# Alfred Hitchcock Movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 24, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537 "2002-11-24T22:38:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sir\_viks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@sir\_viks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sir_viks)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/1 "2002-11-24T22:38:41Z")
My brother called me yesterday evening and we got to discussing great film directors. In the film _Silent Movie_ by Mel Brooks, the whole movie is shot without sound except for one scene with the (in)famous mime Marcel Marceau. He is asked a question & his response is an audible “No”. That was the only dialogue in the entire movie. My brother told me that in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, the whole film is shot in black & white EXCEPT a scene lasting less-than-a-second where a gun shot muzzle flash was shot in color. You can actually see the yellowish/orangish flash, and then it’s black to black & white. Has anyone ever heard about this? And, does anyone have any idea what movie he’s talking about? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/2 "2002-11-24T22:49:09Z")
[Spellbound](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0038109) Haj ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/3 "2002-11-24T22:50:46Z")
Probably [Spellbound](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0038109), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/4 "2002-11-24T23:20:20Z")
Here’s a [link](http://www.tvdays.com/dvdupdate4.htm) that confirms that _Spellbound_ is the movie in question. > [@](#): > > SPELLBOUND … is a highly underrated thriller, steeped in psychology and romance and hooked around a murder that, so it seems, was almost certainly committed by its hero (Gregory Peck), a fact that nearly destroys its heroine (Ingrid Bergman, in about as delectable a screen portrayal as she ever gave). > > The transfer on the DVD is superior in every respect to the old CBS/Fox laserdisc, or any existing VHS tape release, with a dazzling array of grays and pure, crystaline-cut shadows. This makes the entire movie a delight to watch, and brings to full flower the surreal Salvador Dali-designed dream sequences. The DVD’s sound is also very clean, which greatly enhances the Oscar-winning Miklos Rozsa score. > > So why not recommend it without hesitation? Because someone in charge of the digital transfer neglected to capture the one less-than-obvious visual trick that Hitchcock used in the movie’s final, climactic scene, when Leo G. Carroll turns his gun on himself. > > The director deliberately inserted a single, red-tinted flash-frame when the gun goes off, that the audience was supposed to perceive subliminally–the laserdisc version, and all VHS tape releases had the red frame intact, as does the master shown on AMC in recent years, and all broadcast television presentations of the movie as well. > > But the Anchor Bay DVD doesn’t have the red frame, a grotesque error for a company that takes the trouble to license movies of this quality. The movie is still a complex, hauntingly beautiful, and disturbing thriller, one of Hitchcock’s best, and the DVD looks beautiful, apart from that one split-second flaw. Note, however, that it wasn’t a case of one frame being _shot_ in colour, which would have been cost-prohibitive for such a subtle effect. ---
**Author:** ![sir\_viks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@sir\_viks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sir_viks)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/5 "2002-11-24T23:39:35Z")
Thank you **Larry Mudd** , **friedo** , and **hajario** for the info & the links. That’s definitely the movie. It’s interesting that they didn’t film it in color (which was available at the time) but just tinted the scene red. I guess it was cheaper & easier just to do that. Looks like I know what I’ll be renting this weekend!! ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/6 "2002-11-25T02:04:26Z")
Another movie of Mel Brooks, “High Anxiety” have many references to Hitchcock themes. A main plot idea is from. . . Spellbound. Hitchcock directed Britain’s first talkie, “Blackmail”. It was filmed originally as a silent movie. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/7 "2002-11-25T04:18:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sir viks \* > \*\* It’s interesting that they didn’t film it in color (which was available at the time) but just tinted the scene red. I guess it was cheaper & easier just to do that. > > \*\* I believe that at that time all color movies were filmed on equipment leased from, and maybe even operated by, the Technicolor Corporation. To arrange for just a few frames to be shot by Technicolor would have been outrageously expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2002, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/8 "2002-11-25T05:03:42Z")
The Technicolor issue aside, the art of moviemaking has been pretty conservative historically. It was years after the first “talkie” that movies with sound became the standard. Likewise, full color films were popping up in dribs and drabs in the thirties (_The Wizard of Oz_ and _Gone With the Wind_ leap to mind), but many directors staunchly refused to move to a color format, feeling it was a gaudy special effect that detracted from the true nature of filmmaking. You can find plenty of B&W pictures right into the 60s. As for Hitchcock squeezing a red frame into a movie, the practice of coloring individual frames by hand was a rare, but well-known technique. Hitchcock, being a member of the avant-garde, loved tossing in little bits of wizardry like that. He also invented the “zoom in, dolly out” technique for _Vertigo_ which was later employed in, among other things, _Goodfellas_. And I would also recommend his movie _Rope_, which is a feature-length film in one continuous shot (actually four shots, if you want to get really technical–one shot per reel–but it’s cut together to look like a single take). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2002, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/9 "2002-11-25T05:47:32Z")
_Rope_ is excellent! The story is based on the infamous [Leopold & Loeb](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/leopold.htm), and will seem awfully familiar to you if you’ve already seen either _Swoon_ or _Compulsion_. (I think that I like _Compulsion_ best of the three, but tastes vary.) Sort of like how Ed Gein “inspired” _Psycho_ and _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_. No controversy of which one of _those_ is a better movie, though… 😛 How long before this winds up in the Cafe, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/10 "2002-11-28T15:13:26Z")
Steven Spielberg did something similar in Schindler’s List, a B&W movie that had the one unforgettable scene of the little girl in the red coat trying to hide from the Nazi destruction of the Jewish ghetto. The first time I watched the movie, it took me a while to figure out why my eyes were drawn to this little girl amidst all the chaos. When I realized it was because her red coat was in color, it really blew me away. What a masterful film!! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alfred-hitchcock-movie/138537/11 "2002-11-28T19:22:36Z")
To give y’all a better idea of what this is about: [This is the single frame that was inserted into film.](http://216.232.71.251/~larry/miscpics/spellbound_flash.JPG) I just screened this again a couple of days ago. (I’d forgotten what a gem that skiing scene is.)