Free Hitch by John Russell Taylor Page A

replace him as their star director. Balcon had no ambition to direct, and neither at this point did Saville, though he was later on to become one of Britain’s leading directors. Nor, despite some talk already, and a little experience in that area, did the ‘wonder boy’—incredible as it seems in relation to what came after, Hitch claims that he never thought of becoming a film director, being perfectly happy doing what he was doing. It came as a complete surprise to him when one day Balcon came to tell him that Cutts was set to direct a film version of the very successful stage melodrama,
The Rat
, featuring its brilliant young author-star Ivor Novello, and did not want Hitch to work on it.
    Hitch accepted this with outward stoicism, but could not help worrying what he would do next—especially seeing that the British cinema was going through one of its periodic crises, and work was not so easy to find. But again it was Balcon who came up unexpectedly with the solution. A couple of weeks later he suddenly asked how Hitch would like to direct a film himself. It was a new idea, but he might have been systematically preparing himself for just this moment, learning every detail of the craft through scripting, designing and assisting Cutts on all aspects of his films. He knew he could do it, and had no hesitation in answering with perfect nonchalance, ‘All right. When do we start?’

Chapter Four
    The answer was, that they started right away. Balcon’s gesture was not one of impulse: he had been watching Hitch for a couple of years, he liked him, but more importantly he was impressed by what he could do and how skilful he was at selling other people on his ability to do it. A confidence trick, perhaps, but if so it was a confidence trick Hitch had played on himself first of all. He not only seemed confident; he really was confident. He knew with remarkable clarity what he could and could not do. If he was in any doubt, he would go away, think about it, and come back with an answer both sensible and correct. Balcon had no doubt that Hitch could direct a film because Hitch had no doubt.
    Balcon’s opinion was not shared by some of those around him. Cutts was jealous of the attention Hitch had been getting, and made it very clear that he wanted Hitch stopped. However, after his erratic behaviour on
The Blackguard
and
The Prude’s Fall
, he was in no position to insist. The company’s activities were expanding to such an extent that Cutts could not possibly direct all their films himself, and, Balcon argued, it would be silly to bring in a possibly expensive outsider when they had in their employ someone who might have been specifically trained for this purpose. Anyway, Cutts had his hands full with
The Rat
, which turned out when released late in 1925 to be a sensational success, so honour was satisfied all round.
    The other problem Balcon had over the Hitchcock project was to raise money for it. None of the English distributors was willing to put up money for a film directed by an unknown. His German contacts were more enterprising—or not so choosy, depending which way you look at it: in collaboration with a Munich-based company called Emelka, Balcon was able to raise the shoe-string budget envisaged for
The Pleasure Garden
, adapted from a melodramaticnovel by Oliver Sandys, about the contrasting temperaments and fates of two chorus girls. Although the action of the story took place mainly in England and the Far East, it was part of the deal that the film must be shot in Europe, and that the female stars, as usual, should be American: this time Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty. To add to the international tone of the picture, the script-writer was English, the cameraman was Italian (the Baron Ventimiglia) and the art directors were respectively English and German. The assistant director, though, was a reliable friend and ally, since it was none other than Hitch’s fiancee,