THE GIRL, seen on BBC2 at Christmas, used the making of The Birds to expose the sexual foibles and personality quirks of director Alfred Hitchcock, notably his penchant for casting icy blondes as his leading ladies with whom he took an unhealthy interest.

Hitchcock – the film – does much the same thing, only this time the movie in the spotlight is Psycho, perhaps the one most closely associated with the Master of Suspense. If you thought the shower scene was gruesome, wait until you see some of the behind the scenes shenanigans as he planned what was essentially his comeback movie.

He’d been dabbling in television, leaving movie studio producers thinking he was past his prime and not worth backing. He ended up financing Psycho privately. But it wasn’t only the shock-horror moments but clever marketing that helped the story of the Bates Motel become a huge hit.

This is all fascinating stuff with Scarlett Johansson’s Janet Leigh neatly negotiating Hitchcock’s “interest” in her while co-star Vera Miles (played by Jessica Biel) is a reminder of how the director treated those who didn’t play by his rules. We see far too little of James D’Arcy who makes a marvellously twitchy Anthony Perkins.

But the off-screen crisis in the marriage of Hitchcock and his wife and creative partner Alma (Helen Mirren, looking more imposing and glamorous than the real woman) grows tiresome as he suspects she’s having an affair with Danny Huston’s scriptwriter.

Even less welcome is the imaginary appearance from time to time of killer Ed Gein, who supposedly inspired Robert Block’s original story on which Psycho was based.

Perhaps the most serious flaw is Hitch himself because Anthony Hopkins isn’t a patch on Toby Jones’ impersonation in The Girl. Prosthetics and padding give Hopkins a look of Hitchcock but the voice isn’t right and, while I don’t want a Mike Yarwood impersonation, it has to be close enough to the real person for you to suspend your disbelief for 90 minutes.