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August 2001, Week 4

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From:
Murray Pomerance <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sat, 25 Aug 2001 13:14:41 -0500
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By memorandum of April 15, 1955, Luigi Luraschi, the Paramount
go-between who handled all dealings with Geoffrey Shurlock and mediated
other business as well, informed Hitchcock and Herbert Coleman jointly
of the following:

1. The name Louis Bernard was not available, but either M. Bernard
Constant or M. Marc Faustin would do.  (That was obviously changed later.)
2. For the character who would ultimately be Drayton, the name Addison
was not available, but Allington, Allinghma, or Addiscombe would all do.
3. The name Ben McKenzie, originally planned for the Jimmy Stewart
character, was not available in the case that it would refer to an
American physician.
4. Mr. Alfred Drake, who was referred to in the context, if I recollect
correctly, of Jo's theatrical career, was a real person and there were
legal problems with the reference.
5. Ambrose Chapel, and also Ambrose Chappell, were both checked by the
London office of Paramount and reported clear.  The first was checked as
the name of a church; the second as the name of a taxidermist or other
resident of London.

I have the above from the Herrick.

[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> mpomeran wrote:
>
> > Readers might be interested to know that in the arcane
> > business of motion picture scripting and copyrighting, it is
> > not only an aspiring actor who is forbidden by law to take
> > on an "already-owned" name [...]  One of the people (I was going to say
> > "ironically
> > enough" but there were so many of them, I suspect, there's
> > no real irony here) who had this kind of trouble routinely
> > was, you guessed it, Alfred Hitchcock.
>
> Murray is talking of naming characters from real life.  (I'd love to hear an
> instance or two, Murray.)
>
> Slightly off-topic, then, but have I told this anecdote here before?
>
> Apparently the great Irish director, Rex Ingram, whose films were beloved by
> David Lean, and others, was born Rex Hitchcock.  One day in the 1920s, the young
> Alfred Hitchcock, just starting out in movies, met Rex Ingram/Hitchcock (no
> relation).  'My boy', the great man said, 'I advise you to change your surname,
> like I did.  You'll never get anywhere with the one you've got.'
>
> The anecdote was told to me by Leslie Shepard in Dublin, who had been an
> associate of the noted film historian Liam O'Leary.
>
> - Ken Mogg.
> http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin
>
> ----
> Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
> University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

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