Alfred Hitchcock films are being mined for new projects as Hollywood is . . . : Remaking The Master

With more than a half-dozen remakes of Alfred Hitchcock movies due for release in theaters (and on TV) over the next couple of years, purists may carp that the film industry is once again strip-mining its past. But in the case of the master of suspense, what’s more surprising is that it took Hollywood so long to raid his vault of treasured titles.

“He’s one of the classicists,” says Bruce Berman, producer of a second remake of Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” and former Warner Bros. head of production. “His films were impeccably structured, and the way he created suspense was visceral. It’s tempting to try and re-create that.”

The first to reach the big screen is “A Perfect Murder,” starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow, which opens Friday. It’s a remake of Hitchcock’s 1954 suspense drama “Dial M for Murder,” with Grace Kelly and Ray Milland in the leads.

Other remakes range from the reverential (“Psycho” uses the master’s original shooting script) to the barely recognizable (a remake of “Spellbound” will bear scant resemblance to the 1945 psychological thriller that starred Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck; it won’t even have the same title).

Homages to Hitchcock are nothing new. Several filmmakers, most notably Brian De Palma, have mimicked his carefully planned visual style (Hitchcock storyboarded every shot). De Palma also created thinly veiled re-tellings of such classics as “Vertigo” (“Obsession”) and “Psycho” (“Dressed to Kill”).

Nonetheless, there have been few notable remakes of Hitchcock works to date. A couple of his early British films, “The 39 Steps” (1935) and “The Lady Vanishes” (1938) were redone--”Steps” in 1959 and 1978, “Lady” in 1979--but didn’t leave much of an impression.

More recently there was a TV adaptation of “Rebecca” on PBS, an expanded version of Daphne Du Maurier’s novel. (Hitchcock did a film version of it in 1940.)

The temptation to emulate Hitchcock is understandable, says his daughter Pat Hitchcock O’Connell, who lives in Santa Barbara. “He made his movies for audiences, not for critics. Which is why many of his films still look like they were made yesterday.”

Until he upped the ante on violence with “Psycho” and “The Birds,” Hitchcock’s hallmark was suspense, an art of storytelling that is largely lost today. He also constructed intricate, airtight stories with attention to detail and was always fascinated by the battle between the sexes. His films provided meaty roles for women, also in short supply these days.

“I think it’s kind of flattering,” was granddaughter Katie O’Connell’s reaction to the upcoming remake of “Psycho,” directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, William H. Macy, Viggo Mortensen and Julianne Moore.

“I was told that Van Sant is a big fan of my grandpa’s and he was interested in doing ‘Psycho’ to expose a classic film to a younger generation that won’t go see black-and-white films,” says O’Connell, also of Santa Barbara.

As Hitchcock fans know, Hitchcock himself remade Hitchcock. In 1956 he directed a second version of his 1934 film “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

“It didn’t work as well the second time around,” observes Bob Harris, who along with Jim Katz recently restored “Vertigo”; they’re now at work on a restored “Rear Window.” “It was in color and longer and not as good,” says Harris.

It’s not just the Hitchcock style that’s hard to duplicate; there’s also the casting--Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and James Stewart each made several films with Hitchcock; the music--noteworthy composers such as Bernard Herrmann (“Vertigo,” “Psycho”) and Miklos Rozsa (“Spellbound”); and screenwriters--Raymond Chandler (“Strangers on a Train”), Ben Hecht (“Notorious”) and Ernest Lehman (“North by Northwest”).

Arnold Kopelson, producer of “A Perfect Murder,” is aware of the daunting shadow the master still casts. “You can’t tread on Hitchcock with impunity,” says Kopelson. “You have to pick and choose from among the movies that can be improved.”

Even Hitchcock devotees can’t make much of a case for “Dial M for Murder,” a stage-bound and uncharacteristically static adaptation of Frederic Knott’s play--though it boasts Kelly in the central role and a brilliant signature Hitchcock murder sequence.

Kopelson says the new version, set in New York City, opens up the play to the outdoors and contains a vital plot change. The husband still hires someone to kill his wife, only this time it’s her lover. (We’re not giving anything away here--it’s in the trailer.)

Though it’s on the back burner for now, Kopelson has also been developing a remake of an undisputed Hitchcock classic, “Strangers on a Train,” made in 1951. He had changed the central characters to a mad bomber and a reporter who’s on his tail (in the original the protagonist was a tennis champion and his nemesis a spoiled rich boy).

“Warners said it was too controversial,” says Kopelson, who is now berthed at 20th Century Fox and is rewriting the script to eliminate the bombing subplot. “So I’ll wait a year or two before I try it again.”

“Psycho” will no doubt be the most anticipated Hitchcock remake since it was his most popular film and forever changed the rules governing explicit violence in thrillers. (It also spawned some rather pallid sequels.) Even in black-and-white, the 1960 classic had the same effect on the audience’s opinion of taking a shower as “Jaws” would later have on their feelings about wading in shallow beach water.

Universal and Imagine Films recently made a big deal about announcing the “Psycho” remake, but have since decided to clamp down, according to a source at Universal, probably because using the same shooting script seems like an open invitation for comparison.

But producer Brian Grazer promises “at least a surprise or two,” when asked how slavishly the film will adhere to the original.

The new “Psycho” is scheduled to arrive at the end of the year around the same time as a television retelling of “Rear Window” (on ABC in November), though it will bear little resemblance to Hitchcock since it is based solely on the Cornell Woolrich short story used as the basis for the movie.

The Hitchcock estate owns the rights to the film, says Katie O’Connell. “But in a Supreme Court case, it was decided that the man who owned the short story was entitled to exploit it for a certain period of time--until late 1999--during which [time] we cannot exploit the motion picture.”

Bob Harris, who has read the original short story and whose “Rear Window” restoration will surface in late 1999, said the only elements in common are that a man in a wheelchair thinks he has witnessed a murder in a neighboring house. The TV film, produced by David Picker, will star Christopher Reeve as a quadriplegic (in the film James Stewart was a photographer who had broken his leg) who engages in a cat-and-mouse game with a killer.

“The media will make comparisons. But I think the story can stand on its own,” says Picker.

The “Spellbound” remake too will only be suggested by Hitchcock’s film, according to producer Sidney Sheinberg, whose Bubble Factory production company has been reworking the project. It will likely have a different title as well.

“It’s not really a remake in any way,” he said. “There’s a psychiatrist, her patient and the fact that he has amnesia. That’s about it. Not even the bare bones [of the original].”

Paramount’s upcoming remake of “To Catch a Thief” will still be a romantic suspense yarn about two thieves in love. The original starred Kelly and Grant. According to a studio spokesman, the new film will take from both John Michael Hayes’ screenplay and David Dodge’s original novel.

And Robert Towne’s remake of “The 39 Steps” will bear the same resemblance to Hitchcock’s 1935 film as “the film version of ‘The Fugitive’ bore to the TV series,” according to producer Berman. Towne has developed the story and will direct. Robert Kamen will write the script that will combine suspense with classic romantic comedy elements (in the original the hero and heroine were accidentally manacled to each other).

The movie will be shot in London and Scotland as was the original.

“The structure will remain intact,” says Berman. “But it’ll both resemble the original and be a contemporary movie.”

Since many of these projects wander far afield of the original source, it raises the question, why redo them at all? “Let’s face it,” says Berman, “there aren’t a ton of great scripts floating around. When you see remakes happening it’s a sign that people are going back to the well to find what really worked.”