# Heads up: HBO's "The Girl" on Oct 20 (Hitchcock & Hedren) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 15, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774 "2012-10-15T14:21:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/1 "2012-10-15T14:21:12Z")
[The Girl](http://www.hbo.com/movies/the-girl/index.html) “THE GIRL stars Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren, and tells the story of the director’s obsessive relationship with his leading lady during the making of “The Birds” and “Marnie.” As he attempted to sculpt Hedren into the perfect Hitchcock blonde of his imagination, he became obsessed with the impossible dream of winning the real woman’s love. Her rejection of his misguided attempts only added to his obsession, putting both their careers and personal lives in jeopardy.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/2 "2012-10-15T16:07:11Z")
That’s weird. There’s also a feature film, _[Hitchcock](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0975645/)_, coming out in a few weeks (starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, and Scarlett Johansson). I usually suspicious when a potential movie subject has been available for decades and suddenly two studios “independently” decide to use it at the same time. I suspect one studio genuinely came up with the idea and the other studio heard rumors about the first movie and decided to cash in by imitating it. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/3 "2012-10-15T23:36:32Z")
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Suspicious? Why? Who cares, if they’re good (or at least one is)? ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/4 "2012-10-17T11:43:41Z")
It’s funny that Toby Jones is in the same position he was in 2006, when both he and Phillip Seymour Hoffman played Truman Capote. In my not-so-humble-opinion, the wrong actor won an Oscar for their performance. I thought Jones mopped the floor with Hoffman that year. I’m curious to see him go up against Hopkins. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/5 "2012-10-21T00:21:35Z")
Show’s on tonight. Watch or record. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/6 "2012-10-21T00:38:45Z")
Looks like it could be good. Got the DVR set. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/7 "2012-10-21T00:50:17Z")
The DVR is set; I’ll be watching it at some point, if not “live.” Weird thing is, until I heard of this, I’d never read or heard much about Hitchcock the person (i.e. aside from the brilliant director). I had no idea he was a bit twisted (notwithstanding the subject material of his films). But this is a story at least [based on fact](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/20/the-girl-hitchcock-review_n_1992486.html), so all the more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/8 "2012-10-21T01:09:33Z")
What is that pale blue convertible Tippi is driving? Ford? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/9 "2012-10-21T01:26:01Z")
This is really creepy. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/10 "2012-10-21T01:44:35Z")
What a sadistic fucker. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/11 "2012-10-21T01:50:49Z")
_Really_ creepy. And holy cats, that scene with the interminable takes was just awful. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/12 "2012-10-21T03:08:38Z")
[Ken Tucker](http://rdd.me/188qtyaw)’s review over at Entertainment Weekly is up; he’s not very favorable. His main objection seems to be that he doesn’t want to remember Hitchcock like this, which is a sentiment I can agree with, but I think the story was interesting in a sort of crude, train-wreck kind of way. One other thing Tucker calls out is the final title card referring to _Marnie_ as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece, something I also thought strange. Per Tucker, “_Marnie_ is not “hailed as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece” by anyone other than fevered auteurists.” ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/13 "2012-10-21T03:19:33Z")
> [@Just\_Ed](#): > > One other thing Tucker calls out is the final title card referring to _Marnie_ as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece, something I also thought strange. Per Tucker, “_Marnie_ is not “hailed as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece” by anyone other than fevered auteurists.” Heh. The [Sfgate review](http://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/The-Girl-review-Tawdry-Hitchcock-tale-3960515.php) made the identical point. And had a pretty similar-seeming reaction to the film as well. I never cared much for _Marnie_ myself. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/14 "2012-10-21T03:22:33Z")
> [@Just\_Ed](#): > > [Ken Tucker](http://rdd.me/188qtyaw)’s review over at Entertainment Weekly is up; he’s not very favorable. His main objection seems to be that he doesn’t want to remember Hitchcock like this, which is a sentiment I can agree with, but I think the story was interesting in a sort of crude, train-wreck kind of way. One other thing Tucker calls out is the final title card referring to _Marnie_ as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece, something I also thought strange. Per Tucker, “_Marnie_ is not “hailed as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece” by anyone other than fevered auteurists.” Is _Marnie_ really supposed to be that bad? It’s my second favorite Hitchcock film (_Notorious_ is my favorite - which is probably not typical.) I liked _The Girl_, I thought it showed some of Hitchcock’s genius as well as the sadistic side of him. The relationship between Hitchcock and his wife was one of the more interesting parts of the film. My only complaint is that I didn’t really see much of Tippi Hedren in the actress that played her but it worked well enough to get the point. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/15 "2012-10-21T04:20:15Z")
> [@LVBoPeep](#): > > Is _Marnie_ really supposed to be that bad? It’s my second favorite Hitchcock film (_Notorious_ is my favorite - which is probably not typical.) > > I liked _The Girl_, I thought it showed some of Hitchcock’s genius as well as the sadistic side of him. The relationship between Hitchcock and his wife was one of the more interesting parts of the film. My only complaint is that I didn’t really see much of Tippi Hedren in the actress that played her but it worked well enough to get the point. Hmm, I dunno. I’ve seen _Marnie_, but it’s not one of my favorites. I think the reaction is specifically the reference to it as his “final masterpiece” - not that it’s a bad film in and of itself, just not a masterpiece in the Hitchcock oeuvre. As for Sienna Miller, I thought similarly that she was not exactly Hedren-like, though my perception of Hedren is limited by her appearances in Hitchcock films - so not exactly realistic. Specifically, I thought Miller appeared much more warm (and sexy), which are not traits I associate with Hedren (again, yes, due to her Hitchcock-directed roles). ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/16 "2012-10-21T12:00:45Z")
Hitchcock shut down her movie career and she has appeared virtually only in TV over the years. Check out the trivia page on the IMDB. > **[Tippi Hedren - Biography - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001335/bio/)** > > Tippi Hedren. Actress: The Birds. From working for the exacting Alfred Hitchcock to a film written by Edward D. Wood Jr., Tippi Hedren, the Minnesota blonde, has had a distinctive career. She was born Nathalie Kay Hedren in New Ulm, MN, to Dorothea... ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heads-up-hbos-the-girl-on-oct-20-hitchcock-hedren/637774/17 "2012-10-21T15:28:21Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Hitchcock shut down her movie career and she has appeared virtually only in TV over the years. Check out the trivia page on the IMDB. > [Tippi Hedren - Biography - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001335/bio#trivia) That’s only one side of the story. Hedren’s contract was sold to Universal and she was fired because she refused to honor the contract that she had signed, a fact that she supports. It was her own choice to break the contract with Universal but what she won’t come clean in admitting is that it was the breaking of that contract that put a damper on her career at the time. This (below) from the _Tippi Hedren_ wiki link, and you can see how slanted this is written. It says “other directors wanted to hire her but had to go through Hitchcock who would say she was unavailable”. > [@](#): > > ["Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. “It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I’m not about to be controlled,” said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he’d ruin her career. “And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tippi_Hedren) She refused to do any more films with Hitchcock even though she had signed an agreement. She admits she got paid for doing nothing. But she should be considered lucky she got paid for doing nothing and not sued by Hitchcock for her refusal to do any more work - a breach of contract. Of course he’d refuse other directors as she was under contract with his studios, ureasonable to expect a studio director to allow actors/actresses to work with other studios when they are under written agreement with your own studios. All we have been presented in this drama is Hedren’s side of the story. But what we also know by her own admission (besides refusal to honor contract with Hitchcock - and of course all the juicy and outlandish misconduct reasons why, according to she) she refused to honor her contract once again - after it was sold to Universal Studios. Reportedly she did not wish to appear on tv - her reason given for breaking the deal - although that stipulation was obviously within the legal agreement she had signed. If you sign a contract that says you might do tv then you need to tv. If you choose not to then don’t blame somebody else. This whole thing rings of gossipy bullshit - we only hear one side of the story, and what we can see is that someone has not honored their end of the bargain, even at a point in time when Hitchcock was no longer involved, and is not being fully accountable about this. > [@](#): > > [By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren’s career had stalled after just two films.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tippi_Hedren)