Alfred Hitchcock & The Bowel Movement

[MrRING]

In discussing the upcoming Hitchcock film with a college at work, she brought up a story that I had never heard before and which I suspect is an urban legend. Basically it goes that Alfred Hitchcock bet a guy he wouldn't stay a night in a haunted house, and the guy said he would. The agreement was that the guy would stay handcuffed in the house overnight and be released in the morning. Then, supposedly Hitch slipped the guy some ex-lax causing him to "drop the motherload" and he had to sit in it all night.

So I ask the folks at this board:

- did this happen?

or

- is it an urban legend?

 

[EnolaGaia]

I remember hearing this Ex-Lax storyline in relation to a prank Hitchcock played on one of his cameramen. In one version, the cameraman was chained or otherwise bound to his camera. In another version, the cameraman was locked in a soundstage overnight. I don't remember hearing this story motif in relation to a haunted house, though.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I've found a reference to Ex-Lax and an overnight stay in / at a house. However, according to this account the house wasn't a 'haunted house', but the eerie house on the _Psycho_ set. This account mentions one of Hitchcock's sets, but not Hitchcock himself.

My dad was working on a film in Hollywood, one location shoot was out where the house exterior for Psycho (which had recently wrapped) was located. Back in those days, for extended location shoots they would set the whole crew up in little caravan-style trailer camps, which essentially turned into PARTY TOWN every night.

So, one night, he and some of the camera crew guys had been drinking and went poking around the Psycho set. They stood around goofing for a while and one thing led to another. One of the camera guys had dared a sound man to spend the night alone in the house. Not wanting to be thought ill of by his co-workers, he agreed. There was one condition though. He had to be handcuffed to a tripod overnight so they knew he stayed there.

Now, back then, a tripod could way three hundred pounds. Again, he agreed. They went and fetched a thermos of cocoa to keep him warm and nourished overnight and made their exit. About halfway back to the trailer camp, the camera guy who initially made the wager, told everyone in the group that he had made sure to fortify the thermos of cocoa with an entire sheet of Ex-lax.

SOURCE: http://adventures-of-the-blackgang.tumb ... nzy-thames

 

[MrRING]

Thanks - it's starting to sound like a UL that has been attached to Hitchcock via the Psycho house...

 

[EnolaGaia]

I've found a more substantive reference to a Hitchcock Ex-Lax prank:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Bf5l0q ... 22&f=false

This leads to page 99 of _Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light_ by Patrick Mcgilligan.

It describes a prank involving Dickie Beville, handcuffs, and laxative. The text mentions this prank had been widely retold in wildly varying versions.

 

[MrRING]

Even that sounds more UL like the whole Elvis racist comment thing that everybody takes as real and yet there is no record of it actually having happened.

 

[GNC]

The main reason people think Elvis was racist, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, is because Chuck D got it wrong on Fight the Power, which is still played on the radio today. Chuck later admitted he was wrong and apologised, but no one remembers that.

Anyway, the first time I heard of the Hitch story was in Donald Spoto's biography The Dark Side of Genius, back in the nineties. Can't recall if he gave a reference, mind you. The book was published in '83.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The incident related on page 111 of _The Dark Side of Genius_ involves a property man, an overnight stay in a darkened studio, handcuffs binding the property man to a camera tripod, and laxative delivered via brandy.

 

[MrRING]

Was Spotto relaying a UL then, and that's why it's been given credence as real?

 

[GNC]

Thanks. Does Spoto say where he got the story from, though? He did tend to put the boot into Hitch's reputation in that book.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Spoto credits a Rodney Ackland as a source on Hitchcock's preoccupation with pranks during the period in which the incident allegedly occurred, but the text doesn't clearly indicate Ackland was the source of this particular anecdote.

 

[GNC]

I do know there was also a story about his daughter Patricia being left at the top of a ferris wheel for ages as a prank, which left her a bit traumatised. Think it was on the set of Strangers on a Train (which she's in).

 

[milk23]

I'd say the over night stay in the psycho house is an embelishment. On the studio tour they give the bus travels past the Bates house and it is far from scarey. It actually looks extremely disappointing when you remember the icon scene of Norm atop the steps looking back towards the light in his mother's room. Also bear in mind that the interiors are sure to have been shot on some sound stage elsewhere

 

[MrRING]

It's interesting:

1 person making a statement in general wouldn't be believed, but one person willing to be named in a book and the story becomes accepted as fact?

The reason this came up - I work with somebody for whom this story has vilified Hitchcock in her mind... and I'd for it to be conclusively proven to be rumor.

 

[MrRING]

It looks like recent biographer Edward White says it happened, according to this article at the New Republic:
https://newrepublic.com/article/161559/haunted-imagination-alfred-hitchcock

He had, without doubt, a strong sadistic streak, both as a man and as a moviemaker. He found, as White notes, “great sport in seeing others being humbled.” Like Graham Greene, whom he tried to get to write for him, he delighted in playing cruel and demeaning practical jokes, often on women. He had an actress who was allergic to smoke play a scene in a phone booth that he slowly filled up with steam. Another time, he spiked a crew member’s drink with a strong laxative and conspired to leave him handcuffed overnight in a public place. These “jokes” and others like them are detailed in a section of White’s book entitled “The Entertainer.” Hmm.

 

[Mikefule]

The main reason people think Elvis was racist, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, is because Chuck D got it wrong on Fight the Power, which is still played on the radio today. Chuck later admitted he was wrong and apologised, but no one remembers that.

Interesting. I have been a fan of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly for over 40 years and had never even heard the rumour. However, I've never been an Elvis fan and have never bought into the whole "Elvis is the king" thing.

After reading your post, I just did a quick Google and found this. It looks like a decent source and is well argued.

I am sure there were very few southern Americans from that period who had absolutely no racial prejudices at all, but as far as I can tell, all or most of the early rock 'n' roll and rockabilly musicians admired black music and black musicians and acknowledged their debt to them.