In HITCHCOCK’S BLONDES, acclaimed biographer Laurence Leamer has set his sights on one of the world’s greatest film directors, revealing both his genius and his underlying, eerie passions and partialities.

Born in England, Alfred Hitchcock was able to rise steadily upward in the nascent film industry there, participating in silent movies and producing its first talkie. Urged by producer David Selznick to migrate to the US, he further proved his genius when the first film he directed in the States, Rebecca, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. But Hitchcock soon realized that he needed to have complete control to make the movies he envisioned. Those would involve a usually petrifying plot in which charming but evil men would dominate, terrorize and, in some cases, brutalize or savagely kill beautiful, blonde ladies. A few women would retaliate, taking the criminal path.

"By mining each movie for his central theme, Leamer has created a readable and fascinating examination of Hitchcock’s secret life, while resisting the temptation to delve too deeply into specific nomenclature regarding his psychological makeup."

As Leamer’s title indicates, Hitchcock saw blondeness as the epitome of womanliness. His wife, Alma, was a blonde who assisted him behind the scenes. A full participant in his obsession, she helped him choose the palest, prettiest and most audience-attractive females in filmdom. The blondes who are Leamer’s focus are thus well known, indeed legendary, luminaries --- Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint and Janet Leigh --- all of whom Hitchcock dressed to the finest detail. If he found the smallest inclination in his women toward feminism, he quickly staunched it.

Hitchcock was as much a mystery as his famed and well-named films were: Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, Notorious. Possibly fading into his own fantasy world of female abasement, his behaviors often involved unwanted touching and stray but clearly planned remarks, once approaching actress Tippi Hedren with a proposition that she took as so salacious that she never repeated what he said.

By mining each movie for his central theme, Leamer has created a readable and fascinating examination of Hitchcock’s secret life, while resisting the temptation to delve too deeply into specific nomenclature regarding his psychological makeup. Hitchcock simply adored fair-haired women and treated them like servants, which, for the duration of filming, they were. They would reap the benefits of his strange aspect, which combined a passion for light-haired ladies and the dark side of life, depicted in a multitude of ways in his films. And though he secured for his works the attraction of handsome male stars like Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Gregory Peck, perhaps envying them for their fine physiques, he also could prove bossy and personally denigrating in his relationships with them.

Throughout this film-by-film biographical perspective, Leamer subtly shows Hitchcock’s genius and his shadowy psyche, his ability to push “emotions away, using irony as his shield.”