This week the 2024 Central Scotland Documentary Festival will honour John Grierson with the Stirling 900 Award for Achievement in Documentary recognising the huge contribution to filmmaking made by ‘the father of documentary.’ The event will include a rare screening of a tribute to Grierson produced by Scottish Television and introduced by Alfred Hitchcock which was broadcast in May 1969. A file of documents in Grierson’s extensive personal archive, held in the University of Stirling Archives, tells the story of this unique televised celebration of documentary.*
In April 1968 Grierson celebrated his 70th birthday. Since 1957 Grierson had been a regular face on Scottish television presenting his popular programme This Wonderful World which brought the world of documentaries into tea-time living rooms across the country. His colleagues at Scottish Television were keen to mark the event and began to put together a compilation of extracts from Grierson’s documentary career. In October 1968 Alfred Hitchcock was approached by Francis Essex, Controller of Programmes at Scottish Television, to provide the commentary for the programme. In his letter to Hitchcock Essex stressed the value of the director’s contribution as “the impact of a great film maker receiving a tribute from the greatest film maker of them all would be immeasurable.”
Hitchcock readily agreed and arrangements were made to record the commentary on the set of his 1969 thriller Topaz. A string of telegrams in February 1969 trace the transatlantic journey of film and sound tracks recorded in Hollywood and sent by air to Scottish Television studios in Glasgow.
ACKNOWLEDGE SAFE ARRIVAL PRINT AND SOUND TRACK STOP COMPLIMENT YOU ON MAGNIFICENT SERVICE STOP LETTER FOLLOWS STOP REGARDS FRANCIS ESSEX
(Telegram from Francis Essex, STV to Alfred Hitchcock, 10 February 1969)
The programme makers were delighted with Hitchcock’s contribution. On viewing the footage Essex wrote to Hitchcock noting that “John Grierson himself was considerably moved” by the tribute paid. In a letter of thanks from Scottish Television in January 1969 Essex notes that Hitchcock had dismissed any discussion of a fee being paid for his contribution. In response the programme makers offered Hitchcock “a holiday in Scotland with a round or two of golf.” The file doesn’t indicate if Hitchcock took them up on this generous offer.
*The Alfred Hitchcock Archive at the Margaret Herrick Library (the library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) in Los Angeles includes papers relating to the production of this televised tribute (copies these papers are held in our John Grierson Archive, ref. G8A.5).
