Critical positions

There are widely differing opinions about the prevalence of homosexuality in Hitchcock, and it would be useful, first, to look at what are probably the two extremes: the essentially conservative assessment of Robin Wood in Hitchcock's Films Revisited (1989), and the far more radical one put forward by Theodore Price in Hitchcock and Homosexuality (1992). In his chapter ‘The Murderous Gays: Hitchcock's Homophobia’, Robin Wood begins by looking at the claim that many of Hitchcock's psychopaths are coded as gay (Wood 1989: 336-57). In certain cases – Fane in MURDER!, Mrs Danvers in REBECCA, Brandon and Phillip in ROPE and Bruno in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN – Wood is prepared to go along with this; in others – Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, Norman Bates in PSYCHO and Rusk in FRENZY – he questions it. However, he agrees that there are strong links between all these characters. In particular, he suggests that most of them are ‘fascinating, insidiously attractive Hitchcock villains who constantly threaten to “take over” the films… not only as the center of interest but even, for all their monstrous actions, as the center of sympathy’ (347-48). This emphasises Hitchcock's ambivalence about such figures and, by extension, about homosexuality, and Wood explores the complex resonances this sets up in the films. He also discusses in detail the Brandon and Phillip relationship, and analyses Rope in terms of both the attitude towards homosexuality at the time and the problems of representing gayness under the Production Code (349-57).

Leonard in NORTH BY NORTHWEST is another murderous gay, and although Wood does not mention him here, he refers to the character's homosexuality in his original chapter on this film (Wood 1989: 133). In fact, Hitchcock cues us to connect the Vandamm-Leonard relationship with the Guy-Bruno one when he repeats the direct punch at the camera delivered by the seemingly straight character at the gay one. In each case – Guy hitting Bruno after the public disturbance at Senator Morton's party; Vandamm hitting Leonard when the latter exposes Eve's treachery – it's as if the (officially) straight character is angrily warding off the sexual threat of the gay one.