The Hitchcock Blonde Revivalist Jubilee
Every now and then I participate in a Blog-a-thon to raise money for some cause or another. This play was written for “For The Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blog-a-thon” and raised money to help restore the 1924 movie The White Shadow. This lost film had an Assistant Director/ Screenwriter/ Editor/ Production Designer/ Art Director/Set Decorator named Alfred Hitchcock. Elements for this piece were later re-used for my play “Jug Band Blues at the Neon Cypress.”
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(Lights up. A living room. JASON, WALLY and SAMANTHA are having band rehearsal. JASON plays a jug, WALLY plays a washboard and SAMANTHA plays the spoons. After a moment, their song ends.)
JASON: We need a name for our band.
SAMANTHA: Right! Somethin’ that’ll catch the eyes and ears of everyone at the Jug Band Jubilee next September in Louisville.
WALLY: Somethin’ that looks good in the press!
(Pause. Everyone thinks for a moment.)
SAMANTHA: What about Hitchcock Blonde?
JASON: I don’t know, it’s got to be somethin’ catchy, like Basin Street Sheiks.
SAMANTHA: Hitchcock is catchy.
JASON: Somethin’ sexy, like The Hump Night Thumpers.
SAMANTHA: Blonde is sexy.
JASON: Somethin’ that never goes out of style, like Dixieland Jug Blowers.
SAMANTHA: Are you kiddin’? Hitchcock blondes in Hitchcock films never go out of style!
WALLY: It’s got to look good in the press!
(Pause. Everyone thinks for a moment.)
SAMANTHA: Think about it! Hitchcock Blonde. Icy. Aloof. A cool surface with an inner fire! Grace Kelly…
JASON: I don’t know…
SAMANTHA: Eva Marie Saint…
JASON: It just…
SAMANTHA: Kim Novak…
JASON: It might…
SAMANTHA: Tippi Hedren…
JASON: It might not…
SAMANTHA: Ingrid Bergman…
JASON: There’s a chance…
SMANTHA: Janet Leigh, Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich, Madeleine Carroll, Anny Ondra, Priscilla Lane, Betty Compson!
JASON: I don’t know. It might not be the message we want to send. Jug, washboard and spoons. That’s us. Simple. Pure. Classic. There’s a chance Hitchcock Blonde could be strayin’ from what good jug-banding is all about!
SAMANTHA: Look, a good jug band is about rhythm and pacing and the essential instability of life, right?
JASON: Right.
SAMANTHA: Just like a Hitchcock film! And what do you find in a Hitchcock film?
JASON: A Hitchcock blonde?
SAMANTHA: Exactly!
WALLY: It’d look good in the press!
(JASON takes a moment to take all of this information in.)
JASON: Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, you’re right! Hitchcock Blonde! It’s catchy, it’s sexy, it’ll never go out of style! It’s us! We are now Hitchcock Blonde! Besides, havin’ Hitchcock in our name could be our way into the film world! We could start composin’ scores like Bernard Herrmann or Dimitri Tiomkin or Michael Mortilla.
(Everyone is pleased. They take up their instruments and start rehearsing again. After a moment, WALLY stops.)
WALLY: I plum forgot! There’s already a band called Hitchcock Blonde. Electronic pop. They have an album called “Peroxide Vampire.” They do good in the press.
(Pause. Everyone thinks for a moment.)
SAMANTHA: What about The De Palmas?
(Lights down.)
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