Will the Real Hitchcock Please Stand Up?

Abstract

Alfred Hitchcock was an icon in his own lifetime -- and so canny at self-advertisement he could be evoked by a few mischievous musical notes and nine quick, convex strokes of a caricaturist's pen. The director has reemerged this year thanks to two films with differing characterizations. The first, HBO's The Girl, recounts actress Tippi Hedren's extended harassment at Hitchcock's hands and casts him as a lecherous Svengali.