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After a very substantial career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood and, in 1956, became an American citizen, also retaining his British citizenship.
Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films, in a career spanning six decades, from the silent era, through the invention of sound films, and far into the color era.
As a director, he was among the most consistently recognizable by the general public, and was one of the most successful of his era. He continues to be one of the best-known and most popular filmmakers of all time.
Hitchcock began his directing career in the United Kingdom in 1922. From 1939 onward, he worked primarily in the United States. In September, 1940, Hitchcock had purchased a mountaintop estate for the sum of $40,000. Known as the 1870 Cornwall Ranch or "Heart o' the Mountain" which was located at the end of Canham Road. The Ranch was perched high above Scotts Valley, California, and the Hitchcocks resided there from 1940 to 1972. The Hitchcocks became close friends with the parents of Joan Fontaine, after she starred in his film, Rebecca. Years later, after a break-in at his estate, Hitchcock replaced all of the accumulated paintings with studio-made copies. The family sold the estate in 1974, six years before Hitchcock's death.
Hitchcock and family also purchased a second home in late 1942 at 10957 Bellagio Road in Los Angeles, just across from the Bel Air Country Club.
Rebecca was the only Hitchcock film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (though the award did not go to Hitchcock), four other films were nominated. In 1967 he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement. He never won an Academy Award for directing.
Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899, in Leytonstone, London, the second son and youngest of three children of William Hitchcock (1862-1914), a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock (née Whelan; 1863-1942). His family was mostly Roman Catholic, being of Irish extraction. Hitchcock was sent to the Jesuit Classic school St. Ignatius College in Enfield, London. He often described his childhood as being very lonely and sheltered, which was compounded by his weight issues.
It is widely known that as a child, Hitchcock was once sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for ten minutes as punishment for behaving badly. This idea of being harshly treated or wrongfully accused is frequently reflected in Hitchcock's films.
Hitchcock's mother would often make him address her while standing at the foot of her bed, especially if he behaved badly, forcing him to stand there for hours. These experiences of Hitchcock would later be used for the portrayal of the character of Norman Bates in his movie Psycho.
Hitchcock's father died when he was 14. In the same year, he left the Jesuit-run St Ignatius' College in Stamford Hill, his school at the time, to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After graduating, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company.
During this period, Hitchcock became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in London, working as a title-card designer for the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures. In 1920, he had received a full-time position at Islington Studios with its American owner, Famous Players-Lasky and their British successor, Gainsborough Pictures, designing the titles for silent movies.
In 1925, Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures gave Hitchcock an opportunity to direct his first film, The Pleasure Garden made at UFA Studios in Germany. The commercial failure of this film threatened to derail his promising career. Hitchcock rebounded in 1926 and made his debut in the thriller genre with the film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The film was a major commercial and critical success when it was released in January 1927 throughout the United Kingdom. As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques that Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany. This film was the first truly "Hitchcockian film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man".
Following the success of The Lodger, Hitchcock began initial efforts to promote himself in the media, and hired a publicist to help enhance his growing reputation as one of the British film industry's rising stars. On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director, Alma Reville at the Brompton Oratory. Their first child, daughter Patricia, was born in 1928. Alma was to become Hitchcock's closest collaborator. She wrote some of his screenplays and (though often uncredited) worked with him on every one of his films.
In 1929, Hitchcock began work on his tenth film Blackmail. While the film was still in production, the studio decided to make it one of the UK's first sound pictures. With the climax of the film taking place on the dome of the British Museum, Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences. In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock had explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, emphasizing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder.
In 1933, Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success and his second, The 39 Steps (1935), is often considered one of the best films from his early period. This film was also one of the first to introduce the concept of the "Macguffin", a plot device around which a whole story seems to revolve, but ultimately has nothing to do with the true meaning or ending of the story. In The 39 Steps, the Macguffin is a stolen set of design plans. (Hitchcock told French director François Truffaut: "There are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, 'Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?' 'Oh,' says the other, 'that's a Macguffin.' 'Well,' says the first man, 'what's a Macguffin?' The other answers, 'It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.' 'But,' says the first man, 'there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.' 'Well,' says the other, 'then that's no Macguffin.'")
Hitchcock's next major success was in 1938 with his film The Lady Vanishes, a clever and fast-paced film about the search for a kindly old Englishwoman (Dame May Whitty), who disappears while onboard a train in the fictional country of Vandrika (a thinly-veiled version of Nazi Germany).
By 1938, Hitchcock had become known for his famous observation, "Actors are cattle. He once said that he first made this remark as early as the late 1920s, when he thought about stage actors who were snobbish about motion pictures. However, Michael Redgrave said that Hitchcock had made the statement during the filming of The Lady Vanishes. The phrase would haunt Hitchcock for years to come and would result in a funny incident during the filming of his 1941 production of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, when Carole Lombard brought some heifers onto the set — with name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the films — to surprise the director.
At the end of the 1930s, Hitchcock was at the zenith of his artistic talents, and he was in a position to negotiate his own career options when David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract that began in March 1939, when the Hitchcocks moved to the United States.
With the prestigious Selznick picture Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American movie, although it was set in England and based on a novel by English author Daphne du Maurier and starred Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. This Gothic melodrama explores the fears of a naïve young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with the problems of a distant husband, a predatory housekeeper, and the legacy of her husband's late wife, the beautiful, mysterious Rebecca. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940. However, the statuette went to Selznick as the film's producer, and the film failed to win the Best Director award for Hitchcock.
There were additional problems between Selznick and Hitchcock. Selznick was known to impose very restrictive rules upon Hitchcock, thereby hindering his creative control. Hitchcock was then forced to shoot the film as Selznick had wanted, immediately creating friction within their relationship. At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting," which meant that the producer did not have nearly the leeway to create his own film as he liked, but had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product. The film was the third longest of Hitchcock's films at 130 minutes, exceeded only by The Paradine Case at 132 minutes and North by Northwest at 136 minutes.
Hitchcock's second American film, the European-set thriller Foreign Correspondent (originally titled Personal History), was also nominated for Best Picture during that year. The movie was filmed in the first year of World War II and was inspired by the rapidly-changing events in Europe, as fictionally-covered by an American newspaper reporter portrayed by a wise-cracking Joel McCrea. The film cleverly used actual footage of European scenes and scenes filmed on a Hollywood backlot. Because of Hollywood's Production Code censorship, the film avoided direct references to Germany and Germans.
In September of 1940, the Hitchcocks purchased the 200-acre Cornwall Ranch, located near Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains in northern California. The Ranch became the primary residence of the Hitchcocks for the rest of their lives, although they kept their Bel Air home. Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer as well as director. Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz, California for the English coastline sequence. This film was to be actor Cary Grant's first time working with Hitchcock, and it was one of the few times that Grant would be cast in a sinister role. Joan Fontaine won Best Actress Oscar and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for her outstanding performance in Suspicion. Grant plays an irresponsible husband whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety by his wife (Fontaine). In a classic scene, Hitchcock uses a light bulb to illuminate what might be a fatal glass of milk that Grant is bringing to his wife. In the book upon which the movie is based ("Before the Fact" by Francis Iles), Grant is a killer, but Hitchcock and the studio felt Grant's image would be tarnished by that ending. Though a homicide would have suited him better, as he stated to Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock settled for an ambiguous finale.
Saboteur (1942) was the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal, a studio where he would continue his career during his later years. Hitchcock was then forced to utilize Universal contract players Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. Hitchcock made the most of the situation and had received remarkably good performances from the two lead actors. Breaking with Hollywood conventions of the time, Hitchcock did extensive location filming, especially in New York City, and memorably depicted a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hitchcock's personal favourite of all his films and the second of the early Universal films, was about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. In its use of overlapping characters, dialogue, and closeups it has provided a generation of film theorists with psychoanalytic potential, including Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. The film also harkens back to one of Cotten's best known films, Citizen Kane. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa, California, during the summer of 1942. The director showcased his own personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.
Working at 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock had adapted a script of John Steinbeck's that had chronicled the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack in the film Lifeboat (1944). Since the action sequences were confined to the small boat, the film was clearly the most confined of Hitchcock's films. The locale also posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance. That was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for "Reduco-Obesity Slayer". While at Fox, Hitchcock seriously considered directing the film version of A.J. Cronin's novel about a Catholic priest in China, The Keys of the Kingdom, but the plans for this fell through. John M. Stahl ended up directing the 1944 film, which was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Gregory Peck, among other luminaries.
Returning to England for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944, Hitchcock filmed two short films for the Ministry of Information, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. The films were made for the Free French, were the only ones Hitchcock made in French, and feature typical Hitchcockian touches. In the 1990s, the two films were shown by Turner Classic Movies and released on home video.
In 1945, Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" (in effect, a film-editor) for a Holocaust documentary produced by the British Army. The film, which recorded the liberation of Concentration Camps, remained unreleased until 1985, when it was completed by PBS Frontline and distributed under the title Memory of the Camps.
Hitchcock again worked for Selznick when he had directed Spellbound, which explored the then-fashionable subject of psychoanalysis and featured a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Gregory Peck is amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past. The dream sequence as it actually appears in the film is considerably shorter than was originally envisioned, which was to be several minutes long, because it proved to be too disturbing for the audience. Some of the memorable and original musical score by Miklos Rozsa (which employs the theremin) was later adapted by the composer into a concert piano concerto.
Notorious (1946) followed Spellbound. According to Hitchcock in his book-length interview with Francois Truffaut, Selznick sold the director, the two stars (Grant and Bergman) and the screenplay (by Ben Hecht) to RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 due to cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). From this point on, Hitchcock would produce his own films, giving him a far greater degree of freedom to pursue the projects that interested him. Notorious starred Hitchcock regulars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. It was a huge box office success and has remained one of Hitchcock's most acclaimed films. His use of uranium as a plot device briefly led to Hitchcock's being under surveillance by the FBI. McGilligan wrote that Hitchcock consulted Dr. Robert Millikan of Caltech about the development of an atomic bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction" only to be confronted by the news stories of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. These bombings led to the end of World War II.
After completing his final film for Selznick, The Paradine Case (a promising courtroom drama that critics found lost momentum because it apparently ran too long and exhausted its resource of ideas), Hitchcock filmed his first color film, Rope, which appeared in 1948. Here Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1943). He also experimented with exceptionally long takes — up to ten minutes long (see Themes and devices). Featuring James Stewart in the leading role, Rope was the first of four films Stewart would make for Hitchcock. It was based on the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. Somehow Hitchcock's cameraman managed to move the bulky, heavy Technicolor camera quickly around the set as it followed the continuous action of the long takes.
Under Capricorn (1949), set in nineteenth-century Australia, also used the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black and white films for several years. For Rope and Under Capricorn, Hitchcock formed a production company with Sidney Bernstein, called Transatlantic Pictures, which became inactive after these two unsuccessful pictures. Hitchcock continued to produce his films for the rest of his life.
With the film, Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, Hitchcock combined many of the best elements from his preceding British and American films. Hitchcock approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. Two men casually meet and speculate on removing people who are causing them difficulty. One of the men, though, takes this banter entirely seriously. With Farley Granger reprising some elements of his role from Rope, Strangers continued the director's interest in the narrative possibilities of blackmail and murder. Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, is a highly effective Hitchcock villain playing the quietly menacing Bruno who hounds Granger to carry out his part of the one-sided agreement.
MCA head Lew Wasserman, whose client list included James Stewart, Janet Leigh and other actors who would appear in Hitchcock's films, had a significant impact in packaging and marketing Hitchcock's films beginning in the 1950s. With Wasserman's help, Hitchcock received tremendous creative freedom from the studios, as well as substantive financial rewards as a result of Paramount's profit-sharing contract.
Three very popular films starring Grace Kelly followed. Dial M for Murder (1954) was adapted from the popular stage play by Frederick Knott. Ray Milland plays the suave and scheming villain, an ex-tennis pro, who tries to murder his innocent wife Grace Kelly for her money. When the murder goes awry and the assassin is killed by her in self-defense, he manipulates the evidence to pin the murder of the assassin on his wife. Her lover Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) and police inspector Hubbard (John Williams) work urgently to save her from execution. This was originally another experimental film, with Hitchcock using the technique of 3D cinematography, although the film was not released in this format at first; it did receive screenings in the early 1980s in 3D form. The film also marked a return to Technicolor productions for Hitchcock.
Hitchcock moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window, starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Here, the wheelchair-bound Stewart, a photographer based on Robert Capa, observes the movements of his neighbours across the courtyard and becomes convinced one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart tries to sway both his glamorous model-girlfriend (Kelly) and his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) to his theory, and finally succeeds in getting her involved to the point of danger. Like Lifeboat and Rope, the movie was photographed almost entirely within the confines of a small space: Stewart's tiny studio apartment overlooking the massive courtyard set. Hitchcock effectively uses closeups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions to all he sees, from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbors to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment.
The third Kelly film To Catch a Thief, set in the French Riviera, stars Kelly with Cary Grant again. Grant plays retired thief John Robie who woos both Kelly and her jewels, and who becomes the prime suspect when a rash of robberies strike the Riviera. Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double-entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success. It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly because she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 and the residents of her new homeland refused to allow her to make any more films.
The remake of Hitchcock's own 1934 film, The Man Who Knew Too Much, in 1956 followed, this time starring Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song, "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" (which won the Oscar for "Best Music", and became a big hit for Day). Stewart and Day, distraught over the kidnapping of their son, struggle with both their emotions and their urgent quest to find their child and stop an assassination, until the song helps re-unite the family.
The Wrong Man (1957), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Brothers, was a low-key black and white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life Magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock's to star Henry Fonda. Fonda plays a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (newcomer Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes.
Vertigo (1958) again starred Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Stewart plays "Scottie", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he is shadowing (Kim Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Though the film is widely considered a classic today, Vertigo met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and marked the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. The film is now placed highly in the Sight & Sound decade polls. It was premiered in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell.
In North by Northwest, Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue ad executive who is mistaken for a non-existing government agent. He is hotly pursued by enemy agents across the country who try to kill him, one of whom is foreign agent Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who seduces Thornhill, sets him up, but then falls in love with him and aids his escape.
Psycho is Hitchcock's most famous film. Produced on a highly constrained budget of $800,000, Hitchcock shot in black-and-white on a spare set. The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early demise of the heroine, the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer were all hallmarks of Hitchcock copied in many horror films that followed.
The Birds, inspired by a Daphne Du Maurier short story and by an actual news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in California, was Hitchcock's 49th film. He signed up Tippi Hedren as his latest blond heroine opposite Rod Taylor. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing actual and animated sequences. The cause of the birds attack is left unanswered, perhaps highlighting the mystery of forces unknown.
The latter two films were particularly notable for their unconventional soundtracks, both orchestrated by Bernard Herrmann: the screeching strings played in the murder scene in Psycho exceeded the limits of the time, and The Birds dispensed completely with conventional instruments, instead using an electronically-produced soundtrack and an unaccompanied song by school children (just prior to the infamous attack at the historic Bodega Bay School). Also notable was that Santa Cruz was mentioned again as the place where the bird-phenomenon was said to have first occurred. These films are considered his last great films, after which his career started to lose pace (although some critics such as Robin Wood and Donald Spoto contend that Marnie, from 1964, is first-class Hitchcock, and some have argued that Frenzy is unfairly overlooked).
Failing health took its toll on Hitchcock, reducing his new film production during the last two decades of his life. Hitchcock had filmed two spy thrillers, Torn Curtain with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews and Topaz (based on a Leon Uris novel), which both received mixed reviews.
In 1972, Hitchcock returned to London to film Frenzy, his last major success. The plot recycles his early film The Lodger. Richard Blarney (Jon Finch), volatile barkeeper with a history of explosive anger, becomes the likely perpetrator of the "Necktie Murders", which are actually committed by his friend (Barry Foster), a fruit seller. This time Hitchcock makes the victim and villain twins, rather than opposites, as in Strangers on a Train. Only one of them, however, has crossed the line to murder. For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had before been taboo, in one of his films. He also shows rare sympathy for the Chief Inspector and his comic domestic life. Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the longtime head of Hollywood's Production Code. Many times Hitchcock slipped in subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realized that Hitchcock was inserting such things and were actually amused as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences". Beginning with Torn Curtain, Hitchcock was finally able to blatantly include plot elements previously forbidden in American films and this continued for the remainder of his film career.
Family Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It related the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern making a living from her phony powers. William Devane, Karen Black and Cathleen Nesbitt co-starred. It was the only Hitchcock film scored by John Williams.
When Hitchcock saw the Mel Brooks 1977 comedy-spoof of his work, High Anxiety, he enjoyed it, but Brooks initially feared that Hitchcock was not pleased because he walked out of the movie when it was over. Days later, Brooks' fear proved untrue as Hitchcock had sent Brooks a bottle of champagne.
A funeral service was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills. Hitchcock's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific.
In Hitchcock's earliest appearances, he would fill in as an obscure extra, standing in a crowd or walking through a scene in a long camera shot (e.g. in his 1927 film The Lodger). He became more prominent in his later appearances, as when he turns to see Jane Wyman's disguise when she passes him on the street in Stage Fright, and in stark silhouette in his final film Family Plot (1976).
Rope (1948) was another technical challenge: a film that appears to have been shot entirely in a single take. The film was actually shot in 10 takes of ranging from four and a half to 10 minutes each; 10 minutes being the maximum amount of film that would fit in a single camera reel. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place.
Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo contains a camera technique that has been imitated and re-used many times by filmmakers. It has become known as the Hitchcock zoom.
One of the more inventive aspects of Hitchcock's devices is incorporating the number 13 into scenes for its superstitious nature. For example, in Psycho, Norman Bates first chooses cabin 3, then turns to cabin 1, for Marion Crane. She is spotted driving in a car where the license plate numbers add up to 13.
Hitchcock heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem proper at first but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal, or even criminal way. As noted, the famous victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie (1964), the title character (played by Tippi Hedren) is a kleptomaniac. In To Catch a Thief (1955), Francie (Grace Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Rear Window, Lisa (Grace Kelly again) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. And, most notoriously, in Psycho, Janet Leigh's unfortunate character steals $40,000 and is murdered by a reclusive lunatic. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was - years after Dany Robin and her "daughter" Claude Jade in Topaz - Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in his final film, 1976's Family Plot. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black could also fit that role, as she wears a long blonde wig in various scenes and becomes increasingly uncomfortable about her line of work.
Hitchcock saw that reliance on actors and actresses was a holdover from the theater tradition. He was a pioneer in using camera movement, camera set ups and montage to explore the outer reaches of cinematic art.
Most critics and Hitchcock scholars, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo represents the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other film in his filmography.
Hitchcock often said that his personal favorite film was Shadow of a Doubt.
However, this view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself, has been challenged by the book, Hitchcock At Work, written by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of Cahiers du Cinema. Krohn after investigating several script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock alongside inspection of storyboards and other production material has observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned. He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his movies was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. A great example would be the famous cropduster sequence of North by Northwest which wasn't storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.
Even on the occasions when storyboards were made, the scene which was shot did differ from it significantly. Krohn's extensive analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its making. Another example is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much which Krohn notes went into production without a complete script which moreover went over schedule, something which as Krohn notes was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his movies, he was fully cognizant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films weren't free from the normal hassles and routines that face many other film productions.
Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order. A practice which he notes often sent many of his films overbudget and overschedule and more importantly differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency of shooting alternate takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films weren't necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how he/she chooses (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency of giving himself options in the editing room where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work so as to give him space for other possibilities in the editing room. According to Krohn, this and numerous other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock.
Regarding Hitchcock's sometimes less than pleasant relationship with actors, there was a persistent rumor that he had said that actors were cattle. Hitchcock later denied this, typically tongue-in-cheek, clarifying that he had only said that actors should be treated like cattle. Carole Lombard, tweaking Hitchcock and drumming up a little publicity, brought some cows along with her when she reported to the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. For Hitchcock, the actors, like the props, were part of the film's setting.
In the late 1950s, French New Wave critics, especially Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut, were among the first to see and promote Hitchcock's films as artistic works. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the artistic authority of the director in the film-making process.
Hitchcock's innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors. His influence helped start a trend for film directors to control artistic aspects of their movies without answering to the movie's producer.
Rebecca, which Hitchcock directed, won the 1940 Best Picture Oscar for its producer David O. Selznick. In addition to Rebecca and Suspicion, two other films Hitchcock directed, Foreign Correspondent and Spellbound, were nominated for Best Picture.
Hitchcock is considered the Best Film Director of all time by The Screen Directory. Hitchcock was knighted in 1980.
Sixteen films directed by Hitchcock earned Oscar nominations, though only six of those films earned Hitchcock himself a nomination. The total number of Oscar nominations (including winners) earned by films he directed is fifty. Four of those films earned Best Picture nominations.
Five of Hitchcock's films are in the National Film Registry: Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho; all but Shadow of a Doubt were also in 1998's AFI's 100 best American films and the AFI's 2007 update. In 2008, four of Hitchcock's films were named among the ten best mystery films of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10. Those films are Vertigo (at No. 1); Rear Window (No. 3); North by Northwest (No. 7); and Dial M for Murder (No. 9).
Along with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was one of the first prominent motion picture producers to fully envision just how popular the medium of television would become. From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host and producer of a long-running television series entitled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While his films had made Hitchcock's name strongly associated with suspense, the TV series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His irony-tinged voice, image, and mannerisms became instantly recognizable and were often the subject of parody.
The title-theme of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of Hitchcock's profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes) which his real silhouette then filled. His introductions before the stories in his program always included some sort of wry humor, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are now shown with a sign "Two chairs--no waiting!" He directed a few episodes of the TV series himself, and he upset a number of movie production companies when he insisted on using his TV production crew to produce his motion picture Psycho. In the late 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colorised form.
"Hitch" used a curious little tune by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893), the composer of the 1859 opera Faust, as the theme "song" for his television programs, after it was suggested to him by composer Bernard Herrmann. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra included the piece, Funeral March of a Marionette, in one of their extended play 45 rpm discs for RCA Victor during the 1950s.
Hitchcock appears as a character in the popular juvenile detective book series, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The long-running detective series was created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first several books, although other authors took over after he left the series. The Three Investigators -- Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Peter Crenshaw -- were amateur detectives, slightly younger than the Hardy Boys. In the introduction to each book, "Alfred Hitchcock" introduces the mystery, and he sometimes refers a case to the boys to solve. At the end of each book, the boys report to Hitchcock, and sometimes give him a memento of their case.
When the real Hitchcock died, the fictional Hitchcock in the Three Investigators books was replaced by a retired detective named Hector Sebastian. At this time, the series title was changed from Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators to The Three Investigators.
At the height of Hitchcock's success, he was also asked to introduce a set of books with his name attached. The series was a collection of short stories by popular short-story writers, primarily focused on suspense and thrillers. These titles included Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked, Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbinders in Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Witch's Brew, Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock's A Hangman's Dozen and Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful. Hitchcock himself was not actually involved in the reading, reviewing, editing or selection of the short stories; in fact, even his introductions were ghost-written. The entire extent of his involvement with the project was to lend his name and collect a check.
Some notable writers whose works were used in the collection, include Shirley Jackson (Strangers in Town, The Lottery), T.H. White (The Once and Future King), Robert Bloch, H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and the creator of The Three Investigators, Robert Arthur.
Hitchcock also wrote a mystery story for Look magazine in 1943, "The Murder of Monty Woolley." This was a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to inspect the pictures for clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves: Woolley, Doris Merrick, and make-up man Guy Pearce, whom Hitchcock identified, in the last photo, as the murderer. The article was reprinted in Games Magazine in November/December 1980.
The film Throw Momma from the Train was inspired by Strangers on a Train.
A 2000 episode of That '70s Show portrays the characters watching Hitchcock's movies on Halloween, and then a series of events in their lives resemble scenes from his movies.
The Simpsons episode "Bart of Darkness" features a wheelchair bound Bart who suspects that Ned Flanders is a killer, in a parody of Rear Window.
In Joe Dante's movie Matinee, a gas station attendant recognizes John Goodman's B-movie producer character as "... the guy who makes them scary movies." After receiving an autograph, he says "Thanks, Mr. Hitchcock."
The Canadian comedy The Wrong Guy is loosely based on The Wrong Man and contains scenes drawing upon several other Hitchcock movies, including Psycho and Vertigo.


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Best car wallpapers you'll see today
Treat your screen to some stunning Lamborghini vs Ferrari shots from master snapper Webb Bland
Posted: 18 Feb 2014
Top automotive photographer and official Friend Of Top Gear, Webb Bland, has just fired an unexpected pixely gift our way.
Recently Webb was asked if he'd like to photograph two of Italy's finest V12 supercars. As the subjects in question were the Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari 599 GTB, unsurprisingly he agreed. And hasn't he done a rather fine job of pitting prancing horse against raging bull?
Webb tells us he had just six hours to shoot the two black V12s. But, as you can see above, the results are pretty amazing. Without giving away all his snapperly secrets, he's revealed a few tips for all you aspiring car photographers.
"I used natural light only, relying on the stark reflection of the sky beyond the overpass to provide the clean lines on the Ferrari's paint," says Webb. "The Aventador has factory matte paint, so lighting wasn't an issue. Simply making use of a circular polariser allowed for all the variations of light play on the cars I could want without lighting on location..."
Consider yourself officially tipped.
Best of all, we've made the whole set downloadable in hi-res via the links below. So if you fancy furnishing your computer/tablet desktop with a new wallpaper, all you have to do is scroll through the pics, click the one that takes your fancy and add right-click it onto your desktop.
And if you, or your desktop, want to thank Webb for your new wallpaper, click these blue words to go straight to his Facebook page.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Every Saturday
This lyrical vision of three women walking in a rural landscape has a quaint, almost nostalgic mood. The title, Every Saturday, implies that the three traversed this path beside the duck pond with regularity, yet we are left to speculate about their purpose or destination. An early work by Arthur Davies, the painting testifies to his poetic and individual aesthetic, which reflected his admiration for the art of Albert Pinkham Ryder and prompted his patron, the famous collector Duncan Phillips, to describe him as "a painter of dreams" and an "enchanter."
- Artist: Arthur B. Davies, American, 1862-1928
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dates: ca. 1895-1896
- Dimensions: 18 x 29 15/16 in. (45.7 x 76 cm) Frame: 2 1/2 x 24 x 35 3/4 in. (6.4 x 61 x 90.8 cm) (show scale)
- Signature: Signed lower left: "A B Davies"
- Collections:American Art
- Museum Location: This item is on view in Luce Visible Storage and Study Center, 5th Floor
- Accession Number: 12.92
- Credit Line: Gift of William A. Putnam
- Rights Statement: No known copyright restrictions
- Caption: Arthur B. Davies (American, 1862-1928). Every Saturday, ca. 1895-1896. Oil on canvas, 18 x 29 15/16 in. (45.7 x 76 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of William A. Putnam, 12.92
- Image:
- Record Completeness: Best (85%)


text:
Avon Hill Neighborhood Conservation District
to the home page for the Avon Hill NCD in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
On this page you will find application information as well as district news, meeting updates, and district goals and guidelines. This page will be updated periodically by staff of the Historical Commission. If you have any questions about the district, please e-mail Charlie Sullivan at email@example.com or call the CHC office at Phone: 617/349-4684 or by TTY: 617/349-6112.
The Avon Hill Neighborhood Conservation District contains approximately 220 properties in an area bounded by Linnaean Street, Raymond Street, Upland Road, and the zoning boundary of the BA-2 and C-2 zones along Massachusetts Avenue.
The district is regulated by the Avon Hill NCD Commission, a group of Cambridge citizens appointed by the City Manager. Administration of district business is provided by staff members of the Cambridge Historical Commission, a department of the city government.
of Certificates Issued:
A Certificate of Appropriateness will be issued for reviewable alterations which the neighborhood conservation district commission deems not incongruous to the character of the property in question.
Occasionally, a Certificate of Hardship will be issued for work which is not otherwise appropriate if the Commission determines that failure to approve an application would entail a substantial hardship, financial or otherwise, and that the work would not be a significant detriment to the district.
One of these certificates is always necessary to obtain a building permit for work in a neighborhood conservation district. All of the Commission's regulatory approvals have a life of six months. This means that the owner of the property has six months, from the date a certificate is issued, to obtain a building permit. Upon written request, the chair of the Commission may issue a six-month extension. If an extension is not issued, the owner must resubmit the Application for Certificate for the Commission's review.


text:
For those who appreciate short journeys, we are the perfect solution: the 4-star superior Mercure Hotel Kassel is centrally located within the North Hessian city, allowing you to reach the most interesting sights and even the main train station on foot.
As a guest at our 4-star superior Mercure Hotel Kassel, you'll be staying at a favored location right in the heart of the city - you can reach many of Kassel's destinations on foot: it's just a short walk to the university, Königsplatz and the main trainstation. All 128 rooms are air conditioned and offer modern comforts, including Wi-Fi. You can work in the hotel at any time thanks to the free Wi-Fi available in all public areas of the hotel or by making use of our business corner.


text:
There's a lot to be said about ultra-high-dollar rides-cars whose owners have invested so much time and money into them that they're afraid to drive these otherwise roadworthy masterpieces.
Except this story isn't about one of those. It's about a shark that was built by someone who was looking to do something else with his next project.
Several years back, Frank Cagle had a show-stopper in steel-a '67 Chevy II Nova Super Sport that he'd put a lot of time and effort into; it even bore Chip Foose's autograph. "It just went to shows, and finally I got tired of not being able to drive something," Cagle says from his Birmingham, Alabama home. "I said to myself, 'What do you want to drive that looks sporty and is not what everybody else has?' The C3s just stood out all by themselves."
That would be the oft-maligned '68-'82 Corvettes, rushed into production when the General was blown away by the Mako Shark II concept car back in 1965. This was the Corvette generation that suffered the most over the years because of uneven early build quality, tightening Federal emission and safety standards, and a perceived lack of what "a real Corvette" should have. (Of course, that didn't stop Vette buyers from snapping them up in increasing numbers during the mid-to-late '70s.)
Cagle set out to find a red-on-red shark for a project car, and the first one he found turned out to be a good one. Too good, in fact. "I found one in Cincinnati, flew up, bought it, and drove it back to Birmingham," Cagle says. "On the way back, I got to looking at the car, and everything on it worked-the seat-belt buzzer, light dimmer, even the clock was working. I said, 'I can't destroy this car-it's in too-good shape!'" When he got home, Cagle put that car up for sale and started his search over.
On eBay, he found an interesting C3 at a shop in St. Petersburg, Florida. It had the red exterior/interior he was looking for plus a new interior, lots of new chassis and trim parts, but no engine or transmission. A call to the shop revealed that this particular '81 had been brought in for a high-end paintjob, with all the glass, interior, and trim removed, but the owner never came back to pick it up. It sat there for three years before the shop owner got a mechanic's lien on it, and the State of Florida granted him a clear title to the car. It wasn't all together, but it was altogether what Cagle was looking for, so the deal was done. "I loaded up my trailer and made the trip down to St. Pete, loaded it up, brought it back to my shop, and started working on it," says Cagle.
For an engine, Cagle not only had a big-block in mind, he had one in his shop. Actually, when he brought the '81 home, he had two Chevy big-blocks-a 468-inch one and a 540-incher built by Jon Barrett Hot Rod Engines in McLoud, Oklahoma. "I originally bought the Jon Barrett big-block to go into a '67 Nova Pro Street that I was making," says Cagle. "Another guy bought the Pro Street project from me, and I'd had the 468 built up for the Corvette, so now I wound up with two engines. I said, 'What the heck-I'm going to put the Jon Barrett big-block into the Corvette, and I'll give the 468 to my son, who'd just finished up a '72 Camaro split-bumper."
But the Barrett engine had some clearance problems, thanks to its tall valve covers topping a set of equally tall roller rockers, along with changes Chevrolet made to the C3's engine bay after the last factory 454 was installed in '74. "I had to take a 4-inch notch out of the firewall just to get the valve covers to clear," Cagle says. "When you start dry-fitting all that stuff, you find [these things] out." He also found out that there was a clearance problem with the Zoops pulleys up front. "The only three-pulley crankshaft pulley they make for a big-block has this large overdrive unit on the front, which means you have to cut a 2-inch notch out of the crossmember to get it to fit."
Next came a transmission-a 700R4 overdrive automatic, built for high power by Monster Transmissions & Performance in Spring Hill, Florida. Farther aft is another powertrain item that's up to the 540's 635 lb-ft of torque: a 12-bolt rearend inside a four-link suspension setup. Cagle says the OEM rearend housing wasn't up to the job, not with this engine replacing the original 190-horse L81 350. After some more online research, he found RaceFab's website, which led him to the shop that made a custom four-link suspension system that replaced the IRS (and its tendency to squat under hard acceleration). Inside the 12-bolt's housing are Moser axles and a 3.73-geared Auburn posi differential.


text: Landscape That statement is more true today than it ever has been before. In recent years, travel has become so costly and so stressful that people are booking fewer vacations. In addition, as more Americans begin to be affected by the current economic crunch, discretionary funds for leisure activities are becoming scarce. More


text:
I just purchased a refurbished Vitamix-does anyone have any quick/easy recipe suggestions? Thanks
By all means, do the hummus! Did it come with a cookbook?I mean the Vitamix cookbook? Incredibly simple. We love this machine!
Thanks for your response! I bought the Live Fresh book, tho wish for others' experiences w/ the recipes--just found one for hummus w/ the following ingredients: chickpeas, raw sesame seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and cumin--is this the one you like? Have you ever tried adding other vegetables, such as red pepper? Thank you again
Yes, we've left out the oil, added only 1 tablespoon sesame seeds to their recipe and don't use cumin. I've concocted a red pepper hummus with the following:1 15 oz. can chickpeas, rinsed, 1 whole roasted red pepper (used Del Destino brand from Costco, the peppers are quite large) 3 cloves garlic ( we like garlic a lot!), juice of half a lemon, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 Tablespoon raw sesame seeds.
Just put everything in the container and blend 'til smooth. Enjoy!Doubles nicely - my family of five really loves it!
Your recipe suggestions sound great--thanks so much (I'm a garlic lover, too)! I really appreciate the help--I know SO little about cooking Do you happen to have any recommendations re. any Asian peanut/tahini/ginger type dressings or easy soups?
I also have a vitamix and love it. There are recipes at their site on line and I have made many of the soups ( I change them when needed to make vegan) also I make frozen desserts with fresh fruits which are always a hit with company. But I must admit that hummus is my all time favourite and have converted a lot of people, when going out I'm usually asked to bring my hummus. Have to be careful I don't put too much garlic in when going out though because I also love garlic. I also use the red peppers from Costco to make a red pepper kind and sun dried tomatoes are also good to add.
Glad to hear the soups turn out well--being able to heat in the Vitamax was a key selling point for me, tho I've yet to try that function! Do you have any favorite recipes that don't require any cooking before adding ingredients to the Vitamix?
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text:
An snowy owl hunting lemmings around the city Barrow, Alaska. he Alaskan Arctic Expedition highlights the need to save the Arctic from attempts by oil companies to exploit the region's resources for short term profit. The MY Esperanza will document what's at stake in the region whilst committing to a wider objective of protecting the Arctic and creating a sanctuary around the North Pole.07/04/2012
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text:
IFRS (International Financial
Reporting Standards)
IFRS Developments announces significant decisions on topics that have a broad audience, application or appeal. General and Industry IFRS Developments publications summarise, generally in four pages, IASB and IFRS Interpretations Committee discussion papers, exposure drafts, final standards or interpretations to provide a high-level overview of the requirements.
These publications:
- Have been issued within the last 12 months, or
- Address the current IFRS Projects, or
- Address standards that have been already issued and are still in the implementation phase
Insurance Accounting Alert, June 2015: IASB adopts variable fee approach for certain participating contracts
At its June meeting, the IASB tentatively decided to modify the proposed insurance accounting model for contracts with participation features based on the variable fee approach. The CSM for these contracts will be recognised in profit or loss on the basis of the passage of time.
Insurance Accounting Alert, May 2015: IASB holds further discussions on participating contracts
At its May meeting, IASB continued its discussions on participating contracts. Members provided feedback on several key topics related to contracts with participation features; this feedback will shape the further development of the proposals.
IFRS Developments Issue 109: Next steps for the accounting for dynamic risk management project
This edition of IFRS developments covers the background of the IASB's project to address accounting for dynamic risk management and the Board's discussions during its May 2015 meeting around the next steps of the project.
IFRS Developments Issue 108 - Principal versus agent: IASB to propose amendments to IFRS 15
The IASB will propose amendments to the application guidance and certain illustrative examples in its new revenue standard, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, in relation to principal versus agent considerations.
IFRS Developments Issue 107: IASB issues an exposure draft proposing a one-year deferral of its new revenue standard
The IASB has issued an exposure draft that proposes a one-year deferral of the effective date of its new revenue recognition standard, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers. Comments are due by 3 July 2015.
IFRS Developments Issue 106: IASB proposes one-year deferral for new revenue standard
The IASB plans to issue an exposure draft, with a comment period of no less than 30 days, on its decision to propose a one-year deferral of the effective date for its new revenue standard, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers.
IFRS Developments Issue 105: The ITG discusses IFRS 9 impairment implementation issues
Following its inaugural meeting last December, the Transition Resource Group for Impairment of Financial Instruments (ITG) met on 22 April 2015 to discuss eight implementation issues raised by stakeholders on the new impairment requirements in IFRS 9 Financial Instruments.
Insurance Accounting Alert March 2015
At its March meeting, the IASB held an education session as part of the redeliberations on its 2013 ED Insurance Contracts. The IASB explored what adaptations to the 'general model' applied to non-participating contracts could be made for participating contracts. No decisions were made.
IFRS Developments Issue 104: Boards decide to make more changes to their new revenue standards
The IASB and the FASB made decisions on proposed amendments to their new revenue standards, including agreeing to amend the transition requirements. The Boards reached different decisions on other issues discussed.
IFRS Developments Issue 103: IASB staff to begin drafting the new leases standard
The IASB has directed its staff to proceed with preparing the new leases standard for balloting, as the due process requirements necessary to issue a new standard have been met. The IASB also decided to require additional disclosures for lessees in the period that the new standard is first applied.
Insurance Accounting Alert, February 2015: IASB discusses level of aggregation for insurance contracts
At the February 2015 meeting, the IASB continued redeliberations on its 2013 Insurance Contracts ED. It held an education session on the level of aggregation, and discussed examples illustrating the application of the principle of level of aggregation based on decisions made at previous meetings.
IFRS Developments Issue 102: Boards reach different decisions on some of the proposed changes to the new revenue standards
The IASB and FASB agreed to clarify their new revenue standards on accounting for licences of intellectual property and identifying performance obligations. However, they did not agree on the nature and breadth of all of the changes or the timing of when such changes may be finalised.
IFRS Developments Issue 101: IASB substantially completes redeliberations on leases
The IASB substantially completed redeliberations of its 2013 proposal to put most leases on lessees' balance sheets. The IASB decided to simplify the transition to its new standard and also reaffirmed that it will include a recognition and measurement exemption for leases of small assets.
IFRS Developments Issue 100: Basel Committee proposes guidance on accounting for expected credit losses
On 2 February 2015, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued a consultative document outlining expectations for sound credit risk practices associated with implementing an expected credit loss accounting framework. The comment period for the consultative document ends on 30 April 2015.
Insurance Accounting Alert, February 2015
IASB discusses transition relief for financial assets upon the adoption of the new insurance contracts standard.
IFRS Developments Issue 99: IASB and FASB decide to require different lessee disclosures
The IASB and the FASB continued redeliberating their 2013 proposal to put most leases on lessees' balance sheets. They also reaffirmed the objective of lessee disclosures, but reached different decisions on the information that lessees would be required to disclose.
IFRS Developments Issue 98: IASB makes progress on the Disclosure Initiative
In December 2014, the IASB issued amendments to IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements and an exposure draft proposing amendments to IAS 7 Statement of Cash Flows as part of its Disclosure Initiative.
IFRS Developments Issue 97: IASB issues amendments to the investment entities exception
In December 2014, the IASB issued amendments to IFRS 10, IFRS 12 and IAS 28. The amendments address three issues arising in practice in the application of the investment entities consolidation exception. The amendments apply retrospectively for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2016
IFRS Developments Issue 96: Boards complete redeliberations of the definition of a lease
The IASB and the FASB completed their redeliberations of the definition of a lease at their December 2014 meeting, leaving in place the converged decisions they previously reached on how it would be applied.
The new revenue standard – automotive
Read about key considerations and actions for automotive entities in determining when and how to apply the new revenue standard.
The new revenue recognition standard - life sciences
In this publication we outline key considerations and actions for life sciences entities in determining when and how to apply IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, the new revenue standard that was jointly issued by the IASB and the FASB.
IFRS Developments for Mining & Metals: IFRS 15 – the new revenue recognition standard, impact on mining and metals entities
The IASB and the FASB have jointly issued IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, which replaces the existing IFRS and US GAAP revenue requirements. Read our high level overview of the new requirements for mining and metals entities.
IFRS Developments Issue 95: Joint Transition Resource Group tackles new revenue topics
At the second meeting of the Joint Transition Resource Group for Revenue Recognition, members discussed five implementation issues and expressed diverse views about two: licences of intellectual property; and determining whether a good or service is distinct within the context of a contract.
IFRS Developments for Oil & Gas: The new revenue recognition standard - oil and gas
We outline the key considerations and actions for oil and gas entities in determining when and how to apply IFRS 15, the new revenue recognition standard that was jointly issued by the IASB and the FASB.
IFRS Developments for Oil & Gas: The new revenue recognition standard - oilfield services
In this publication, we outline the key considerations and actions for oilfield services entities in determining when and how to apply IFRS 15, the new revenue recognition standard that was jointly issued by the IASB and the FASB.
IFRS Developments Issue 94: Boards reaffirm the definition of a lease but continue to work on its application.
The IASB and the FASB reaffirmed, at their October 2014 meeting, their proposed definition of a lease and made some changes to how that definition would be applied. The Boards will consider an additional clarification at a future meeting.
IFRS Developments Issue 93: IASB issues a discussion paper on reporting the financial effects of rate regulation
This publication provides an overview of the key highlights of the discussion paper published by the IASB on reporting the financial effects of rate regulation.
IFRS Developments Issue 92: Audit committee considerations for the new revenue standard
Audit committees have an important role to play overseeing the implementation of the new standard in their organisations. Our IFRS Developments highlights audit committee considerations for the new revenue standard.
IFRS Developments Issue 91: IASB concludes the 2012-2014 Annual Improvements Cycle
The IASB issued their annual cycle of improvements to IFRSs 2012-2014 Cycle in September 2014. The document sets out five amendments to four standards that are effective on or after 1 January 2016.
IFRS Developments for Power and Utilities: The new revenue recognition standard
The IASB and the FASB have jointly issued a revenue recognition standard, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, which replaces existing IFRS and US GAAP revenue requirements. Our IFRS Developments provides an overview of the new requirements for power and utilities entities.
IFRS 15 - Retail and Consumer Products
The IASB and the FASB issued their joint revenue recognition standard IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers earlier this year, which replaces existing IFRS and US GAAP revenue requirements. Our IFRS Developments summarises some of the impact of IFRS 15 for retail and consumer products entities.
IFRS Developments Issue 89: FASB addresses sale and leasebacks, US GAAP topics in leases project
At a FASB-only meeting in August 2014, the FASB made decisions to clarify the proposed guidance on the accounting for sale and leaseback transactions.
IFRS Developments Issue 88: Boards address sale and leaseback transactions, lessor disclosures
At their July 2014 meeting, the IASB and the FASB (the Boards) continued re-deliberating ways to clarify and simplify their 2013 joint proposal on leases, reaching converged decisions on most lessor disclosures and some aspects of the accounting for sale and leaseback transactions.
IFRS Developments Issue 87: IASB issues IFRS 9 Financial Instruments – expected credit losses
The IASB issued the final version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, bringing together the classification and measurement, impairment (expected credit losses) and hedge accounting requirements, effective from 1 January 2018. This publication summarises the new expected credit losses requirements.
IFRS Developments Issue 86: IASB issues IFRS 9 Financial Instruments – classification and measurement
The IASB issued the final version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, bringing together the classification and measurement, impairment (expected credit losses) and hedge accounting requirements, effective from 1 January 2018. This publication summarises the classification and measurement requirements.
IFRS Developments Issue 85: Joint Transition Resource Group for Revenue Recognition debates implementation issues
The inaugural meeting of the Joint Transition Resource Group discussed implementation issues including: gross versus net revenue presentation; royalties on licensed intellectual property; and impairment of capitalised contract costs.
IFRS Developments Issue 84: Bearer plants – the new requirements
In Issue 84 of IFRS Developments, we look at the changes to the accounting requirements for biological assets that are bearer plants.
IFRS Developments Issue 83: Boards continue their march towards new leases standard
The IASB and the FASB continued redeliberating ways to clarify and simplify their 2013 joint proposal on leases at their June 2014 meeting.
IFRS Developments Issue 82: The IASB proposes additional guidance on the investment entity exception.
The IASB has issued an exposure draft Investment Entities: Applying the Consolidation Exception (proposed amendments to IFRS 10 and IAS 28) on 11 June 2014. Read a summary of the ED and some of the potential implications.
IFRS Developments Issue 81: Is it a lease? Boards defer decision on definition of a lease
At their May 2014 meeting, the IASB and the FASB continued to seek ways to clarify and simplify their 2013 joint proposal on leases, but deferred a decision on the fundamental issue of how to define a lease.
IFRS Developments Issue 80: IASB and FASB issue new revenue recognition standard
The IASB and the FASB have issued their joint revenue recognition standard, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, which replaces existing IFRS and US GAAP revenue requirements. Our IFRS Developments provides an overview of the new requirements.
IFRS Developments Issue 79: Recent IASB and Interpretations Committee discussions on the investment entity exception
The IASB and the IFRS Interpretations Committee have held recent discussions on the investment entity exception amendment to IFRS 10. This publication covers the outcome of those discussions and highlights other areas where clarity is still needed.
IFRS Developments Issue 78: IASB prohibits revenue-based depreciation
On 12 May 2014, the IASB issued amendments to IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment and IAS 38 Intangible Assets prohibiting the use of revenue-based depreciation methods for fixed assets and limiting the use of revenue-based amortisation methods for intangible assets.
IFRS Developments Issue 77: IASB issues a discussion paper on accounting for macro hedging
The IASB has published for comment a new approach to the accounting for dynamic risk management: a portfolio revaluation approach to macro hedging. The discussion paper explores how to provide useful information on entities' dynamic risk management activities in their financial statements.
IFRS Developments Issue 76: Boards make more progress on leases project
The FASB and the IASB continued discussing ways to clarify and simplify their 2013 proposal to put most leases on lessees' balance sheets. After disagreeing on key topics in March 2014, the Boards reached joint decisions on several aspects in April.
IFRS Developments Issue 75: Boards back away from key aspects of leases proposal
In their joint redeliberations in March, the IASB supported a single on-balance sheet model for lessee accounting while the FASB supported a dual on-balance sheet model. Despite this fundamental difference, the Boards reiterated their commitment to seek a converged solution.
Issue 74: IASB completes redeliberations on expected credit loss model; sets 2018 effective date
The IASB completes its redeliberations on the proposed expected credit loss model and plans to issue the completed version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, including the impairment requirements, in the second quarter of 2014 with an effective date from 1 January 2018.
Issue 73: IASB public consultation on post-implementation review of IFRS 3
The IASB recently issued a Request for Information – Post-implementation Review: IFRS 3 Business Combinations. This request for information is intended to formally gather feedback from constituents on a broad range of implementation issues for IFRS 3.
Issue 72: Interim standard on regulatory deferral accounts
The IASB recently issued IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts. This interim standard provides first-time adopters of IFRS with relief from derecognising rate-regulated assets and liabilities until a comprehensive project on accounting for such assets and liabilities is completed by the IASB.
Issue 71: IASB issues two cycles of annual improvements to IFRS
The IASB issued two cycles of the annual improvements containing 11 changes to nine standards. The amendments are effective on or before 1 July 2014.
Issue 70: The IASB proposes five changes to clarify four standards
The IASB issued an exposure draft (ED) containing another cycle of the annual improvements. The ED's comment period ends 13 March 2014.
Issue 69: Boards to re-deliberate key aspects of lease accounting - again
The IASB and the FASB discussed feedback received on their joint lease accounting proposal and decided to re-deliberate the following topics: lease definition and scope, lessee accounting model, lessor accounting model, lease classification, lease measurement provisions and disclosure requirements.
Issue 68: IASB issues IFRS 9 (2013) – hedge accounting is now complete
On 19 November 2013 the IASB issued a new version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments that includes the new hedge accounting requirements, a 'fast-track' to applying the requirements of IFRS 9 for the presentation of own credit risk-related fair value gains and losses and removes the effective date.
Issue 65: IASB to defer effective date of IFRS 9 and accelerate own credit requirements
At its July 2013 meeting, the IASB tentatively decided to defer the mandatory effective date of IFRS 9 and to accelerate 'own credit' requirements of IFRS 9.
Issue 63: Changes proposed to the requirements for bearer plants
Proposed changes to the accounting requirements for biological assets that are bearer plants were issued in June 2013. Bearer plants would be treated as property, plant and equipment, separate from their agricultural produce. Read a summary of the ED and some of the potential implications.
Issue 62: Amendments to IAS 39 - continuing hedge accounting after novation
In June 2013, the IASB amended IAS 39 to provide relief from discontinuing hedge accounting when novation of a derivative designated as a hedging instrument meets certain criteria. Novation indicates that parties to a contract agree to replace their original counterparty with a new one.
Issue 61: IASB proposes an interim standard on regulatory deferral accounts
In April 2013, the IASB issued an exposure draft (ED) proposing an interim standard to encourage adoption of IFRS in jurisdictions that currently allow, or require, the recognition of rate-regulated assets and liabilities. Read a summary of the ED and some of the potential implications.
Issue 59: IASB issues IFRIC Interpretation 21 Levies
The IASB issued IFRIC Interpretation 21 Levies, which clarifies the accounting for levies imposed by governments. The scope of the interpretation is broad and covers all levies, except outflows that are in the scope of IAS 12 Income Taxes and penalties for breaches of legislation.
Issue 58: Boards issue revised leases proposal
The IASB and FASB (the Boards) issued their revised proposal on lease accounting in May 2013. The Boards have re-exposed the accounting treatment of leases for both lessees and lessors, including the recognition of most leases on the balance sheets of lessees.
Issue 57: IASB concludes its re-deliberations on hedge accounting project
In April 2013, the IASB concluded its re-deliberations on the hedge accounting project, which is the third phase of the overall project to replace IAS 39. The final issue that the IASB discussed was the interaction between macro cash flow hedge accounting and the new hedge accounting model.
Issue 56: IASB to clarify interaction between unit of account and fair value measurement requirements
In March 2013, the IASB tentatively decided to clarify the unit of account for investments in subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures, and to clarify the interaction between that unit of account and the fair value measurement requirements in IFRS 13.
Boards discuss allocation of insurance contracts revenue and consider changes
In January 2013, the IASB and the FASB re-deliberated the decisions made in the IASB's ED Insurance Contracts and the FASB's DP, Preliminary Views on Insurance Contracts. In February, the IASB discussed transition for business combinations and the exposure draft due this summer.
Issue 54: IASB proposes new expected credit loss model
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) released a new exposure draft (ED) Financial Instruments: Expected Credit Losses on 7 March 2013, that proposes entities to recognise and measure a credit loss allowance based on an expected credit loss model.
Issue 50: Important changes to hedge accounting – but also a further delay (January 2013)
The IASB made some important changes to the hedge accounting standard at its January meeting to address constituents' concerns. It also plans further limited outreach to understand constituents concerns about the application of macro cash flow hedging strategies under IFRS 9.
Issue 48: Exposure drafts issued on narrow amendments to IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IAS 28 (December 2012)
The IASB proposes narrow amendments to IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IAS 28 to clarify the accounting for the acquisition of an interest in a joint operation that is a business (as defined in IFRS 3); and how to account for the sale/contribution of assets by an investor to its associate or joint venture (IAS 28 (2011) and IFRS 10).
Issue 47: The IASB proposes limited amendments to IFRS 9 classification and measurement model (November 2012)
On 28 November 2012, the IASB published its exposure draft (ED) Classification and Measurement Limited Amendments to IFRS 9 (2010). This publication summarises the main amendments proposed in the ED.
Issue 45: Proposed annual improvements to IFRS – 2011 – 2013 cycle
In November 2012, the IASB issued the proposed Annual improvements to IFRS 2011 – 2013 cycle exposure draft which contains four proposed changes to four standards. The proposed amendments would affect IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International financial reporting Standards, IFRS 3 Business Combinations, IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement and IAS 40 Investment Property, and are intended to clarify the standards where diversity exists.
Issue 44: Investment entities final amendment - exception to consolidation (November 2012)
The IASB has issued an amendment to IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements to provide an exception to the consolidation requirement for entities that meet the definition of an investment entity. The exception to consolidation requires investment entities to account for subsidiaries at fair value through profit or loss in accordance with IFRS 9 Financial Instruments.
Issue 43: IFRS Foundation publishes analysis of SEC staff's final report on IFRS (October 2012)
The IFRS Foundation has published its staff analysis of the SEC's final Staff Report on IFRS, addressing a number of issues, including: IFRSs as global accounting standards; the IASB as a global standard setter; and the challenges for US transition. This publication summarises the findings and views of the IFRS Foundation staff.
Issue 42: Put options written on non-controlling interests − our views (October 2012)
The IFRS Interpretations Committee recently issued a draft interpretation giving guidance on how a parent entity should account for a put option written on the shares of a subsidiary that is held by non-controlling interest shareholders. We outline our views about the proposals, as set out in our comment letter to the Committee.
Issue 40: General hedge accounting (September 2012)
The IASB issued a Review Draft of the standard on general hedge accounting. We summarise the main changes.
Issue 36: SEC staff issues its Final Report on IFRS (July 2012)
The SEC staff has issued its Final Report on its Work Plan for the Consideration of Incorporating IFRS into the Financial Reporting System for U.S. Issuers. The Commission still needs to decide on the threshold question — whether and, if so, how and when IFRS should be incorporated into the US financial reporting system.
Issue 35: Transition guidance amendments for IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IFRS 12 (July 2012)
The IASB issued amendments to IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IFRS 12, that change the transition guidance to provide further relief from full retrospective application.
Issue 30: Macro hedge accounting decoupled from IFRS 9 project (May 2012)
At its May 2012 meeting, the IASB decided to work towards a DP on macro hedge accounting as a next due process step before issuing an ED. The Board also decided to decouple the macro hedge accounting project from the IFRS 9 Financial Instruments project and to continue permitting current macro hedge accounting guidance until the project is finalised.
Issue 29: Annual improvements to IFRS — the 2009 — 2011 cycle (May 2012)
In May 2012, the IASB issued the Annual Improvements to IFRSs 2010 - 2012 Cycle exposure draft (ED). The ED contains necessary, but non-urgent, proposed changes to 11 IFRS standards (excluding consequential amendments). Here we provide an overview of the proposed changes.
Issue 28: Proposed annual improvements to IFRS — the 2010-2012 cycle (May 2012)
In May 2012, the IASB issued the Annual Improvements to IFRSs 2010 - 2012 Cycle exposure draft (ED). The ED contains necessary, but non-urgent, proposed changes to 11 IFRS standards (excluding consequential amendments). Here we provide an overview of the proposed changes.
Issue 24: IFRS Foundation announces changes to its governance (February 2012)
The IFRS Foundation published two reports on 9 February 2012 that include key decisions on the organisation's governance and strategy. This publication discusses the principal highlights of the reports, including a number of proposals made on the composition and structure of the IASB, Trustees and Monitoring Board of the IFRS Foundation. Of note are the recommendations to limit the membership of the Monitoring Board to only those jurisdictions that commit to domestic use of IFRS in the jurisdiction's capital market and participate in the funding of the IFRS Foundation. The reports also include the decision not to open membership of the Monitoring Board to stakeholders outside of capital market authorities.
Issue 22: Offsetting of financial instruments (December 2011)
The December 2011 amendments to IAS 32 and IFRS 7 on offsetting of financial instruments are intended to clarify existing application issues relating to the offsetting rules, reduce the level of diversity in current practice and to overcome the differences in the offsetting requirements under IFRS and US GAAP. The clarifying amendments to IAS 32 are effective for the annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2014. The new disclosures in IFRS 7 are required for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2013 and interim periods within those annual periods. Both require retrospective application for comparative periods.
Issue 20: Support grows for keeping US GAAP but basing future standards on IFRS (December 2011)
Representatives of the SEC, the IASB and the FASB discussed the incorporation of IFRS into the US financial reporting system at the AICPA National Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments (the Conference) in Washington, DC.
Issue 19: SEC staff issues two papers on IFRS (November 2011)
As part of its work plan to consider whether (and if so, when and how) IFRS should be incorporated into the US financial reporting system, the SEC staff has released two papers: An Analysis of IFRS in Practice and A Comparison of US GAAP and IFRS.
Issue 7: Changes to the presentation of other comprehensive income — amendments to IAS 1 (June 2011)
On 16 June 2011, the IASB and the US FASB issued amendments that are intended to improve and align the presentation of items of other comprehensive income (OCI) in financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS and US GAAP. The amendments to IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements require companies preparing financial statements in accordance with IFRS to group together items within OCI that may be reclassified to the profit or loss section of the income statement. The amendments also reaffirm existing requirements that items in OCI and profit or loss should be presented as either a single statement or two consecutive statements. The amendments are effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 July 2012.
Issue 1: IASB issues three new standards (May 2011)
This issue summarises the key points of IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements, IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements, IFRS 12 Disclosures of Interests in Other Entities, including our perspectives on the new standards.
Supplement to IFRS Outlook (predecessor to IFRS Developments)
A complete archive of Supplement to IFRS Outlook is available in GAAIT/International GAAP®. Some issues of Supplement to IFRS Outlook have been removed from ey.com, because they have been superceded by more recent IASB activity. Those remaining below are still relevant.
Supplement to IFRS Outlook – Issue 93: Amendments to IAS 12 Income Taxes (December 2010)
The IASB issued Deferred Tax: Recovery of Underlying Assets (amendments to IAS 12) concerning the determination of deferred tax on investment property measured at fair value. The amendments introduce a rebuttable presumption that deferred tax in relation to such property should be measured on the basis that the carrying amount will be recovered through sale as well, they also incorporate SIC-21 Income Taxes - Recovery of Revalued Non-Depreciable Assets into IAS 12. The amendments are mandatory for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2012.
Supplement to IFRS Outlook – Issue 86: Conceptual framework: objectives and qualitative characteristics (October 2010)
The IASB and the FASB announced the completion of the first phase of their joint project to develop an improved conceptual framework for IFRS and US GAAP. The project's objective is to create a sound foundation for future accounting standards that are principles-based, internally consistent and internationally converged. The first phase includes Chapter 1 The objective of general purpose financial statements and Chapter 3 Qualitative characteristics of useful financial information.
Supplement to IFRS Outlook – Issue 64: Prepayments of a minimum funding requirement – amendments to IFRIC 14 (November 2009)
This issue summarises the IASB's amendment to correct an unintended consequence of IFRIC 14 IAS 19 The Limit on a Defined Benefit Asset, Minimum Funding Requirements and Their Interaction. The requirements of IFRIC 14 meant that some entities that were subject to minimum funding requirements could not treat any surplus in a defined benefit pension plan as an economic benefit. This amendment will allow these entities to recognise a prepayment of pension contributions as an asset rather than an expense. The revised IFRIC 14 is effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2011.
Industry materials
Mining & Metals: Delivering capital projects - Addressing the key accounting challenges
Managing the complexity of major capital projects in today's mining and metals landscape has never been more challenging or critical. In addition to the enormous technical, commercial and funding challenges associated with such projects, there are also a number of key accounting challenges. The lack of specific guidance in IFRS means significant management judgement is required to determine the appropriate accounting.
Insurers: Boards debate premium allocation approach (February 2012)
The IASB and the FASB held Education Sessions in January 2012 to re-deliberate the tentative decisions in the IASB's Exposure Draft Insurance Contracts and in the FASB's Discussion Paper Preliminary Views on Insurance Contracts (the DP). The only topic discussed was the premium allocation method.
Insurers: IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements - an insurer's perspective (December 2011)
The changes introduced by IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statement will require management to exercise significant judgement to determine which entities are controlled, and therefore are required to be consolidated by a parent, compared with the requirements that were in IAS 27. This publication explores some of the key issues of IFRS 10 for insurers.
Mining and Metals: Accounting for Waste Removal Costs - A Summary of IFRIC Interpretation 20
This publication summarises the key requirements of IFRIC Interpretation 20 – Stripping Costs in the Production Phase of a Surface Mine, and explores some of the challenges a mining entity may face when determining how to apply its requirements.
Longer and more detailed than IFRS Developments, Applying IFRS provides analyses of proposals, standards or interpretations and discussion of how to apply them.
The table below contains other EY IFRS publications that offer practical guidance in addition to our publication series: IFRS Outlook, IFRS Developments, Applying IFRS and IFRS Core Tools. These publications:
- Have been issued within the last 12 months, or
- Address the Current IFRS projects, or
- Address standards that have been already issued and are still in the implementation phase
A complete archive of all our IFRS publications is available in GAAIT/International GAAP®.


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We've become so used to internet shopping today, no one can really remember how things were purchased if you couldn't get it at a local store. Some items could be bought through mail order catalogs from giants like Sears, Montgomery Wards, and others. Supplementing those were the gangs of traveling salesman that crisscrossed the United States like nomads, selling their products across vast territories to post-war consumers hungry to exercise their newfound wealth and buying power.
For these roaming peddlers, the car were the office. It carried their products, sales brochures, and what personal belongings they had on the road with them. The Big Three automakers had special models designed just for salesmen, usually with no back seats so they would have more cargo room for their merchandise and demo material. Most remember the Handyman two-door station wagons and 150 utility sedans of the Tri-Five era, but before that, the Big Three built "business coupes," which featured a shortened roof line and more cargo space in the trunk for hauling.
Ronnie Staples was a parts man by trade most of his life, owning a small chain of stores back before giants like Napa, AutoZone, CSK, O'Reilly, and Advanced pushed the Mom and Pop parts stores out of the business. Growing up, he learned to drive on his father's brand new '57 150 with a 235 and three-on-the-tree, and that left a permanent mark on his being for '57s. In high school, he had a '51 Ford business coupe, and thought the lines of the business coupe's shortened roof looked better than a regular sedan.
One day while visiting friend Marty Martino's shop (Martino Productions), he spied a drawing of a business coupe-style roof on a '57 Bel Air two-door body. Ronnie fell in love at first sight, but wanted it to use 150 trim like the factory would've done if a business coupe had been built in '57. After getting a rust free '57 two-door sedan from California to start with, work began on what would become a 4,000-hour project to build a one-of-a-kind Tri-Five. Martino went through the laborious process of cutting off, shortening, and refitting the roof to the sedan. Once that was done, the project went into hibernation while Ronnie took care of other car projects.
A few years later, the '57 came out of hibernation and was sent to Nelson Cunningham at New Vision Auto in Richmond, Virginia, to be finished. Nelson went through the car, pie cutting the fenders, smoothing the hood, narrowing the bumpers, and modifying the bottom half of the body to match the shortened roof. During the process, it was realized the stock sedan windshield was too tall for the modified roof, so Nelson made some further mods to fit a hardtop windshield into the sedan body.
Nelson cut, welded, and extended the front fender eyebrows, and massaged other parts of the body to fit the overall look of the car. On the inside, the dash was heavily modified, with the gauges being moved to the center of the dash in a custom built housing that featured individual pods built to match the shape of the front fender eyebrows of the car, then fitted Classic Instruments gauges for each pod.
Back on the outside, Nelson went through four sets of '55 Bel Air quarter trim until the right process was discovered for lengthening it 8 inches to fit the longer appearing '57 quarters.
Once all the steel work was done, the body was stripped down, smoothed, and sprayed in PPG Concept silver and black by Nelson. Then the long process of reassembly and detail fitting began. The stock '57 grille was pitched in favor of a custom made mesh unit, fitted with a '60 Corvair grille emblem, and installed behind the modified front bumper.