Short of the Day
We celebrate the director’s birthday with this film based on an unproduced Hitchcock script.
In 2007 renowned director Martin Scorsese made an astonishing discovery: three pages of a script from a movie that was never made, The Key to Reserva. That in and of itself isn’t very interesting, tons of movies don’t get made after being optioned every single year. What did make it very interesting is who the script was optioned for: Alfred Hitchcock.
Convinced he couldn’t let this undiscovered gem remain undiscovered, however small and incomplete it might have been, Scorsese decided to make a short film based on the pages, which contain zero amounts of dialogue but still pack an awful lot of intrigue. Set at an opera house during a performance, two men fight over a key while the life of a woman held captive in the audience hangs in the balance. Very Hitchcockian, right?
In reality, The Key to Reserva didn’t exist until Scorsese and writer Ted Griffin dreamed it up, and that key? It opens a case of champagne, in particular Freixenet Cava, who sponsored the short. But it’s still an inventive way to draw attention to the need for film preservation, a cause with which Scorsese is pretty much synonymous. So on this, his birthday, we thought we’d share not only his work, but also his charitable endeavors. If you’re interested in donating to film preservation in Scorsese’s name, or anyone’s, click the link here. Otherwise, enjoy the film.
Related Topics: Alfred Hitchcock, Short Films
