Sally's Reviews > Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock

This book would have been better had it started on about page 150. The three stars is for the second half of the book; the first part would have rated only two stars. Joan Harrison is a forgotten name in film and television history, although the subtitle, “The Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock,” certainly overstates the case. Harrison was involved with Hitchcock during much of his British film career and came over to the United States with him when he made Rebecca. After that she went out on her own, primarily as a writer and producer, with perhaps her best known film the noir Phantom Lady. Harrison comes back into Hitchcock’s orbit in the 1950s with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as producer for the series.

Despite all the apparent research the author did so much of the book seems to be conjecture and surmise. And although there are a lot of letters, we don’t get a real sense of the woman. She “probably” did x or “thought” y, and because she was a woman with a strong sense of narrative she must have been interested in the woman’s perspective in films. The first 150 pages on her family and early life could really have been condensed and much more time devoted to her work on the Hitchcock series. Apparently she had affairs, maybe numerous, with, among others, Clark Gable. But we know little about them. She also may have had one or more affairs with women, but who knows? At age 51, she marries writer Eric Ambler, sort of out of the blue, and they’re happy (more or less).

It could have been better. Two minor issues that really annoyed me. Judith Anderson in Rebecca is mentioned as playing the head maid. Anyone who knows anything about stately British houses knows that the difference between the housekeeper (Anderson's role) and a maid is immense. The other was that Ray Milland was described as Welsh American. He was Welsh and served in the British Army. Although he became an American citizen in the 1940s, Welsh American isn't correct (despite what Wikipedia says).