Hollywood would be dull ifAlfred HitchcockandWalt Disneyhad never taken their respective career paths. Hitchcock was the “Master of Suspense,” a filmmaker who consistently grabbed fictional books and turned them into spellbinding and evergreen motion pictures. Thanks to his creativity, most of his films helped shape their respective genres.The Lodger: A Story of the London Fogprovided the template for thrillers, North by Northwestplanted a seed for Bond-like spy movies, whilePsychois always part of the research material for any ambitious horror director.
As for Walt Disney, he was the animator and producer who introduced several new elements into the development of cartoons. He also invested in theme parks, a move that made his film productions even more popular.
Given the achievements of both individuals, few would expect them to draw daggers. After all, Hollywood heavyweights are always more likely to dine together in secret meetings and award shows rather than curse each other out. Since its birth, the industry has mostly thrived because of collaboration, so a Hitchcock movie for Disney Studios wouldn’t have been surprising. However, that never happened because Walt Disney didn’t like Hitchcock. Disney hated the revered filmmaker so much that he prevented one of his planned movies,The Blind Man, from being made.
The Blind Man Would Have Been Another Outstanding Hitchcock Thriller
You are only as good as your last effort, and after the success ofPsycho,Alfred Hitchcock knew he had to make something even better. He thusteamed up with screenwriter Ernest Lehman (who wroteNorth by Northwest) to mine something from the medical field. Once again, he leaned into the kinds of characters that normally turn baseline movies into authentically free and unique ones.
The Blind Manwas going to bea story about Larry Keating, a famous, blind jazz pianist, who undergoes ground-breaking eye transplant surgery.Thanks to the development, Keating’s quality of life improves. He goes to watch movies and appreciates his wife’s calves a bit more. But this is a Hitchcock film, so there is a twist.Keating keeps seeing someone firing a gun at him and soon realizes the eye donor was shot dead and the image of his killer was imprinted on his retina.
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What would such a man do under such circumstances? In the hands of another director and screenwriter, the story might involve Keating going to the police and waiting for them to take action. For Hitchcock, the character was meant to go the fullfilm noir detectiveroute.Aware that the murderer is still out there, he sets out to find and stop him, before he commits more crimes.The events then culminate in a chase around the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary.
From the premise alone, it’s easy to conclude that this could have become one ofAlfred Hitchcock’s best films. Superficially over-the-top, but harboring an underlying melancholia,the glitzy and twisty cinematic portrait would have been a typical venture for the director.Unfortunately, Walt Disney got in the way, and for a reason that many fans of the filmmaker would consider petty.
Alfred Hitchcock Wanted to Shoot The Blind Man at Disneyland
According toHitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcockby John Russell Taylor,the filmmaker wanted a huge chunk of the movie to be set in an amusement park, and Disneyland, given its size, was the ideal location.The park had been open for about five years by then, and was hugely popular. FilmingThe Blind Manthere would have meant even more publicity, so no one thought it would be a problem. Hitchcock and his team figured that all they would have to do was make a call to Mickey Mouse’s creator. How wrong they were.
The press got word about the project and when the story appeared in the papers, Walt Disney was bemused.He promptly made a public statement, vowing to never allow the maker of “that disgusting moviePsycho” to set foot in Disneyland.Not on his watch! The studio head was forceful in his condemnation of the complacency of Hollywood and its willingness to release violent movies for profit, a direct swipe at everyone who wasn’t telling the kinds of stories he was telling.
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Hollywood had lost its faith in the British auteur, and it would cost them.
Understandably, Hitchcock was furious and the two never spoke. After that, Lehman tried to switch things around in the script, to create room for filming in different locations, but it never felt right. Worse still, James Stewart, who had been tapped to star in the film, backed out.The death blow would come when Lehman also gave up and decided to quit, claiming he couldn’t work his way around the plot problems.Furious, Hitchcock vowed to never to work with the screenwriter again.
You Can Still “Hear” A Version of The Blind Man
Petty is what Walt Disney was in this instance, but his reasoning makes sense. As free as he may have been to make motion pictures according to his creative leanings, he always displayed a sense of fiduciary, even parental, responsibility.The studio head stood for something, and to him, movies needed to have a family-friendly tone.
Given his views, the likelihood of working with someone who didn’t care about the PG label was always going to be minimal. It’s truly a shame that he never liked one ofthe greatest movies of all time,but years later, his principles still stand tall. Today, Walt Disney Studios still prides itself on being a (mostly) family-friendly brand.
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Alfred Hitchcock’s fans may never forgive Walt Disney for blocking what could have been a spectacular movie, but they can at least “hear” a version ofThe Blind Man. That’s right. Like Larry Keating before the transplant, fans will have to settle for hearing only as there isa 2015 BBC audio filmbased on Hitchcock’s script. Screenwriter Mark Gatiss completed the screenplay and made the film voiced by Hugh Larrie. It’s not ideal, but it’s a consolation.
