When I found myself writing I Remember You -- a thriller set in
1950s upstate New York, and starring Heike Lerner, a young woman in her 20s -- I
had to ask: What does she look like? The answer came along just as quickly,
given the era, and the suspense-driven pace. Heike is a Hitchcock Blonde, of
course.
Sure, not every Hitchcock movie
featured a blonde protagonist, but it’s a trope of many of his most memorable
films. Whether this was because, as he insisted, blondes simply filmed better
in black and white, or because he had a preference for blonde women and reportedly
enjoyed controlling them (Tippi Hedren, among others, has been vocal about her bad
experience with the director), it’s undeniable that Hitchcock
suspense comes with a certain look.
Reading I Remember You? Here’s a top 5 list of Hitchcock Blondes that might
help you picture the protagonist, Heike Lerner:
5. Kim Novak in Vertigo: Novak
actually plays two characters in what might be Hitchcock’s most famous film –
both Madeleine, the woman that was loved and lost, and Judy, the “new” version. Her blond hair figures
into the plot explicitly. James Stewart’s character, Scottie, is so obsessed
with his past love that he puts a blond wig on Judy to make her look like
Madeleine all the more. A movie about obsession and control, some think Vertigo addresses Hitchcock’s
proclivities in the most autobiographical way of all his films.
4. Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound:
In Spellbound, Bergman plays the calm and collected Dr. Constance Peterson, a
psychoanalyst who is both taken – and taken in – by Gregory Peck’s amnesiac Dr.
Anthony Edwardes. I’ll admit that with its grounding in psychiatry and memory,
I might have chosen the name Spellbound for I Remember You -- if only Hitchcock hadn’t got there first.
3. Tippi Hedren in The Birds:
As Melanie Daniels, Hedren plays a crisp, take-charge blonde who knows exactly
what she wants – and how she means to get it. After a chance meeting with Mitch
Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a pet store, she drives to the coast to cement the
relationship, bringing him a gift of two love birds in a cage. It’s the last
time birds are anything but horrific in this iconic feature. Hedren has
recently gone on
record about Hitchcock’s harassment and abuse on-set, comparing him
to Harvey Weinstein, and saying that his last words to her were, “I’ll ruin
your career.”
2. Janet Leigh in Psycho:
Like Melanie Daniels, Leigh’s Marion Crane is thoroughly independent – her
fierce gaze from behind the wheel of the car tells you she means business. She
is both self-sufficient and mercenary. Where the infamous shower scene is
concerned, it’s more than just a memorable scene: narratively, Hitchcock’s
decision to kill the heroine mid-movie was completely ground-breaking at the
time of Psycho’s release in 1960.
1. Grace Kelly in Rear Window:
I admit that I thought of no one more often than Grace Kelly when crafting my
own character, Heike Lerner. As Lisa Fremont, Kelly’s entrance is unforgettable.
As is her constantly changing wardrobe: Fremont is known for never wearing the
same dress twice. Where the character – and the movie – get really interesting,
though, is in the power switch. It may be photographer ‘Jeff’ Jeffries (James
Stewart again) who spies what he thinks is a crime from his apartment window,
but he’s laid up with a broken leg – so it’s Kelly’s Lisa who actually gets the
action role. Lisa does all the on-the-ground detecting, clambering up the fire
escape, crawling in the suspect’s window, and even letting herself be arrested
– all the while signalling cheekily to Jeff, who is limited to merely watching
through his window.
I remember you by Elisabeth de Mariaffi- Published by Titan Books on 27 March 2018
Heike Lerner has a charmed life. A
stay-at-home mother married to a prominent psychiatrist, it’s a far cry from
the damaged child she used to be. But her world is shaken when her
four-year-old son befriends a little girl at a nearby lake, who vanishes
under the water. And when Heike dives in after her, there’s no sign of a body. Desperate to discover what happened to the
child, Heike seeks out Leo Dolan, a television writer exploring the
paranormal, but finds herself caught between her controlling husband and the
intense Dolan. Then her son disappears, and Heike's husband was the last to
see him alive...
