Apparently Alfred Hitchcock was not the only one to make a cameo in his films.
I share this observation in conjunction with my upcoming salute to English composer Richard Arnell, which will take place this Thursday morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Arnell (1917-2009) was born 100 years ago this Friday.
Patrick Jonathan, who grew close to the composer over the last 20 years of his life, and who provides the liner notes for a compact disc release of Arnell’s Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 featuring Warren Cohen and the MusicaNova Orchestra, on the Con Brio Recordings label, has been quite generous with personal anecdotes, documents and photographs.
I found this story particularly fascinating, since I must have seen the film in question eight or ten times, and of course I am an enormous Bernard Herrmann fan:
“Here’s an anecdote that gives some idea of how being Tony’s friend was always exciting and fun. I’ve enclosed a photo, even though I know your tribute is a radio show, just for context.
“One evening in the mid-1980s I got a call from him to ask whether I was watching TV. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind turning on the channel that was showing Hitchcock’s ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ which was already more than halfway through its broadcast. He asked me to concentrate on the scene towards the climax when James Stewart gets out of a taxi at the Albert Hall (the denouement was to feature an assassination attempt timed to coincide with a cymbal clash during a symphonic performance). I wasn’t to concentrate on the actors but on the posters in the background. To my amazement I saw his name featured prominently there!
“I spoke to him after the film had finished and he explained that he had been a close friend of Bernard Herrmann, who composed the score for the film. One of the reasons why Herrmann composed such exceptional scores (‘Psycho’, ‘Citizen Kane’, etc.) was because he didn’t get involved at the edit stage just to work from cues, but immersed himself in the production process, regularly sitting in on the film set and getting a feel for the project as it progressed. He had asked Arnell to come along with him on his visits so often that Hitchcock pulled him aside and asked who this young man was. Herrmann explained that he was maybe England’s most gifted contemporary symphonist at which point Hitchcock, who loved to insert in-jokes into his movie decided that the two composers’ names be printed on posters by the prop department so they could feature in the movie. That’s how Arnell, somehow, got himself a ‘featured role’ in a Hitchcock classic!”