Author Stephen Rebello Talks Criss-Cross and Why Hitchcock Still Matters

Joining our resident cinephiles Nate Evans and Ethan Brehm on this cinematic episode is author Stephen Rebello, whose 1990 ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho’ is widely considered the definitive journal of one of the most beloved films of all-time. After 35 years he returns to The Master of Suspense with the meticulously researched Criss-Cross – The Making of Hitchcock’s Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers of a Train, chronicling the director’s 1951 classic adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of chance, opportunity, and – of course – madness. Listen as the trio discuss the difficulties bringing Highsmith’s book to film (and writing a book about making a film), how women helped salvage the project, why humor and tension work well together, the importance of cinematographer Robert Burks, the fallacy of the auteur theory, subtext and subtlety in an age of cinematic suppression, why Strangers pairs perfectly with 1954’s Dial M for Murder, and why Alfred Hitchcock continues to matter.