Cloying Dick Cavett
Today I watched my Criterion copy of Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent" from 1940.
After the film ended, I discovered that one of the extras on the same disk was a 1972 interview with Alfred Hitchcock from the Dick Cavett Show.
The interview was a bit longer than 1 hour. (All film clips mentioned in the interview had been removed as had all the commercials.)
Hitchcock was fascinating to watch. He spoke about his films, and some of the tricks of the trade he used for famous shots (the glass of milk that Cary Grant carried up the stairs in "Suspicion", for example). Watching his droll sense of humor, mixed with his serious comments was great to see.
Unfortunately, the other person doing the interview, Dick Cavett, was completely annoying and cloying to a sickening degree. In addition, Cavett seemed to find it necessary to try to "top" Hitchcock's stories, coming up with utterly inane and embarrassingly stupid comments after AH had made a charmingly low level humorous remark. AH's comments were so relaxed that no over the top humor was needed, or indeed appropriate.
I was tempted more than once to just stop watching because of DC ruining the flow, but Hitchcock was so interesting that I stayed the course.
I'm old enough to remember when Cavett was a media darling and had many very famous guests, but watching this whole show reminded me what annoying, self important toad he was.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 19, 2020 10:04 PM
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Name dropper, pretentious, phony, square pretending to be hip, try hard, queeny, etc.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 19, 2020 8:57 PM
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I see it's Dick Cavett's birthday today. Anyone remember to send a card?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 19, 2020 9:09 PM
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Cavett had a nice hairy chest when he was shirtless while he was trying some boxing as part of some interview of a boxer, (was it Mohammed Ali?) that they showed on tv relatively recently from way back.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 19, 2020 9:13 PM
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The Dick Cavett show was ALWAYS about Dick Cavett. He was the Tyra Banks of his time. I'm surprised he didn't change suits during the commercials.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 19, 2020 9:29 PM
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R4 well known homo but never out as I recall.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 19, 2020 9:33 PM
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I agree he was sometimes over the top and annoying, but there weren't many other interview shows that booked the people he did.
And I agree with R3.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | November 19, 2020 9:55 PM
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You know I loved The Dick Cavett Show when it was on. It was a new style and had such great guests. It was a welcome relief from the other crappy interviews. But when I see clips of it now I realize he was just as OP puts it - cloying and, as others said, rather egotistical.
He served his purpose and in the end that's all that matters I guess.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 19, 2020 10:04 PM
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