviets nine months to catch up with the hydrogen bomb. And now, tonight, the communists have established a foothold in outer space.

STORY:
Beneath an arabesque of cigar smoke,
a shadow lay across the floor.

It was the trademark silhouette I’d cultivated in my television programmes.

— ‘Did I frighten you?’ a voice asked.
I recognized the voice immediately.

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Good evening. I am Alfred Hitchcock…

STORY:
Slowly, the figure turned to face me.
— ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ he said.

STORY:
It was as I had feared. The man, into whose presence I had been lured by a fictitious phone call, resembled me in every way but one. He was, as the security guard had implied, older.

HITCHCOCK:
By an odd coincidence we have a story about a man who decided to be someone other than himself.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
People would say: ‘Oh! It’s Ron!’ It’s Ron Burrage. You know, the one that looks like Hitchcock!’

Sometimes it’s difficult to believe anyway. It’s like looking in the mirror. You can never see yourself as others see you.

Yeah, you get people do double takes:
‘Oh, look, look, it’s Alfred. Oh, it’s Alfred!’

[DIRECTOR’S CAMEO (voice)]:
- Okay, whenever you’re ready. We’re rolling!

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
- Or, you’d hear them behind you going:
[sings the Alfred Hitchcock Presents tune].

[CAMERAMAN’S CAMEO (voice)]:
- Ron, could we start that again? Sorry, I wasn’t ready there.
Let’s get the one with the coffee cup. Oh, yes.

HITCHCOCK:
I am attempting to assist my brother Alfred in introducing this evening’s shilling shocker. It is the story of a man, who finds himself involved in a mad charade, which he neither understands, nor can escape.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
… they’re falling down.

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Uhm… The word MacGuffin comes from a conversation between two men in a railway train.

One says to the other: ‘What is that package you have above your head, on the luggage rack? He says: ‘Oh, that’s a MacGuffin!’ So the other man says: ‘What is a MacGuffin?’

TITLE:
HITHCOCK-TRUFFAUT
INTERVIEWS, 1962

HITCHCOCK (voice):
He said: ‘Well, it’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.’

MARK PERRY:
But the other man says: ‘But there are no lions in the Adirondacks of New York!’
The man says: ‘Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!’

HITCHCOCK:
[Hitchcock #1:]
Good evening.

[Hitchcock #2:]
Oh, good evening.

[Hitchcock #3:]
Good evening.

[Hitchcock #4:]
Oh, oh, good evening.

[Hitchcock #5:]
Oh, good evening.

[Hitchcock #6:]
Good evening.

[Hitchcock #7:]
Oh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

[Hitchcock #8:]
Oh, sorry!

TITLE:
‘ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS’

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
And they say: ‘You don’t half look like Hitchcock!’ And I say: ‘Funny there!'

[laughs]

HITCHCOCK:
Good evening. I am Alfred Hitchcock and tonight I’m presenting the first in a series of stories of suspense and mystery…

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
That was hilarious to do!

[woman screams]

[Ron laughs]

HITCHCOCK:
… called oddly enough: ‘ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS’.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
You want me to turn?

CAMERA MAN:
- You could turn, yeah.
- That’s alright, that’s brilliant.
[woman screams]

ITALIAN VOICE:
Dario Argento Presents… ‘PSYCHO’. A film by Alfred Hitchcock.

TITLE:
DARIO ARGENTO PRESENTA PSYCHO
[woman screams, Ron laughs]

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
I laugh every time with this!
[laughs]

STORY:
I scrutinised the old man’s face. The features were mine alright. No amount of latex, rubber or make up could emulate the lifetime of concern stored up in them.

— ‘We have scripted this moment together,’ said my alter ego. ‘In this very room. It was 1962.’
— ‘But it is 1962,’ I told him.
— ‘For you, maybe,’ he said. ‘Oddly enough, for me, Alfred Hitchcock, it’s 1980.’

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Good evening, I am Alfred Hitchcock ----

STORY:
— ‘You must be mistaken,’ I protested, ‘I am Alfred Hitchcock!
— ‘We both are,‘ he answered.

BACKGROUND HITCHCOCK (voice):
- But I am Alfred Hitchcock! I am, I insist!

STORY:
I felt my own reality slipping away. Felt that I risked becoming no more than a character in someone else’s film.

I decided to accept the situation and to play along with it, sensing that a failure to do so could prove… catastrophic.

REPORTER (voice):
And there it was! Another post-war wonder right before your eyes!

THE KITCHEN DEBATE #3

NIXON:
This Mr. Khrushchev …

REPORTER (voice):
… Television!

NIXON:
... is one of the most advanced developments in communication, that we have, at least in our country.

TITLE:
PARIS - AUGUST 18, 1900

RUSSIAN ENGINEER KONSTANTIN PERSKY COINS THE WORD “TELEVISION” AFTER TRANSMITTING THE FIRST IMAGE.

HITCHCOCK:
Good evening television consumers. This misty bit of ectoplasm, forming on the inside of your television screen is one Alfred Hitchcock.

TITLE:
RCA VICTOR
DEPENDABLE
RELIABLE

NIXON:
Colour television will transmit this very conversation immediately. And this increase in communication will teach us some things and it will teach you some things too. Because after all you don’t know everything!

TITLE:
RELIABLE
QUALITY
RCA VICTOR

KHRUSHCHEV:
[addresses Nixon in Russian; taken over by translator]

TRANSLATOR (voice):
If I don’t know everything, then I would say you know absolutely nothing about communism. Nothing except fear of it.

NIXON:
I didn’t get that….

TRANSLATOR ON STAGE:
If I don’t know something, then you don’t know anything about communism, except fear.

TITLE:
SOVIETS LAUNCH SPUTNIK II
NOVEMBER 3, 1957

REPORTER Merrill Mueller (voice):
A dog, right out of the world’s attention today. In a masterpiece of propaganda timing, the Soviet Union announced it had launched Sputnik II, carrying a live dog, reportedly history’s first space traveller.

ESTELLE TAYLOR:
And I don’t mean to be facetious and all, but some needs to be remembered, is that there’s a female up there circling mother earth.

TITLE:
PUPNIK LAIKA
FIRST IN SPACE!

SENATOR LYNDON B. JOHNSON (DEMOCRAT):
Well, I think the Russians are ahead of us but there is no reason for panic because there is never any solution in panic.

MERRILL MUELLER, NBC News:
The rocket that launched Sputnik 2 is capable of carrying a ton and a half Hydrogen Bomb warhead!

TITLE:
CAN PUPNIK CARRY H-BOMB?

DOUGLAS EDWARDS, CBS News:
The Russians have licked some of the toughest problems at the basis of the so-called ultimate weapon.

SENATOR HUBERT HUMPHRY (DEMOCRAT):
Let’s quit acting as if nothing happened, because something has happened and it has embarrassed us throughout the world.

ADLAI STEVENSON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:
Not just our pride but our security is at stake.

EDWARD TELLER, NUCLEAR SCIENTIST, FATHER OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB:
The Russians will leave us behind, and way behind.

HUBERT HUMPHRY:
The country is in dire trouble!

SENATOR HENRY JACKSON (DEMOCRAT):
This may be our last chance to provide the means of saving Western civilization from annihilation.

TITLE:
SPOOKNIK!

TRAILER (male voice):
Flying saucers have invaded our planet. Washington, London, Paris. The whole world is under attack!

TITLE:
SAUCER CRAZE
IN THE WAKE OF SPUTNIK!

TOTAL TERROR FROM
OUTER SPACE…

NEW YORK, 1959
… HOUSEWIVES & BEATNIKS PROTEST FEAR INDUSTRY!

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS
“MOON” IS BORN THE STORY OF “PROJECT VANGUARD”

REPORTER 1 (voice):
Our next shot will be the Vanguard going aloft. It is hoped to carry the first U.S. satellite into orbit in outer space.

TITLE:
FIRST U.S. SATELITTE
DECEMBER 6, 1957

REPORTER 2 (voice):
The U.S. scientists realize the world is watching and waiting. And the Americans who sweat this one out at Cape Canaveral know their fledgling is on the spot.

REPORTER 3 (voice):
You have just witnessed a severe propaganda defeat for this country.

TITLE:
“OH, WHAT A FLOPNIK!”

HITCHCOCK:
We slowly turn our eyes back to the charms of television advertising.

FOLGER’S AD #3:
[husband and wife]
— Honey, your coffee is undrinkable!
— That’s pretty harsh!
— Well, so is your coffee! You know, the girls down at the office make better coffee on their hot plates!

[at the neighbour’s]
— And he didn’t even kiss me goodbye! You know, if I could just make a decent cup of coffee, I could relax.
— So, relax! Why don’t you try INSTANT FOLGER’S?

[back at home]
— Hey! Great coffee!
— Better than those girls make at the office?
[husband blows out candle]

[Ad’s voice]
INSTANT FOLGER’S, tastes good as fresh-perked!

TITLE:
INSTANT FOLGER’S
TASTES GOOD AS FRESH-PERKED!

HITCHCOCK:
Very nasty!

TITLE:
PREMIERE OF THE BIRDS
CANNES, MAY 1963

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
You know, he had three different sizes of suits, because his weight fluctuated. So sometimes he was large, sometimes he was small. He had three different sizes of suits.

The thing is, I spend a lot of my time looking at fat men walking down the street.

I say to Eddie, my friend: ‘Hey that little man looks like Hitchcock! Don’t tell him!’

I wouldn’t say to somebody: “You look like Hitchcock” would I?
[laughs]

Are we sticking out?
[laughs]

STORY:
‘If you are really me,’ I said, ‘then you will know our secrets.’
— ‘Test me if you like,’ he answered.

He waved his cigar at the seat in front of him and said:
— ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
I obliged.
A waitress passed by and set down two pots. One tea, one coffee.

— ‘So tell me, what was in the kitchen cupboard at our flat in Leytonstone?’
— ‘You tell me,’ he countered.’
— ‘But I want to know if you know.’
— ‘If I told you what was in the cupboard’, he replied, ‘I would lie about its nature just as you would.’

If I had previously harboured any doubts that this man was myself, these words dispelled them. I realised I was playing for my life, and that the next few minutes would be decisive.

I waited for my double to make his next move. He waited for mine, pouring himself coffee from the pot in front of him.

— ‘When did we acquire the taste for coffee?’ I asked, pouring myself tea.
— ‘One changes one’s habits as necessity dictates,’ he answered, smiling. Though the smile seemed to be directed not at me but rather to the blond waitress, who was staring at us from the far end of the room.

FOLGERS AD (sound only):
‘How can such a pretty wife make such bad coffee?’

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
Do you want coffee in there?

Proper coffee or is that prop coffee?

Hey, do you want coffee?

(VOICE OFF) Having worked at Claridges, which is one of the top hotels in London, in the world. I may have met Hitchcock just like that, you know!.
Because he used to stay at Claridges.

My cupboard, that’s secret!

(VOICE OFF) And then I got a job as a waiter, in the Savoy restaurant.

These were the menu of the actual day that they were there. And there is Laurel and Hardy…
James Mason…

[JAMES MASON insert]:
‘It seems to me, that you fellows could stand a little bit less training from the FBI, and a little more from the actor’s studio!’ Cary Grant…

[CARY GRANT insert]:
‘Apparently the only performance that will satisfy you, is when I play dead!’

[JAMES MASON insert]:
‘In your very next role.’

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
Well, I didn’t have a conversation because I was feeding them. So, you don’t really have conversations with people.

Like some milk? Sugar?

HITCHCOCK:
I believe I’ll have another.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
And suddenly I got the wanderlust and I wrote to BEA, as it was in those days.

TITLE:
BRITISH
EUROPEAN
AIRWAYS

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
Come on, boil you devil!

Having worked at the Savoy, you more or less had the grounding for anything. Apart from it’s a bit different serving at a table than serving on an airplane. Only you were a few 1000 ft up in the air.
[laughs]

REPORTER (voice):
Pigeons are too slow for Mr. Hitchcock and Miss Hedren who arrive in New York to prepare for the opening of the shock thriller. The well trained raven has a part in ‘The Birds’, but we think it’s going to be Tippi Hedren who’ll draw the crowds.

TITLE:
THE END UNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL NEWSREEL

NIXON:
We should hear you more on our television. You should hear us more on yours. You must not be afraid of ideas.

KHRUSHCHEV:
[addresses Nixon in Russian; taken over by translator]

TRANSLATOR (voice):
That’s what we’re telling you. Don’t be afraid of ideas. We have nothing to fear! The time has past when ideas scare us.

TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT (voice):
Here is the ultimate in television! An amazing, new, wireless wizard, remote control!

TITLE:
WE HAVE 50 MILLION TELEVISIONS FOR 46 MILLION FAMILIES
RICHARD NIXON AT THE U.S. FAIR IN MOSCOW, 1959

NIXON:
Every word that you have said here will be reported in the United States and they will see you say it on television.

REPORTER WALTER CRONKITE (voice):
Then Nixon and Khrushchev continued their tour of the United States exhibition, halting at a kitchen. There they held what’s becoming to be known as the ‘kitchen summit conference’, discussing the capitalist attitude towards women. The Soviet premier looked at a washing machine and said that the Russians had such things too but he didn’t share the capitalistic preoccupation with making life easier for women. On and on they talked about wine and jazz and both agreed they didn’t like jazz.

They got around again to international tensions, the premier proposing a toast to elimination of all military bases in foreign lands. Nixon said he couldn’t go along with this. Khrushchev was not to be deterred. Forcefully he declared: ‘If you’re not willing to eliminate bases then I won’t drink this toast.’

Nixon replied instantly: ‘I don’t like this wine.’ And Khrushchev: ‘I like this wine but not the policy.’

But the two men did agree to drink to the ladies, as in no special ladies, just all ladies.

REPORTER RON COCHRAN, CBS NEWS
And so, it went. This is Ron Cochran, in New York.

TITLE:
THE LENGTH OF A FILM SHOULD BE DIRECTLY RELATED TO
THE ENDURANCE OF THE HUMAN BLADDER.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS:
[TV-hostess:]
- And now, for our first contestant.

[Hitchcock #1:]
‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

[Hitchcock #2:]
Welcome to the ALFRED HITCHCOCK lookalike contest

TITLE:
WANTED

HITCHCOCK:
I got the job ‘cause I look like him. That’s what they say, but not to my face.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
I saw an ad in the Evening Standard, saying: ‘do you look like somebody famous?’

HITCHCOCK #1 & HITCHCOCK #2:
I’m not Hitchcock.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
‘Preferably dead.‘

HITCHCOCK:
Wanted: host for television program. Sounds like a job for me: must be witty, charming, handsome…

[Ron laughs]

Apply: Alfred Hitchcock Presents!

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
Then I thought, why not?

TITLE:
DARIO ARGENTO
PRESENTA FRENZY
VENERDI 21.00

ITALIAN VOICE:
Dario Argento Presents… ‘Frenzy’.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
And… ACTION!

ITALIAN VOICE:
A film by Alfred Hitchcock.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
And I did this sort of thing for fun.

HITCHCOCK:
I got the job ‘cause I look like him. And the old boy just don’t have the time.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
I did a thing for a Japanese company. And they had 3 Hitchcocks. [in Japanese imitation] Hitch-i-cock 1, Hitch-i-cock 2, Hitch-i-cock 3.

HITCHCOCK & his brother JONATHAN:
- That will be all, Alfred.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
I’m intrigued to know what the other Hitchcocks are like? If I got any competition?

Yeah, you’ve been digging them up! As long as they weren’t taking my jobs. Then we would have to find ways of eh… disposing of them.

TITLE:
THE END WB

WOMAN (voice):
- Mr. Hitchcock! Mr. Hitchcock!

STORY:
I feigned a self-assurance I was far from truly feeling: ‘If it is 1980, as you say, you must recall having encountered, back in 1962, an elderly gentleman who told you that he too, was Hitchcock.

— ‘I’ll tell you things a stranger couldn’t know.’
— ‘Those proofs prove nothing,’ I protested. ‘It’s only natural that you know what I know.'

— ‘Perhaps the incident was so odd that I made an effort to forget it,’ he answered. ‘Time edits out as much as it records.’

STORY:
‘Eventually your fate will become mine,’ he said, ‘yet, you will have utterly forgotten this curious dialogue taking place in two times.’

— When it next plays out for you, you’ll be who I am.

And it won't be tomorrow, either… — it will be many years from now.

TITLE:
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE HITS TELEVISION
SEPTEMBER 26, 1960

HITCHCOCK:
Is seems to me that television is exactly like a gun: your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you’re on.

JFK:
You hear me now speaking? Is that about the right tone of voice?

TITLE:
JOHN F. KENNEDY
SENATOR

TITLE:
RICHARD M. NIXON
VICE-PRESIDENT

NIXON:
I think I better shave.

JFK:
The Soviet Union made a breakthrough in outer space that made the people of the world begin to wonder whether we were first in science. We’re first in other areas of science, but in space we’re not first.

NIXON:
When we have senator Kennedy stating over and over again that the United Sates is second in space, what does this do to American prestige?

JFK:
I believe the Soviet Union is first in outer space. You yourself said to Khrushchev: ‘You may be ahead of us in rocket thrust but we’re ahead of you in colour television’, in your famous discussion in the kitchen.

TITLE:
TO RADIO LISTENERS
NIXON WON THE DEBATE

JFK:
I think that color television is not as important as rocket thrust.

TITLE:
TV VIEWERS SAY HE LOST.

TITLE:
KHAZAKHSTAN, U.S.S.R.
APRIL 12, 1961

NIXON:
We are in a deadly competition. A competition not only with the men in the Kremlin but the men in Peking. We’re ahead in this competition but when you’re in a race, the only way to stay ahead is to move ahead. Is the United States standing still?

TITLE:
CAPE CANAVERAL
U.S. - 1960

JFK:
Will freedom in the next generation conquer? Or are the communists going to be successful? That’s the great issue. If we meet our responsibilities, I think freedom will conquer. If we fail to move ahead, if we fail to develop sufficient military and economic and social strength here in this country, then I think that the tide could begin to run against us.

NEWSREPORTER (voice):
The Soviet spaceship Vostok streaks into the heavens, shattering forever man’s isolation on earth.

TITLE:
FIRST MAN IN SPACE

NEWSREPORTER (voice):
A Russian cosmonaut circles the globe at 18 000 miles an hour.

JFK:
I do not regard the first man in space as a sign of the weakening of the free world,

TITLE:
MAJOR YURI GAGARIN
MOSCOW - APRIL 1961

JFK:
But I do regard the total mobilisation of the communist block as a great danger to us. and We will have to live with this danger through much of the rest of this century.

REPORTER (voice):
Mounting the receiving stand, Gagarin salutes Premier Khrushchev and reports: ‘The world’s first space flight is accomplished. I feel very well.’

GAGARIN:
Майор Гагарин.
(MAJOR GAGARIN.)

REPORTER (voice):
Khrushchev embraces the cosmonaut in a bear hug and kisses him repeatedly on the lips.

Transcending the shadows of the cold war, touching the hopes and imagination of all men, Gagarin’s words are unforgettable as he speaks of riding in space: ‘I saw, for the first time, the earth’s shape, I could easily see shards of continents, islands, great rivers. The feelings which filled me, I can express in one word: joy!’

STORY:
‘We have scripted this moment together’, my alter ego repeated. — ‘It was 1962.’

REPORTER (voice):
Here we are! Here we are! That’s a man’s face.
There it is! There it is!
There is the first live television picture across the Atlantic.

REPORTER (voice):
And now has it disappeared? Was that it?

STORY:
‘But it is 1962.’ I told him.
—‘Certainly not’, he replied, ‘it’s 1980.’

—‘So tell me then,' I asked, ‘what’s happened in the last 18 years of our lives? Well, that is, in your past, which is now my future.

COSMONAUT SINGING:
I was strolling on the moon one day, tumtedumtedum.

TITLE:
THE FRESHEST IDEA IN COFFEE
FOLGERS

STORY:
‘What can I tell you?’, he replied. ‘The misfortunes you are already accustomed to will repeat themselves.
In time,

HITCHCOCK:
BANG!

STORY:
you will come to see that cinema merely confirms the old language.

If we were successful, this is because we showed people what they recognised of themselves. Guilt, desire, anxiety, love, death… Guilt. Above all, guilt…

REPORTER:
The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Spellbound, Lifeboat, North by Northwest, The Birds.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONALNEWS
THE BIRDS
IS COMING
VOICE: ED HERLIHY

TIPPI HEDREN:
‘Well, you know, Mr. Hitchcock put me through a suspense thriller. They build a cage for me. So, they put me in a cage this time. And in the cage with me was the cameraman with live crows which they alternately flew at me. And I was scratched many times, and bitten. I had a good one right on the cheek, right there.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE (voice):
I don’t like blood, at all! That’s the funny thing about it, because he liked lots of blood! If I cut my finger, I fall over and faint. [laughs]

TITLE:
5,000 SPARROWS
3,000 CROWS
800 SWALLOWS
150 ROBINS
AND 2 LOVEBIRDS

YES, MR. HITCHCOCK,
WE CAN ARRANGE THAT.

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
I had a bird on my finger, for a commercial in Munich. They had it on fishing wire, but it fell of my finger, and it was hanging! [laughs]

So I found if I kept moving my hand, the bird would concentrate on not falling off, going like this.

It was concentrating on keeping it balance, rather than fly away. [laughs]

TITLE:
WE RENTED 5000 LOCAL DUCKS AND SPRAYED THEM GREY. WE STARTED OFF WITH CHICKENS, BUT THE NECK MOVEMENT GAVE THEM AWAY.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

HITCHCOCK:
Nature is there in its most fiercest. Now, the film shows that man takes nature for granted. But if it turns on him, then he’s in trouble.

STORY:
‘You will make the film we dreamed of for so long,’ he said, ‘but in the end you will realize that you have failed. That film was one of the roads that led me to this night. The others: the humiliation of old age, the conviction of having already lived each day.
My words, which are now your present, will one day be but the vaguest memory of a dream.

Equipped as ever with that fiendish sense of humour he added: ‘Now this, Mr. Hitchcock, this is the film you will never make. The world will overtake you. History, sudden catastrophes and global struggles will play themselves out in ways still stranger and more spectacular than your films.

— ‘Tell me another thing,’ I said. ‘Who wins the cold war?’

He waved away the question, as though it were trivial. Becoming more animated he sat forward in his chair and told me: ‘half the movie theatres in the country have closed down. Television has killed cinema, broken it down into bite-sized chunks and swallowed it, like…like…

— ‘Like birds devouring their own parent.’ I said. ‘I knew I could trust myself to come up with a good simile,’ he chortled. ‘It is the destiny of every medium to be devoured by its offspring.’

TITLE:
TELEVISION IS LIKE THE AMERICAN TOASTER, YOU PUSH THE BUTTON AND THE SAME THING POPS UP EVERY TIME.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

STORY:
And we two are not without fault in this. We helped hasten the new format’s rise to power.

TITLE:
KENNEDY INAUGURATION
JANUARY 20, 1961

REPORTER:
John F. Kennedy settles into office as the 35th President of the United States. The first President born in the 20th Century. He comes to office after one of the narrowest elections in American history.

TITLE:
U.S. BREAKS
RELATIONS
WITH CUBA

REPORTER 1:
There’s a limit to what the U.S. in self respect can endure. That limit has now been reached.

REPORTER 2:
Castro seizes almost all U.S. property in Cuba.

TITLE:
CIA HAD OVERTHROWN LEADERS
IN CONGO, IRAN & GUATEMALA.
CUBA… NEXT!

TITLE:
BAY OF PIGS - APRIL 1961
KENNEDY APPROVES COVERT CIA INVASION OF CUBA.

CIA PLOT BLUNDERS…

KENNEDY DENIES U.S. INVOLVEMENT…

CASTRO JOKES, “HOLLYWOOD IS A BETTER LIAR.”

TITLE:
MAY 1961,
PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCION

CASTRO:
[in Spanish]
The imperialists cannot accept that we made a socialist revolution right here under the nose of the U.S.!

TITLE:
HITCHCOCK
SHATTERS THE SCREEN
WITH
TOPAZ

VOICE:
Hitchcock has taken intrigue, suspense, excitement, warm-blooded men and women take risks, make love, face death.

TITLE:
NOVEMBER 30, 1961
CIA INSTALLS
OPERATION MONGOOSE
KILL CASTRO

VOICE:
Overall lurks the mystery of Topaz and nothing is what it seems. In Cuba an agent visits his mistress and no-one asks why.

TITLE:
EX-GIRLFRIEND
RECRUITED TO
POISON CASTRO

… YET, CASTRO FOOLS
CIA WITH LOOKALIKES

TITLE:
HITCHCOCK
TOPS
HITCHCOCK

HITCHCOCK:
Frankly, I feel that television commercials are ideally suited to this type of program. This next one for example: it’s deadly!

TITLE:
PAPA EDDIE SOLVES A CRIME

[husband:]
Oh! This coffee is criminal!

[wife:]
Honey, you killed the petunias!

[husband:]
Then you admit it: your coffee really is murder!

[back at the supermarket]

[wife:]
Papa Eddie, my coffee! It’s murder!

HITCHCOCK:
You see, crime does not pay! Not even on television. You must have a sponsor!

[Papa Eddie:]
Try Folger’s. mountain grown FOR richer flavour.

[wife:]
Well, allright.

[back at home]
[husband:]
You know it’s a crime…

STORY:
‘Maybe we loved cinema so much we annihilated it,’ I ventured. ‘It’s possible,’ he concurred.

TITLE:
MOUNTAIN GROWN FOR RICHER FLAVOR

STORY:
We always fell in love with our characters, that’s why we killed them!

We lingered for a while on the pleasures of murder. I argued that dying was an act of love, of complete surrender. We always played our crimes as though they were love scenes.

— ‘Intimate and domestic’, he murmured in agreement. ‘Television brought murder into the American home, where it always belonged.’

‘So, tell me, how would you like to die?’ ‘Come now,’ he mocked me. ‘We have imagined every type of murder, shooting, strangulation, stabbing, being hurled to death from a national monument, marriage … Oh, yes, marriage. Marriage can be very deadly. Some of our most exquisite murders have been conjugal, … performed in all tenderness with the aid of a kitchen appliance.

— ‘Personally, I like poison. It can only be administered to those who trust their killer – their family, spouses, lovers. Murder is a gift, like love.

‘So, tell me… how would you like to die?’

TITLE:
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL
AUGUST 13, 1999

ASSUMING THE MASTER’S ROLE,
RON BURRAGE PRESENTS
TIPPI HEDREN AT THE NEW PRINT LAUNCH OF…

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S
“THE BIRDS”

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
We presented the new print of ‘The Birds’. They had me sitting outside a café with a newspaper. And then they were going around with the spotlight, picking out people in the crowd and showing them on the screen.

And then all over a sudden, the spotlight came on to me, behind the newspaper. And everybody looks: ‘it’s Alfred! Is that Alfred?’

Of course there was uproar! Because Alfred was there.

So, I went on to the stage, and then I said we’re here to present the new print of ‘The Birds’. Well, here is the lady: Tippi Hedren, the star of it. And she came on.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS
THE BIRDS IS COMING
VOICE: ED HERLIHY

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
It was our birthday. Our birthday! Alfred and me.

TIPPI HEDREN:
I want to wish Alfred Hitchcock wherever you are, a very, very happy 100th birthday.

TITLE:
TIPPI HEDREN
LOCARNO, 1999

RON, HITCHCOCK DOUBLE:
We’ve got the same birthday. 13th of August.

TITLE:
… UPON WHICH RON SLICES
ALFRED’S 100th AND HIS 70th
BIRTHDAY CAKE!

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Good evening. The Alfred Hitchcock of today.

TITLE:
LOCARNO
AUGUST 13, 1999

HITCHCOCK:
The Alfred Hitchcock of 30 years ago.

HITCHCOCK #1:
I’m Alfred Hitchcock. I am! I can prove it!

DOCTOR:
Sure, sure, everybody is.

HITCHCOCK (voice):
I am! I insist!

REPORTER (voice):
[translated from Russian]
As in a Russian fairy tale, the forests on the outskirts of Moscow twinkle like crystal. Here at his hunting domain, Nikita Khrushchev invited his dear guest Fidel Castro and his Cuban Comrades. The hunting requires serious preparation. And then all of a sudden: the smell of a burning fire.

TITLE:
RUSSIA INTERCEPTS ‘MONGOOSE’ PLOT TO KILL CASTRO.

FEARING ANOTHER U.S. INVASION,
CASTRO SIDES WITH KHRUSHCHEV.

REPORTER (voice):
[translated from Russian]
No better relaxation than close by the forest fire with hot coffee poured from the Russian samovar.

COMMERCIAL:
[in Spanish]
… because Folger’s is the best choice for the kitchen! Made with prime quality ingredients, it’s a coffee cultivated in the mountains.

The richest taste!
Ah, delicious!
Folger’s is the best choice for the Kitchen!

-It’s the best coffee there is!
-True!

HITCHCOCK:
It’s described in a scene in an English train. And one man says to the other: ‘What’s that package above your head there?’ And the other man said: ‘Oh, that! That’s a MacGuffin!

It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands!’ The man said: ‘but there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands!’ And the other man said: ‘Then that’s no MacGuffin!’ [laughter]

INFOMERCIAL (voice)
Television! Truly the miracle that has put its signature on our century.

REPORTER (voice):
Russian people and American people hear each other’s leaders by television talks.

KHRUSHCHEV (voice):
[Translated from Russian]
Not so long ago I went to Vienna, to meet during two days, with the U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

JFK (voice):
I went to Vienna to meet the leader of the Soviet Union, Mr. Khrushchev. Mr. Khrushchev and I had a very full and frank exchange of views on the major issues that now divide our two countries.

TITLE:
VIENNA SUMMIT
MAY 26, 1961

TITLE:
NUCLEAR POKER
KRUSHCHEV MAKES CLAIMS ON WEST-BERLIN

KENNEDEY BLUFFS: ‘… IT WILL BE A COLD WINTER!’

JFK (voice):
We have wholly different views of right and wrong. And above all we have wholly different concepts of where the world is, and where it is going.

TITLE:
AUGUST 31, 1961

REPORTER (voice):
Khrushchev’s demand that the U.S., France and Britain agree to end the Four-Power Pact governing West Berlin, hints a new and major crisis.

TITLE:
NEW RED THREAT TO BERLIN

JFK (voice):
We will not permit the communists to drive us out of Berlin, either gradually or by force. It would be a mistake for others to look upon Berlin as a tempting target. The United States is there. The United Kingdom and France are there. The pledge of NATO is there. And the people of Berlin are there.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS
THE WALL
(VOICE: ED HERLIHY)

JFK (voice):
The source of world trouble and tension is Moscow, not Berlin. And if war begins, it will have begun in Moscow and not Berlin.

HITCHCOCK:
And then I dreamed I was in a huge theatre, where one of my motion pictures was being shown. But the theatre was absolutely empty. On one wall was a gigantic mirror and when I looked into it I didn’t see my own face.

STORY:
They say that if you meet your double, you should kill him. Or that he will kill you. I can’t remember which but
– the gist of it is that two of you is one too many.
— ‘Who says there are only two of us?’ he added mischievously. ‘Maybe there’s three ---or four of us.’

He sat in silence for a while, then added: ‘my whole life has been a setting to film of this moment. Now, events have caught up with the film, and overrun it. It will end badly for someone. Just as it did last time.’

I interrupted him: ‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s the murderer who will tell the story.’

As I spoke the words, fear surged inside my chest, sharp as a knife. It dawned on me that this might be my own death scene playing itself out. I felt a need to assert my existence forcefully. I glanced about me for a prop, a weapon.

TITLE:
TRANSATLANTIC TV:
LIVE TO EUROPE

REPORTER Walter Cronkite (voice):
Transatlantic TV. Good evening Europe, this is the North American
continent live by AT&T TELSTAR, July 23rd 1962.

JFK (voice):
Today’s press conference is being relayed by the Telstar communication satellite, carrying messages from both sides of the world.

REPORTER Walter Cronkite (voice):
I can now see Big Ben on our monitors: ‘So, go Europe, go!’

Yves Montand singing:
‘Le public se souvient,
d’la chansonette, tiens, tiens.

TITLE:
FIRST PICTURES FROM EUROPE VIA TELSTAR

TITLE:
BY 1961, U.S. OUTNUKES RUSSIA 17 to 1.

Yves Montand singing:
Les titis, les marquis, c'est parti,
mon kiki, la chansonnette.
A Presley ---‘

TITLE:
U.S. MISSILES INSTALLED AT THE SOVIET
BORDER IN TURKEY TARGET MOSCOW
WITH A 1000 x HIROSHIMA PUNCH.

JUNE, 1961
PENTAGON PLOT FOR A
PREEMPTIVE STRIKE ON RUSSIA:
LEAKED TO KHRUSHCHEV…

REPORTER (voice):
The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party hears a marathon talk by Khrushchev in which he promises that the Reds are to explode a huge bomb of 50 megatons.

TITLE:
NORTHERN ARCTIC
OCTOBER 30, 1961
TSAR BOMBA
BIGGEST BOMB E
VER DETONATED

REPORTER (voice):
Good morning everyone. An unusual flurry of top secret military and diplomatic activity over the weekend.

OTHER REPORTER (voice):
It is a day in Washington when the crisis fever reaches a peak,

TITLE:
OCTOBER 22, 1962

OTHER REPORTER (voice):
from a secrecy veil over official actions which keeps the nature of the emergency hidden until the last minute.

JFK (voice):
Unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on the island of Cuba.

TITLE:
NUCLEAR WARHEAD BUNKER U/C
MISSILE ERECTOR CABLE

JFK (voice):
The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western hemisphere.

TITLE:
UNITED NATIONS

UNITED STATES DELEGATE:
Allright Sir, let me ask you one simple question. Do you, Ambassador Zorin,

TITLE:
VALERIAN ZORIN
SOVIET AMBASSADOR

UNITED STATES DELEGATE:
deny that the U.S.S.R. is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba?

TITLE:
ADLAI STEVENSON
U.S. AMBASSADOR

UNITED STATES DELEGATE:
Yes or no?
Don’t wait for the translation. Yes or no?

[Laughter]

AMBASSADOR ZORIN:
[translation from Russian]:
"I’m not in an American courtroom, Sir! "

REPORTER (voice):
And in a momentous decision president Kennedy orders an arms blockade of Cuba.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS
THE RED THREAT
PRESIDENT ORDERS CUBAN BLOCKADE

REPORTER Frank McGee, NBC News (voice):
The Pentagon says the U.S. is ready to sink every communist block ship headed for Cuba, which refuses to stop under the blockade.

ANOTHER REPORTER (voice):
In Cuba itself a 100 000 men were put under emergency orders as they had been during past invasion scares. And authorities assembled thousands in cities and villages to whip up hate of what Castro calls “Yankee imperialistic warmongers”. He went on to call President Kennedy “a pirate!”.

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL PRESENTS

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S

TOPAZ
FROM THE NOVEL BY LEON URIS
STARRING
…
DIRECTED BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK

HITCHCOCK:
The bomb is under the table. And the audience have been told its time to go off is at one o’clock. The conversation, which was so dull, now becomes exciting, because the audience are saying: ‘Don’t talk such frivolous things, there’s a bomb under the table!’

TITLE:
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS
THE RED THREAT PRESIDENT ORDERS
CUBAN BLOCKADE

REPORTER Walter Cronkite, CBS News (voice):
This is a special report! Let’s check over at the Pentagon with Charles von Fremd on that. Chuck, is there any late information about those Soviet ships?

TITLE:
PENTAGON

REPORTER Charles Von Fremd, NBC News (voice):
Walter, we haven’t heard a word for several hours now as to when the confrontation will come about.

REPORTER Ed Herlihy, NBC News (voice):
We are now in the most dangerous situation since the end of World War II. The next 48 hours will be decisive.

REPORTER Frank McGee, NBC News (voice):
Denouncing the U.S. arms quarantine against Cuba as a step toward world thermonuclear war, the Soviet Union today ordered its armed forces into a state of combat readiness.

JFK (voice):
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere as an attack!

REPORTER (voice):
(translation from Russian)
Citizens! Air raid warning!
When you hear the air raid siren, collect the food supplies you have prepared. Don’t forget your documents. Fear and panic are your worst enemies! They can be fatal. Close all security doors.

TITLE:
OCTOBER 24, 1962
U.S. AIR FORCE GOES AIRBORNE
WITH A 7000 MEGATON PAYLOAD.

ENOUGH TO DESTROY THE WORLD POPULATION 3 TIMES OVER.

KIDS FEAR HALLOWEEN MIGHT BE CANCELLED…

[kids screaming]

STORY:
We could not deceive one another. Each of us was almost a caricature of the other.

‘I hate your face,’ I said, ‘which is a parody of mine.
I hate your voice, which is a mockery of mine.’

— ‘So do I,’ he answered, smiling.

JFK (voice):
I call upon chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this reckless and provocative threat to world peace, and to move the world back from the abyss of destruction.

VOICE (invasion U.S.A.):
Emergency announcement! Unidentified planes approaching New York! The red alert is on!

OTHER VOICE:
But tomorrow, this siren may mean the real thing.

TITLE:
26 OCTOBER 1962
SHOPPING PANIC
SWEEPS U.S.!

OTHER VOICE:
And if you hear it as you drive in your auto, as you sit in your office or work at your bench. Wherever you are: what will you do?

TITLE:
SEE
NEW YORK DISAPPEAR!

SEE
PARATROOPS
TAKE OVER
THE CAPITAL!

TIPPI HEDREN:
They’re coming, they’re coming!

TITLE:
OCTOBER 27,1962
KENNEDY & KHRUSHCHEV AVERT
NUCLEAR WAR BY CLOSING A SECRET
DEAL TO CUT DOWN ARSENAL.

MISSILES IN TURKEY
FOR MISSILES IN CUBA.

HARDLINERS ON BOTH SIDES
CALL THEM TRAITORS.

NEXT: BREZHNEV CONSPIRES
TO OVERTHROW KHRUSHCHEV…

STORY:
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘if I’m capable of killing you.’

— ‘You’re capable of killing off your characters,’ he answered. ‘Try me.’ he said.

— ‘Done,’ I told him.

— ‘Done? What do you mean, done?’

— ‘It won’t be long now. This is your last cup.’

— ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘let’s get to know each other a bit. Contrary to what you would think from my measurements, I’m not a heavy eater. I’m simply one of those unfortunates who can accidentally swallow a cashew nut and put on thirty pounds right away.’

STORY:
As he spoke the words, a trickle of coffee spilled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin before dribbling onto his shirt. The cup slipped from his hand and fell to the carpet. I bent down to pick it up and saw, when I looked up again, that he was dead.

My inescapable fate comes back to haunt me. April the 29th 1980. Sitting in a chair on the studio lot, the set of a film that’s ceased to be my own.

Another man will come, a younger man. Again I will be face to face with myself.

HITCHCOCK (voice):
Good evening. I am Alfred Hitchcock.

You must be mistaken. I am Alfred Hitchcock.

But I’m Alfred Hitchcock, I am, I insist!

TITLE:
AFTER THE RELEASE OF THE BIRDS,
A LETTER FROM PRESIDENT KENNEDY ARRIVES AT THE
HITCHCOCK RESIDENCE.

THE INVITE FOR A LUNCHEON AT THE
WHITE HOUSE IS POSTMARKED
NOVEMBER 21, 1963.

THE NEXT DAY KENNEDY IS SHOT.

ONE YEAR LATER, KHRUSHCHEV IS OVERTHROWN

TV REPORTER:
The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Spellbound, Lifeboat, North by Northwest, The Birds. What those movies had in common is that they were directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, who died in Hollywood today…

TITLE:
APRIL 29, 1980

OTHER TV REPORTER:
The master of suspense is dead. Sir Alfred Hitchcock…

OTHER TV REPORTER:
His passing was more serene than that of many of the characters in his 53 films…

DIRECTOR:
Thank you so much, Ron. Thank you very, very much.

RON BURRAGE:
That’s allright.

HITCHCOCK:
And now Ladies and Gentlemen, those of us who work in television have a technical term for this part of the program. We call it: ‘THE END’.

TITLE:
In memory of Ron & Eddie

END CREDITS:

REPORTERS:
[translated from Russian]
GOOD evening.

MALE REPORTER:
Good evening Comrades. General-Secretary of the U.S.S.R., Mikhail Gorbachev. And President of the U.S., Ronald Reagan.

RONALD REAGAN:
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack? That we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil.

RONALD REAGAN:
But isn’t it worth every investment necessary to free the world from a threat of nuclear war?

TITLE:
50 000 NUKES
ON THE TABLE

GORBACHEV
CALLS TO ELIMINATE
WORLD ARSENAL

REAGAN
TURNS TABLE:
STAR WARS!

RONALD REAGAN:
“Perhaps we need some outside universal threat. Our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you: is not an alien force already among us?”

DONALD RUMSFELD ( voice):
There are known knows; there are things we know that we know.

DONALD RUMSFELD (image+ voice):
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns: there are things we do not know we don’t know.

TITLES:
2009 JOHAN GRIMONPREZ
2009 ZAPOMATIK / NIKOVANTASTIC FILMS / VOLYA FILMS