Themes and plot devices in Hitchcock films Clift at a dinner party around the filming of "I Confess" (1953) to swallow a carafe of brandy, which caused the actor to pass out almost immediately. In "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz", brandy is defined more closely as cognac. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is offered a brandy by Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), and after being attacked by the birds, drinks the brandy offered by Mitch (Rod Taylor). In "Rear Window", Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) is "just warming some brandy". In "Frenzy", Richard Blaney is sacked for supposedly stealing brandy, and can be seen in several sequences to be drinking brandy.
Gilbert Taylor as near to black and white as possible, with its grey, misty landscape". Taylor received BAFTA nominations over two consecutive years for the first two collaborations. Hitchcock requested Taylor work on his penultimate film "Frenzy" (1972). Despite a claim in Ronald Bergan's obituary of the cinematographer that Hitchcock was unaware the two men had worked together forty years earlier, it seems they had stayed in touch, according to Taylor's own account. Hitchcock never looked through the camera, because of his use of storyboards, leaving decisions to Taylor. The tracking shot, up and down a flight of stairs and then into