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.
Don Taylor (American actor and director) in Billy Wilder's "Stalag 17". His last major film role came in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955). From the late 1950s through the 1980s, Taylor turned to directing movies and TV shows, such as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", the short-lived "Steve Canyon", starring Dean Fredericks, and Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". One of his memorable efforts, in 1973, was the musical film "Tom Sawyer," which boasted a Sherman Brothers song score. Other films that Taylor directed are "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" (1971), "Echoes of a Summer" (1976), "The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday" (also 1976), "The Island of Dr. Moreau"