Tony Award winning Broadway actor and star of the potential bore-fest BALLS OF FURY, Dan Fogler, has just sign on to play the legendary master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock in a film called NUMBER 13. The film is a comedy suspense thriller about the mystery surrounding Hitchcock’s ill-fated directorial debut of the same name.
You see Hitchcock for two weeks out of his life in [his] early 20s,” Fogler said of the plot of the film that will also star Ewan McGregor and Sir Ben Kingsley. “He just finished his first movie, which is supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not. So he’s freaking out about it and realizes that if he just switches a few things, it can become a thriller. [And] that’s how he finds his niche.
Interesting bit about Hitchcock’s original NUMBER 13, is that it was pulled from production in 1922, and evidence that the film even existed has since been missing. Alfred Hitchcock himself never spoke about this project in his later career.
…’Number 13′ takes its inspiration from Hitchcock’s more prevalent themes of suspense and mystery, placing the young director in a role all too familiar to fans of his later work – that of a man wrongly accused. The lead actor [Ernest Thesiger], who commissioned me [Fogler as Hitchcock] to make the film, basically wants to make a comedy, but he’s just not funny. He suddenly disappears, [so] Hitchcock does some interesting editing to make the character look like he got killed [in the film],” Fogler revealed of the flick’s early twist. “And [since] the actual actor has disappeared, everyone starts wondering: Did Hitchcock kill him? They start to suspect me in [a fake] murder.
The film stars Fogler, Academy Award Winner Sir Ben Kingsley, Ewan McGregor and Emily Mortimer (of SCREAM 3 fame). It’s been penned by Chase Palmer, which will also be his feature directorial debut.
I don’t know about anyone else, but Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors. I took a Film Authorship class on Hitchcock in film school and it was one of the most amazing ventures in film studies I’ve ever had. I mean what’s better than getting up for a 9 am class to just watch Hitchcock’s entire body of work? I just hope that the film, though being a comedic thriller, will do Hitchcock justice, seeing as the man was labeled as one of the best directors of the 20th century, yet he never won an academy award for any of his films.