"Rebecca" (1962).

This April 1962 version of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca aired on Theatre '62 and featured James Mason as Maxim de Winter and Joan Hackett as the second Mrs. de Winter. Nina Foch took on the role of housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and Lloyd Bochner was Rebecca's cousin Jack Favell.

"Fraction of a Second" (w/Bette Davis, 1958).

Adapted by Kathleen Hite from the story "Split Second" (in Kiss Me Again, Stranger, 1953) by Daphne du Maurier, this episode of Suspicion features Bette Davis finding strangers in her house, although they insist they are the owners. Costars include Marian Seldes.

Celebrating 50 years of The Birds.

On March 30, the History Show of RTE (Ireland) marked the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds. Below, The Birds' screenwriter, Evan Hunter, talks about the original ending of the film.

Clues 31.1: Hitchcock and adaptation.

"Hitchcock and Adaptation" is the theme of Clues 31.1 (2013), guest edited by Loyola Univ Maryland's Mark Osteen (author of Nightmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream). The following is a summary of the contents (with links on the article titles). To order the issue or subscribe to Clues, visit this Web page or download the subscription flyer.

Introduction. MARK OSTEEN

Melancholy Elephants: Hitchcock and Ingenious Adaptation. KEN MOGG Alfred Hitchcock films such as Marnie and Young and Innocent represent a world that is equivocal. Highly ingenious and imaginative, they enable the spectator, much like the character Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest, to re-engage with that world and come “alive.”

"Inspiring Public Uneasiness": Hitchcock's Adaptation of Conrad's "Simple Tale." MATTHEW PAUL CARLSON (High Point Univ, NC) In Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936; adapted from Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, 1907), the director goes beyond mere use of the novel as a point of departure; he deeply engages its underlying anxieties about the artist’s relationship to his audience.

Reading Hitchcock/Reading Queer: Adaptation, Narrativity, and a Queer Mode of Address in Rope, Strangers on a Train, and Psycho. HEATH A. DIEHL (Bowling Green State Univ) Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951) reveal an interest in the odd; the peculiar; the “queer.” The author examines the narrative choices made in adaptation.

"Dear Miss Lonelyhearts": Voyeurism and the Spectacle of Human Suffering in Rear Window. NICHOLAS ANDREW MILLER (Loyola Univ Maryland) Rear Window offers a powerful meditation on the ethical implications of private voyeurism in the public sphere. The film draws thematic inspiration from Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts.

"The Proper Geography": Hitchcock's Adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's "The Birds." JOHN BRUNS (College of Charleston) Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” illuminates the technical aspects of his process of adaptation, much-ignored similarities between du Maurier’s text and Hitchcock’s film, and the anxiogenics of spatial dislocation.

Hitchcock's Diegetic Imagination: Thornton Wilder, Shadow of a Doubt, and Hitchcock's Mise-en-Scene. DONNA KORNHABER (UT-Austin) The author considers the collaboration between Thornton Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock on Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and examines the influence of Wilder’s theories of theatrical abstraction and cinematic realism on Hitchcock’s developing sense of mise-en-scène.

The Second Look, the Second Death: W. G. Sebald's Orphic Adaptation of Hitchcock's Vertigo. R. J. A. KILBOURN (Wilfred Laurier Univ, Canada) This essay compares W. G. Sebald’s novel Vertigo (1991) and Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. The book extends key themes and formal strategies in the film, most notably Hitchcock’s famous “vertigo shot.”

Adapting Poe, Adapting Hitchcock: Robert Bloch in the Shadow of Hitchcock's Television Empire. DENNIS R. PERRY and CARL H. SEDERHOLM (both Brigham Young Univ) Alfred Hitchcock’s television programs challenged adaptors to transfer his style and persona to the small screen. Robert Bloch invoked his own and Hitchcock’s deep interest in Poe to create episodes that tended to be more dark, ironic, and psychologically edgy than others.

Extraordinary Renditions: DeLillo's Point Omega and Hitchcock's Psycho. MARK OSTEEN Tracing how Don DeLillo’s novella rings changes on the word rendition, the author unravels a skein of intertextual and metacinematic relations that stretches from Psycho to Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho video installation, Robert Bloch’s original novel, and the many Psycho remakes.

REVIEWS
Susan M. Griffin and Alan Nadel, eds. The Men Who Knew Too Much: Henry James and Alfred Hitchcock. PAMELA BEDORE

R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd, eds. Hitchcock at the Source: The Auteur as Adaptor. JOHN TEEL

Evan Hunter on Hitchcock this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Evan Hunter, NYPL.

This week, BBC Radio 4 features Me and Hitch, the memoir by Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) on his sometimes fraught working relationship with Alfred Hitchcock on projects such as The Birds and Marnie. Episodes usually may be heard online for up to week after broadcast.

Daphne du Maurier's lost stories, private paintings.

On ABC's Book Show, bookseller Ann Willmore discusses the often macabre early short stories she found by Daphne du Maurier that now appear in Virago's The Doll: Short Stories. There's also a Guardian piece on the stories, and a BBC item on 1950s paintings by du Maurier that were done during a troubled period in her life.

BBC Archive: Daphne du Maurier, John le Carre, Len Deighton, et al.

The latest BBC Archive features footage with authors. A few highlights:

• Interview with Daphne du Maurier (1971).

• The lonely world of John le Carre (1966).

• Melvyn Bragg interviews Len Deighton (1977).

• Somerset Maugham discusses his selections of the 10 greatest novels (1954)

About the image: Portrait of Somerset Maugham. NYPL.

Happy birthday, Daphne du Maurier.

Suspense master Dame Daphne du Maurier was born today in London in 1907, the daughter of actor Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of author-artist George du Maurier. Virago and New York Review of Books Classics have issued recent editions of her work.

About the image: "Why don't you?". Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. de Winter and Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Daphne du Maurier's Don't Look Now from New York Review of Books Classics.

Following the New York Review of Books Classics reprint of Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male is a collection of Daphne du Maurier's short stories, Don't Look Now. It includes the really creepy title story, "The Blue Lenses" (which was just broadcast on BBC Radio 7 and can still be heard here), and "The Birds" (filmed by Hitchcock with a screenplay by Evan Hunter).

About the photo: Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now (dir. Nicolas Roeg, 1973)

Mortimer, du Maurier, Christie this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week on BBC Radio 7: The late John Mortimer reads from his memoir Where There's a Will, along with episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey with Maurice Denham; Daphne du Maurier's "The Blue Lenses" and The House on the Strand; and assorted Agatha Christie tales. Go here for the schedule or to listen.

Daphne du Maurier, John Creasey, James Sallis this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week, BBC Radio 7 features Daphne du Maurier's The House on the Strand, John Creasey's detective The Toff, and James Sallis's The Eye of the Cricket. Go here for the schedule or to listen.

Ian Fleming, Daphne du Maurier this week on BBC Radio 7.

Ian Fleming's Casino Royale and Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn are two of the works featured this week on BBC Radio 7. Go here for the schedule or to listen.

100 Books Every Child Should Read.

The Telegraph's list of 100 Books Every Child Should Read includes Roald Dahl (5 entries), Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek, H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, and Charles Portis's True Grit.

What—no Freddy the Detective?