FAMILY PLOT

'''Family Plot''' is a 1976 Universal motion picture directed by Alfred Hitchcock, his final film. It starred Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris and William Devane, with Cathleen Nesbitt.

Contents

Plot

Production

Cast

Trivia

External links

Plot

The story involves a fake psychic, con artist Blanche Tyler (played by Harris), and her taxi driver boyfriend, George Lumley (played by Dern), who attempt to locate the nephew of a wealthy and guiltridden old woman, Julia Rainbird (played by Nesbitt). Julia, one of Blanche's clients, was responsible for her now-deceased sister giving up a boy for adoption years earlier and now wants to make him her heir. She will pay $10,000 if he is found.
However, the nephew and prospective heir is now a successful jeweler in San Francisco known as Arthur Adamson (played by Devane), who has a secret and lurid past, having apparently murdered his adoptive parents and faked his own death. With his girlfriend Fran (played by Black), he has successfully kidnapped an assortment of millionaires and dignitaries, returning them when the ransom, a valuable gemstone, has been delivered, which they hide in their chandelier.
When Arthur learns that Blanche and George are pursuing him, he suspects the worst, putting their lives in danger.

Production

This comedy/thriller was adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman, based on the novel ''The Rainbird Pattern'' (1972) (ISBN 0-441-70393-3) by Victor Canning. Lehmann wanted the film to be sweeping, dramatic and dark but Hitchcock kept pushing him toward lightness and comedy. Lehman's screenplay earned him a 1977 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
The novel on which the film is based had earlier been rejected by Ernest Lehman, to whom it had been submitted as a potential project for him to either produce and/or direct. Although Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Lehman had attempted to work together on several projects following their huge success with ''North by Northwest'', this was their only other project to be filmed. Lehman had incurred Hitchcock's anger by declining the offer to write the screenplay for a thriller, ''No Bail For the 'Judge'', a thriller set in London and meant to star Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Harvey and John Williams. Although Hitchcock eventually got a fine screenplay and preproduction, location scouting, and costumes were well underway, that film was never made.

Cast

★ Hitchcock considered such actors as Burt Reynolds and Roy Scheider (for Adamson), Faye Dunaway (for Fran) and Beverly Sills (for Blanche) for the film . High salary demands were partly responsible for his turning to other actors.

★ Although Liza Minnelli was among the stars recommended to Hitchcock, he was especially delighted to work with Barbara Harris as the medium. He had previously tried to hire her for other film projects.

★ Hitchcock had earlier worked with Bruce Dern on episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and on the film ''Marnie'', in which he had a brief role in a flashback playing a doomed sailor.

★ William Devane was Hitchcock's first choice for the role of nefarious jeweler Arthur Adamson, but Devane was unavailable when the film went into production. Hitchcock finally settled on Roy Thinnes as Adamson and shot several scenes with him. When Devane became available, Hitchcock fired Thinnes and re-shot all of his scenes. Later, Thinnes confronted Hitchcock in a restaurant and asked the director why he was fired. Hitchcock simply looked at Thinnes until the actor left. Some shots of Thinnes as the character (from behind) remain in the film.

Trivia

★ An advertisement of this film can be seen in the 1993 Comedy film Dazed and Confused, when cahrectors pass a movie thereter.

★ Hitchcock, who often liked to specify the locales of his films by using on-screen titles or by filming famous landmarks, deliberately left the story's location unspecific, using sites in both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

★ 'Alfred Hitchcock's cameo' is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In ''Family Plot'' he can be seen (38 minutes into the film) in silhouette through the glass door of the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

External links

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