A lot has been said and documented about Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense in cinema.
He was a genius, a prankster, a menace, an innovator, an icon. The list could go on.
But what very few people seem to know is that behind the man behind the camera was a writer who aided him on his way to fame and legacy. Fellow British creator Charles Bennett crafted many of Hitchcock’s early films, and for the first time ever, his own story behind the scenes is coming to life on the page. A new memoir nearly two decades in the making, Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense, was authored by Bennett himself and his only son, John.
Charles Bennett was a British renaissance man of sorts with a 75-year career spanning the 20th century through literature, theater, film and television. Born into a lower-class acting family in England, Bennett began his career as a child actor on stage and in silent films. By the time he was an adult, he already had added writing to his résumé and was penning plays in the U.K. When Hitchcock caught interest in adapting Bennett’s “Blackmail” as a “talkie” in 1929, a love-hate partnership was born.
After Bennett moved to Hollywood to become a freelance writer, his film experience blossomed as he helped create concepts and scripts for directors like Hitchcock and Cecil B. DeMille. He did seven films with Hitchcock, including “Blackmail,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1935), “The 39 Steps” (1935), “Sabotage” (1936), “Young and Innocent” (1937) and “Foreign Correspondent” (1940), as well as “Reap the Wild Wind” (1942) for DeMille and “Ivy” (1947), starring his friend, Joan Fontaine.
Bennett seemed to have an impressive reputation. Though he got a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for “Correspondent,” Bennett didn’t attend the ceremony in 1941.
“He didn’t really care for that kind of thing as much as making the movies,” his son said.
But despite his famous efforts and friendships, Bennett somehow always would be overlooked in the Golden Age of film history.
Bennett’s book was in the process of being written when he died suddenly in 1995, and it would take another decade before his son would locate all of his old journal entries and notes to edit them into a memoir. Though Partner in Suspense features a number of behind-the-scenes tales in a positive and negative light, it is not sensational.
“This isn’t meant to be seen as gossip or dirty laundry,” John Bennett said. “It’s an inside look at my dad’s experience, technique and opinions on the film industry as a business.”
John Bennett provided four sections of the book to conclude where his father left off.
Though he spent years working with Hitchcock and others in cinema, Charles Bennett also had an impressive record as a decorated war hero for England during World War I as a veteran of trench warfare and served as an allied spy and propagandist in World War II.
After his days as a child actor, Bennett later participated in Shakespearean theatre for 15 years. He also achieved writing and directing in all mediums of entertainment.
John Bennett leads a more quiet life than his father in San Clemente, Calif., with his family as a science teacher.
“Science is more my interest, but I appreciate my father’s stories and work,” he said.
Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense is available now from University Press of Kentucky and will be available on the mass market in April. The book provides a fascinating look inside one of Hollywood’s most well-kept secrets and begs the question as to how someone this prolific and successful became so obscure.
mbianco@durangoherald.com. Megan Bianco is a movie reviewer and also contributes other entertainment related features and articles. She is a graduate of Cal State University, Northridge, where she studied film criticism and screenwriting.
