The Dark Side of Genius

The Life of Alfred Hitchcock

By: Donald Spoto

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

The story of the man who changed people’s relationships with their showers forever, thanks to Psycho, this is the classic, Edgar Award-winning biography of the enigmatic and intensely private Alfred Hitchcock. One of America’s greatest film directors, his suspenseful subject matter ranged from the dark drama of a man possibly trying to kill his wife, to the humorous problem of disposing of a body, to the ecological underpinnings of an attack by fowl fiends in a sleepy harbor town.

Acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the roots of Hitchcock’s obsessions - with food, murder, and idealized love, among others - and traces the origins of his incomparable, bizarre genius, from his childhood and education to the golden years of his career. Based on interviews with his writers, actors, and longtime associates, and on exhaustive research, The Dark Side of Genius is the definitive biography of Alfred Hitchcock.

Donald Spoto is the author of more than 20 books, including best-selling biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, and Audrey Hepburn. He lives with his husband, Danish artist and school administrator Ole Flemming Larsen, near Copenhagen, Denmark.

©1983 Donald Spoto (P)1998 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The finest book about a filmmaker yet. Sensational in its revelations; at the same time, a biography of unassailable integrity. I could not put it down." (Gregory Peck)

"Absolutely compulsory reading." (New York Times Book Review)

"A vivid and perceptive portrait…. Knowledgeable and revealing." (Time)

Intimate and endearing portrait of Hitch

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I really enjoyed this book and found a lot of new information even having taken an Alfred Hitchcock class in college. This book is a very in depth and person account of Hitch, one that successfully looks at him both critically and emotionally. Spoto does a wonderful job of covering all aspects of Hitch, giving an entertaining glance at his personal and professional lives with great balance to each. I think all Hitch fans will love this fun and informative book. The narrator was equally wonderful and pleasant to listen to.

So that was what Alfred Hitchcock was like

Having grown up with Hitchcock both in movies and television, I found this book fascinating. Never realized how he got his movies to be so visually interesting as well as psychologically terrorizing. I think Psycho was his best scare you to death film. I think Hitchcock was for too long, underrated and underappreciated. I recommend this book for Hitchcock fans as well as film fans in general.

Changes the way you look at AH

What did you love best about The Dark Side of Genius?

The way he was so exact about all his productions

What did you like best about this story?

Strange side of him

Which scene was your favorite?

How he made the "Birds"

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Great book to tell you about the way the movie industry was in the greatest time in movie history

Hitchcock

Beach day off of a new phone was the one you want,which has not changed

One Side of Genius

The good news is, this biography of Alfred Hitchcock is mostly about how he made each of his movies. The bad news is, it is mostly about his movies. What we love about Hitch is his work, prolific in scope, perfection in retrospect, so the focus on his pictures is what we mostly want to hear about. But we don't know much about the great man's guarded personal life, even after 20-plus hours of Spoto, based on painstaking research into every aspect of his life, and that is a missed opportunity to learn more about what made him tick.

What it boils down to is that the insatiable gourmand seems to have been sexually repressed (seems to have been -- no proof). What matters most is that, even if true, he channeled that energy into eliciting some tour de force performances from the series of elegant blondes who graced his pictures. Although he did go a little overboard with poor 'Tippi' Hedren, the part of this book that inspired the HBO movie The Girl, Hitchcock himself never really recovering from the experience of making The Birds and Marnie with her.

Either way, if you're a Hitchcock aficionado, you will find everything there is to know here. Every movie in great detail, at least three movies being juggled at any one time -- one he currently in production, one most recently completed, one in the planning process. Always of interest in a retrospective like this is contrasting contemporaneous reactions from the time a movie was made with conventional wisdom as it has evolved with 20-20 hindsight. An added bonus are the details of his work on his TV show, often overlooked.

The one big problem is the narration. This is an old recording. While Jeff Riggenbach does a fine workmanlike job, you can hear the pauses and cuts and breaths. This book deserves an audio upgrade.

Dark Side of Bordem

What did you like best about The Dark Side of Genius? What did you like least?

The book was very long and the author went on tangents that made it hard to follow. I did enjoy learning more about Alfred Hitchcock and his eccentric waysl.

Would you be willing to try another book from Donald Spoto? Why or why not?

Doubtful, he needs to bring it in a bit, too may rabbit holes that went nowhere and wasted my time.

Which character – as performed by Jeff Riggenbach – was your favorite?

It is a narrative book, henceforth no characters. He did however keep a consistent tone and was easy listening.

Was The Dark Side of Genius worth the listening time?

Not really, I could have read Wikipedia or Cliff Notes version and would have been as satisfying.

truly enjoyable

Where does The Dark Side of Genius rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

this book has as many shocks for me as a hitch film fascinating truly shows the many sides (very dark ones) of one of the greatest directors of all time

Very dark cookie

Where does The Dark Side of Genius rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Every story is different and I read(listen) all the time. Never not have a book going.I would say among the Bio's I have read, the book is well written. How ever the end was not at all good. I think the way the writer ended the book was due to having to finish the book and he had no more time.

What did you like best about this story?

Learning about Hitchcock's quirks, brilliant thinking, and strange connections with certain people.

Any additional comments?

Interesting life, and a story to tell. Dark man. disappointing ending.

Good story, ok narration, sloppy editing

This is a very well-written history of Hitchcock. The narrator made some odd pronunciation choices, but was generally ok in tone and tempo. The editing was noticeably rough. What appeared to be odd pauses by the narrator were later realized to be sloppy edits. Then at one point toward the end, the reverse: the editor cut the narrator off mid-word; and in the last 1/2 hour, the narration is interrupted by the narrator announcing the end of the original cassette, after which he resumes the story. Hard to imagine how that would get missed.

A Dark Analysis of The Master

I found myself often wondering how much of Spoto's psychoanalysis of Hitchcock's films was mere sensationalist over-extrapolation and probably unfair. But it was a fascinating journey, despite the narrator's dry delivery.