Ben Hecht's script throws out some inspiring psychobabble, but then also becomes quite credible from the mouth of psychiatrist Michael Chekhov. (This is perhaps a deliberate touch.) Hecht had been undergoing psychiatry himself and he turned the original plot's devil worship theme into 'a manhunt story wrapped up as pseudo-psychoanalysis' (Hitchcock.)
He was Oscar nominated, lost to James Dunn for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Miklos Rozsa won for his score, which incorporated a theremin for the first time. (He went on to use it again for The Lost Weekend. Selznick complained to the composer, who said "Yes, I had not only used the theremin but also, the piccolo, the trumpet, the triangle and the violin, goodbye!" (Double Life, Miklos Rozsa.) Selznick's grump was that Wilder's film came out first.)
"Any husband of Constance is a husband of mine."
The Hitchcock appearance, not the only time he's holding a musical instrument:
Loved in the dream scene how far away he appears from the other card player. The scene was reworked once by William Cameron Menzies then again by Jack Cosgrove and the producer was still not really happy with it. Otherwise he gave Hitchcock very little interference.
Edited by Hal Kern. George Barnes shot it. A Selznick picture.
Truffaut didn't like this - he thought it tedious, and that Peck wasn't a 'Hitchcock actor' - his eyes weren't expressive enough!
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