Movies - List of unproduced Hitchcock projects

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	Movies - List of unproduced Hitchcock projects

Projects developed by Alfred Hitchcock but not realized:

Greenmantle (1939 – 1942)

Hitchcock very much wanted to direct a follow-up to The 39 Steps
, and he felt that Greenmantle was a superior book. He proposed that the film could star Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, but the rights from the Buchan estate proved too expensive.

The Three Hostages (1964)

In 1964, Hitchcock re-read another Richard Hannay book The Three Hostages with a mind to adapting it. Again, the rights were elusive. But also the story was dated, very much rooted in the 1930s, and the plot involved a villain whose blind mother hypnotizes the hero. Hitchcock had never thought that hypnosis worked on film.

The Bramble Bush (1951)

An adaptation of a 1948 novel by David Duncan about a disaffected Communist agitator on the run from the police, forced to adopt the identity of a murder suspect. The story would be adapted to take place in Mexico and San Francisco.

The politics and high budget made it a difficult project. Ultimately, Hitchcock did not feel that any of the scripts lifted the movie beyond an ordinary chase story, and he got permission to kill the project and move on to Dial M for Murder
.

The theme of the hero assuming a dangerous new identity would become North by Northwest
. Michaelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film The Passenger tells a similar story, but is not based on Duncan's book.

Flamingo Feather (1956)

This was to be a big-budget adaptation of Laurens van der Post's novel of political intrigue in Southern Africa. James Stewart was expected to take the lead role of an adventurer who discovers a concentration camp for Communist agents; Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly to play the love interest.

After a disppointing research trip to South Africa - where he concluded that he would have difficulty filming, especially on a budget - and with confusion of the story's politics and the seeming impossibility of casting Kelly, Hitchcock deferred the project and instead joined Stewart on The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Mary Rose (1920 – )

Hitchcock had long desired to turn J.M. Barrie's play 1920 Mary Rose into a film. in 1964, after working together on Marnie
, Hitchcock asked Joan Presson Allen to adapt the play into a screenplay. Hitchcock would later tell interviewers that his contract with Universal allowed him to make any film, so long as it cost under $3 million, and so long as it wasn't Mary Rose. Whether or not this was actually true or not, Lew Wasserman was not keen on the project, though Hitchcock never gave up hope of one day filming it.

No Bail for the Judge (1958 – 1959)

An adaptation of the thriller novel by former judge Henry Cecil about a barrister who, with the assistance of a gentleman thief, has to defend her father, a High Court judge, when he is accused of murdering a prostitute. In a change of pace from his usual blondes, Audrey Hepburn would have played the barrister, with Laurence Harvey as the thief and John Williams as the Hepburn's father.

Samuel A. Taylor (Vertigo
, Topaz) wrote the screenplay - after Ernest Lehman passed on it - which included a scene not in the book where the heroine disguises herself as a prostitute and has to fend off a rapist. Hepburn left the film, partly because of the near-rape scene but mostly due to her pregnancy. Without Hepburn the project didn't have the same appeal for Hitchcock; he told the studio it was better to write off $200,000 than spend another $3 million for a film he no longer cared for.

The Blind Man (1960)

After the success of Psycho
, Hitchcock reteamed with Ernest Lehman for this original screenplay idea: A blind pianist, Jimmy Shearing (a role for James Stewart), regains his sight after receiving the eyes of a dead man. Watching a Wild West show at Disneyland with his family, Shearing would have visions of being shot and would come to realize that the dead man was in fact murdered and the image of the murderer is still imprinted on the retina of his new eyes (or something). The story would end with a chase around the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary. Walt Disney (allegedly) barred Hitchcock from shooting at Disneyland after seeing Psycho
. Stewart left the project, Lehman argued with Hitchcock and the script was never shot.

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