Christmas On The BBC - The Girl

Alfred Hitchcock’s films always seethed with themes of madness and latent sexuality, but the real tale behind the making of his masterpiece, The Birds, is much more disturbing, as explored in the BBC’s Christmas drama The Girl.

Sienna Miller plays the glacial beauty and actress, Tippi Hedren, who suffered under the dictatorial, and often sadistic, direction of Hitch himself, played by Toby Jones in heavy prosthetics to transform himself into the formidable genius.

Based on the book Spellbound by Beauty, written by Hedren’s friend and biographer Donald Spoto, the drama focuses on the increasingly fraught relationship between the beautiful and promising young actress and the tormented genius, Hitchcock, whose increasing obsession with Hedren would lead to disastrous consequences for both of their careers.

The Girl is set between the years of 1961 (when Hitchcock and his wife spot Tippi, then a model, on a TV commercial) and 1964 with the completion of Marnie, after which Hedren and Hitchcock bitterly parted ways.

The director’s brutal treatment of Hedren –another of the ‘Icy Blondes’ that obsessed him but never returned his love – has become the stuff of legend. The infamous scene where she is attacked by the birds in the attic was allegedly shot over and over for five days, until a terrified Hedren’s doctor was forced to intervene. Apparently real birds were attached to Hedren’s clothes by wires for the attack scenes – the terror you see on her face is real. Hedren claims that Hitchcock’s cruelty towards her began when she rebuffed his advances, although the drama’s writer, Gwyneth Hughes, confesses ‘there were unwanted sexual advances here, certainly, but there was also a terrible need and loneliness. I could not see Alfred Hitchcock simply as a villain.’

Neither the actress or the director were to leave the working relationship unscathed, with Hedren blaming Hitchcock for the demise of her career and Hitchcock being said to have found the experience impossible to get over.

As well as receiving mixed reviews from across the pond (where it has already been screened) the drama is also attracting a fair amount of controversy following a supposed ‘backlash’ from fans who say that the portrayal of Hitchcock as a repulsive sexual predator is unfair and untrue. The widow of Jim Brown, Hitchcock’s ‘right-hand man’ and assistant director of The Birds who was apparently interviewed by the BBC for the drama shortly before his death last year, refutes the drama’s portrayal of the directing genius.

Mrs Brown is quoted as saying “If he (Brown) was here today, I doubt that he would have any negative comments. He would be saddened by the image portrayed of his friend and mentor.”

So will you be tuning into The Girl? Or will you be waiting for January’s release of Hitchcock (starring Anthony Hopkins) for a very different portrayal of the enigmatic director?

The Girl will show on BBC2 on Boxing Day.