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While still at Henley's, he read in a trade paper that
When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as
On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married the English screenwriter
Hitchcock began work on his tenth film, ''
Hitchcock released two spy thrillers in 1936. ''
''
Hitchcock worked for David Selznick again when he directed '' Spellbound'' (1945), which explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned; Selznick edited it to make it "play" more effectively. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (
Hitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film. With ''Rope (film), Rope'' (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with ''Lifeboat''. The film appears as a very limited number of continuous shots, but it was actually shot in 10 ranging from 4- to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film was the most that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. 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. The film features
''I Confess'' was followed by three colour films starring
From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series ''
While directing episodes for ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' during the summer of 1957, Hitchcock was admitted to hospital for hernia and gallstones, and had to have his gallbladder removed. Following a successful surgery, he immediately returned to work to prepare for his next project. ''
Hitchcock followed up with three more successful films, which are also recognised as among his best: ''North by Northwest'', '' Psycho'' (1960) and '' The Birds'' (1963). In ''North by Northwest'', Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. He is pursued across the United States by enemy agents, including Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). At first, Thornhill believes Kendall is helping him, but then realises that she is an enemy agent; he later learns that she is working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. During its opening two-week run at Radio City Music Hall, the film grossed $404,056 (equivalent to $ million in ), setting a non-holiday gross record for that theatre. ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine called the film "smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining".
'' Psycho'' (1960) is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film. Based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel ''Psycho (novel), Psycho'', which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein, the film was produced on a tight budget of $800,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) and shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from ''
Hitchcock told cinematographer Robert Burks that the camera had to be placed as close as possible to Hedren when he filmed her face. Ed McBain, Evan Hunter, the screenwriter of ''The Birds'' who was writing ''Marnie'' too, explained to Hitchcock that, if Mark loved Marnie, he would comfort her, not rape her. Hitchcock reportedly replied: "Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face!" When Hunter submitted two versions of the script, one without the rape scene, Hitchcock replaced him with Jay Presson Allen.
Hitchcock returned to Britain to make his penultimate film, ''Frenzy'' (1972), based on the novel ''Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square'' (1966). After two espionage films, the plot marked a return to the murder-thriller genre. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect in the investigation into the "Necktie Murders", which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster (actor), Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites as in ''Strangers on a Train''.
In ''Frenzy'', Hitchcock allowed nudity for the first time. Two scenes show naked women, one of whom is being raped and strangled; Donald Spoto called the latter "one of the most repellent examples of a detailed murder in the history of film". Both actors, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anna Massey, refused to do the scenes, so models were used instead. Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the head of the
Toward the end of his life, Hitchcock was working on the script for a spy thriller, ''The Short Night'', collaborating with James Costigan, Ernest Lehman and David Freeman (screenwriter), David Freeman. Despite preliminary work, it was never filmed. Hitchcock's health was declining and he was worried about his wife, who had suffered a stroke. The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's book ''The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock'' (1999).
Having refused a Order of the British Empire, CBE in 1962, Hitchcock was appointed a Order of the British Empire, Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1980 New Year Honours. He was too ill to travel to London—he had a Artificial cardiac pacemaker, pacemaker and was being given cortisone injections for his arthritis—so on 3 January 1980 the British consul general presented him with the papers at Universal Studios. Asked by a reporter after the ceremony why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, "I suppose it was a matter of carelessness." Cary Grant, Janet Leigh, and others attended a luncheon afterwards.
His last public appearance was on 16 March 1980, when he introduced the next year's winner of the American Film Institute award. He died of kidney failure the following month, on 29 April, in his Bel Air home. Donald Spoto, one of Hitchcock's biographers, wrote that Hitchcock had declined to see a priest, but according to Jesuit priest Mark Henninger, he and another priest, Tom Sullivan, celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home, and Sullivan heard his Sacrament of Penance, confession. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. His funeral was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills on 30 April, after which his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean on 10 May 1980.
Hitchcock's film production career evolved from small-scale silent films to financially significant sound films. Hitchcock remarked that he was influenced by early filmmakers George Méliès, D.W. Griffith and Alice Guy-Blaché. His silent films between 1925 and 1929 were in the crime and suspense genres, but also included melodramas and comedies. Whilst Visual narrative, visual storytelling was pertinent during the silent era, even after the arrival of sound, Hitchcock still relied on visuals in cinema; he referred to this emphasis on visual storytelling as "pure cinema". In Britain, he honed his craft so that by the time he moved to Hollywood, the director had perfected his style and camera techniques. Hitchcock later said that his British work was the "sensation of cinema", whereas the American phase was when his "ideas were fertilised". Scholar Robin Wood writes that the director's first two films, ''The Pleasure Garden'' and ''The Mountain Eagle'', were influenced by
The victims in ''The Lodger'' are all blondes. In '' The 39 Steps'', Madeleine Carroll is put in handcuffs.
This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine ''Cahiers du Cinéma'', in his book ''Hitchcock at Work''. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn 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 films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of ''North by Northwest'' was not 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 when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like ''Notorious'' reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of ''The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including '' Strangers on a Train'' and ''Topaz (1969 film), Topaz''. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant 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 were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.
Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they chose (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.
According to Krohn, this and a great deal of 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. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.
Hitchcock was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 February 1960 with two stars: one for television and a second for his motion pictures. In 1978, 
He won two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards, including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award and, in 1979, an
Hitchcock's Style
– British Film Institute, BFI Screenonline
Alfred Hitchcock: England's Biggest and Best Director Goes to Hollywood
– ''
Alfred Hitchcock Now Says Actors Are Children, Not Cattle
– ''Boston Globe'', 1 June 1958, p. A–11
'Twas Alfred Hitchcock Week in London
– ''Variety (magazine), Variety'', 17 August 1966, p. 16
Deflem, Mathieu. 2016. "Alfred Hitchcock: Visions of Guilt and Innocence."
pp. 203–227 in Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, edited by Caroline Joan S. Picart, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, and Cecil Greek. Latham, MD; Madison, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield; Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Slavoj Žižek et al.:''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock'', London and New York, Verso, 2nd edition 2010.
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", he became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology ''
. An overwhelming majority of his films include rail or tram scenes, in particular ''The Lady Vanishes (1938 film)">The Lady Vanishes'', '' Strangers on a Train'' and ''Number Seventeen''. A clapperboard shows the number of the scene and the number of takes, and Hitchcock would often take the two numbers on the clapperboard and whisper the London tram route names. For example, if the clapperboard showed Scene 23; Take 3; Hitchcock would whisper "Woodford, Hampstead" – Woodford being the terminus of the route 23 tram, and Hampstead the end of route 3.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was r ...
'' (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director despite five nominations.
Hitchcock initially trained as a technical clerk and copy writer before entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card
In films, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (i.e., ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as "dialo ...
designer. His directorial debut was the British-German silent film '' The Pleasure Garden'' (1925). His first successful film, '' The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog'' (1927), helped to shape the thriller
Thriller may refer to:
* Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television
** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre
Comics
* ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...
genre, and ''Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
'' (1929) was the first British "talkie
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
". His thrillers '' The 39 Steps'' (1935) and '' The Lady Vanishes'' (1938) are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century. By 1939, he had international recognition and producer David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick (May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced '' Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca'' (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture.
...
persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including ''Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
'' (1940), ''Foreign Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locat ...
'' (1940), ''Suspicion
Suspicion is a feeling of mistrust.
Suspicion(s), The Suspicion, or Suspicious may also refer to:
Film and television Film
* ''Suspicion'' (1918 film), an American silent film directed by John M. Stahl
* ''Suspicion'' (1941 film), an American ...
'' (1941), '' Shadow of a Doubt'' (1943), and '' Notorious'' (1946). ''Rebecca'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only categ ...
, with Hitchcock nominated as Best Director; he was also nominated for '' Lifeboat'' (1944) and '' Spellbound'' (1945). After a brief commercial lull, he returned to form with '' Strangers on a Train'' (1951) and ''Dial M for Murder
''Dial M for Murder'' is a 1954 American crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, and John Williams. Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which it was b ...
'' (1954); he then went on to direct four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: ''Rear Window
''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
'' (1954), ''Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'' (1958), ''North by Northwest
''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture ...
'' (1959) and '' Psycho'' (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations. '' The Birds'' (1963) and ''Marnie
''Marnie'' is an English crime novel, written by Winston Graham and first published in 1961. It has been adapted as a film, a stage play and an opera.
Plot
''Marnie'' is about a young woman who makes a living by embezzling her employers' funds, ...
'' (1964) were also financially successful and are highly regarded by film historians.
The "Hitchcockian
Hitchcockian films are those made by various filmmakers, with the styles and themes similar to those of Alfred Hitchcock.
Characteristics
Elements considered Hitchcockian include:
*Climactic plot twist.
*The cool platinum blonde.
*The presence ...
" style includes the use of editing and camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into voyeurs
Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.
The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...
, and framing shots to maximise anxiety and fear. The film critic Robin Wood wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film "is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole." Hitchcock made multiple films with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including four with Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...
in the 1940s and 1950s, three with Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...
in the second half of the 1940s, four with James Stewart
James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...
over a decade commencing in 1948, and three consecutive with Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
in the mid-1950s. Hitchcock became an American citizen in 1955.
In 2012, Hitchcock's psychological thriller ''Vertigo'', starring Stewart, displaced Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
' ''Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
'' (1941) as the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's greatest film ever made based on its world-wide poll of hundreds of film critics. , nine of his films had been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
, including his personal favourite, '' Shadow of a Doubt'' (1943). He received the BAFTA Fellowship
The BAFTA Fellowship, or the Academy Fellowship, is a lifetime achievement award presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in recognition of "outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image". The award is t ...
in 1971, the AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the board of directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973, to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion picture ...
in 1979, and was knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...
in December that year, four months before his death on 29 April 1980.
Biography
Early life: 1899–1919
Early childhood and education
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in the flat above his parents' leased greengrocer's shop at 517 High Road,Leytonstone
Leytonstone () is an area in east London, England, north-east of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, a local authority district of Greater London. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, ...
, on the outskirts of East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
(then part of Essex
Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
), the youngest of three children of Emma Jane (; 1863–1942) and William Edgar Hitchcock (1862–1914), with a brother, William Daniel (1890–1943), and a sister, Ellen Kathleen ("Nellie") (1892–1979). His parents were both Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
s, with partial roots in Ireland; His father was a greengrocer
A greengrocer is a person who owns or operates a shop selling primarily fruit and vegetables. The term may also be used to refer to a shop selling primarily produce. It is used predominantly in the United Kingdom and Australia.
In the Uni ...
, as his grandfather had been.
There was a large extended family, including uncle John Hitchcock with his five-bedroom Victorian house on Campion Road, Putney
Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
History
Putney is an ancient paris ...
, complete with maid, cook, chauffeur and gardener. Every summer, his uncle rented a seaside house for the family in Cliftonville
Cliftonville is a coastal area of the town of Margate, situated to the east of the main town, in the Thanet district of Kent, South East England, United Kingdom. It also contains the area known as Palm Bay.
The original Palm Bay estate was ...
, Kent. Hitchcock said that he first became class-conscious there, noticing the differences between tourists and locals.
Describing himself as a well-behaved boy—his father called him his "little lamb without a spot"—Hitchcock said he could not remember ever having had a playmate. One of his favourite stories for interviewers was about his father sending him to the local police station with a note when he was five; the policeman looked at the note and locked him in a cell for a few minutes, saying, "This is what we do to naughty boys." The experience left him, he said, with a lifelong fear of policemen; in 1973 he told Tom Snyder
Thomas James Snyder (May 12, 1936 – July 29, 2007) was an American television personality, news anchor, and radio personality best known for his late night talk shows '' Tomorrow'', on the NBC television network in the 1970s and 1980s, and ' ...
that he was "scared stiff of anything ... to do with the law" and wouldn't even drive a car in case he got a parking ticket.
When he was six, the family moved to Limehouse
Limehouse is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. It is east of Charing Cross, on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its proximity to the river has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through ...
and leased two stores at 130 and 175 Salmon Lane, which they ran as a fish-and-chips
Fish and chips is a popular hot dish consisting of fried fish in crispy batter, served with chips. The dish originated in England, where these two components had been introduced from separate immigrant cultures; it is not known who created t ...
shop and fishmongers' respectively; they lived above the former. Hitchcock attended his first school, the Howrah House Convent in Poplar, which he entered in 1907, at age 7. According to biographer Patrick McGilligan, he stayed at Howrah House for at most two years. He also attended a convent school, the Wode Street School "for the daughters of gentlemen and little boys", run by the Faithful Companions of Jesus
The Faithful Companions of Jesus Sisters (FCJ Sisters, French: ''Fidèles compagnes de Jésus'') is a Christian religious institute of the Roman Catholic Church directly subject to the Pope. It was founded in Amiens in France in 1820 by Marie ...
. He then attended a primary school near his home and was for a short time a boarder at Salesian College in Battersea
Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park.
History
Batt ...
.
The family moved again when he was 11, this time to Stepney
Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...
, and on 5 October 1910 Hitchcock was sent to St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill is an area in Inner London, England, about 5.5 miles north-east of Charing Cross. The neighbourhood is a sub-district of Hackney, the major component of the London Borough of Hackney, and is known for its Hasidic community, the ...
, Tottenham (incorporated into the new London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of ...
), a Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
grammar school with a reputation for discipline. As corporal punishment the priests used a flat, hard, springy tool/weapon made of gutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus '' Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae. The name also refers to the rigid, naturally biologically inert, resilient, electrically nonconductive, thermoplastic latex derived from the tree, particularly fr ...
and known as a "ferula", which struck the whole palm; punishment was always at the end of the day, so the boys had to sit through classes anticipating the punishment if they had been written up for it. He later said that this is where he developed his sense of fear. The school register lists his year of birth as 1900 rather than 1899; biographer Donald Spoto says he was deliberately enrolled as a 10-year-old because he was a year behind with his schooling.
While biographer Gene Adair reports that Hitchcock was "an average, or slightly above-average, pupil", Hitchcock said that he was "usually among the four or five at the top of the class"; at the end of his first year, his work in Latin, English, French and religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term ''religious instruction'' would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with ''religious education'' referring to t ...
was noted. He told Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich (July 30, 1939 – January 6, 2022) was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian.
One of the " New Hollywood" directors, Bogdanovich started as a film journalist until he was hired to work on ...
: "The Jesuits taught me organisation, control and, to some degree, analysis."
His favourite subject was geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
, and he became interested in maps, and railway, tram and bus timetables; according to John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor (born 19 June 1935) is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such figures in film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, ...
, he could recite all the stops on the Orient Express
The ''Orient Express'' was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company ''Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits'' (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe and int ...
. He also had a particular interest in London trams
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._An_overwhelming_majority_of_his_films_include_rail_or_tram_scenes,_in_particular_''The_Lady_Vanishes_(1938_film).html" ;"title=""type": ...Henley's
Hitchcock told his parents that he wanted to be an engineer, and on 25 July 1913, he left St Ignatius and enrolled in night classes at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar. In a book-length interview in 1962, he toldFrançois Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more th ...
that he had studied "mechanics, electricity, acoustics, and navigation". Then on 12 December 1914 his father, who had been suffering from emphysema
Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alv ...
and kidney disease, died at the age of 52. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job, for 15 shillings a week (£ in ), as a technical clerk at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company in Blomfield Street near London Wall
The London Wall was a defensive wall first built by the Romans around the strategically important port town of Londinium in AD 200, and is now the name of a modern street in the City of London. It has origins as an initial mound wall and ...
. He continued night classes, this time in art history, painting, economics, and political science. His older brother ran the family shops, while he and his mother continued to live in Salmon Lane.
Hitchcock was too young to enlist when the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
started in July 1914, and when he reached the required age of 18 in 1917, he received a C3 classification ("free from serious organic disease, able to stand service conditions in garrisons at home ... only suitable for sedentary work"). He joined a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...
and took part in theoretical briefings, weekend drills, and exercises. John Russell Taylor wrote that, in one session of practical exercises in Hyde Park, Hitchcock was required to wear puttees
A puttee (also spelled ''puttie'', adapted from the Hindi '' paṭṭī'', meaning "bandage") is a covering for the lower part of the leg from the ankle to the knee, alternatively known as: legwraps, leg bindings, winingas, or Wickelbänder. The ...
. He could never master wrapping them around his legs, and they repeatedly fell down around his ankles.
After the war, Hitchcock took an interest in creative writing. In June 1919, he became a founding editor and business manager of Henley's in-house publication, ''The Henley Telegraph'' (sixpence a copy), to which he submitted several short stories. Henley's promoted him to the advertising department, where he wrote copy and drew graphics for electric cable advertisements. He enjoyed the job and would stay late at the office to examine the proofs; he told Truffaut that this was his "first step toward cinema". He enjoyed watching films, especially American cinema, and from the age of 16 read the trade papers; he watched Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
, D. W. Griffith
David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...
and Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression ...
, and particularly liked Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary '' Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. ...
's '' Der müde Tod'' (1921).
Inter-war career: 1919–1939
Famous Players-Lasky
While still at Henley's, he read in a trade paper that Famous Players-Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and ...
, the production arm of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film ''The Sorrows of Satan
''The Sorrows of Satan'' is an 1895 Faustian novel by Marie Corelli. It is widely regarded as one of the world's first best-sellers – partly due to an upheaval in the system British libraries used to purchase their books, and partly due to its ...
'' by Marie Corelli
Mary Mackay (1 May 185521 April 1924), also called Minnie Mackey, and known by her pseudonym Marie Corelli (, also , ), was an English novelist.
From the appearance of her first novel '' A Romance of Two Worlds'' in 1886, she became the bestse ...
, so he produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios in Poole Street, Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It l ...
, as a title-card designer.
Donald Spoto wrote that most of the staff were Americans with strict job specifications, but the English workers were encouraged to try their hand at anything, which meant that Hitchcock gained experience as a co-writer, art director and production manager on at least 18 silent films. ''The Times'' wrote in February 1922 about the studio's "special art title department under the supervision of Mr. A. J. Hitchcock". His work included '' Number 13'' (1922), also known as ''Mrs. Peabody;'' it was cancelled because of financial problems—the few finished scenes are lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
* Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
*Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
—and ''Always Tell Your Wife
''Always Tell Your Wife'' is a 1923 British short comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Seymour Hicks, after they took over from an ill Hugh Croise. Only one of the two reels is known to survive. It was a remake of the 1914 film of t ...
'' (1923), which he and Seymour Hicks
Sir Edward Seymour Hicks (30 January 1871 – 6 April 1949), better known as Seymour Hicks, was a British actor, music hall performer, playwright, actor-manager and producer. He became known, early in his career, for writing, starring in and p ...
finished together when Hicks was about to give up on it. Hicks wrote later about being helped by "a fat youth who was in charge of the property room ... ne other than Alfred Hitchcock".
Gainsborough Pictures and work in Germany
When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures
Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The com ...
. Hitchcock worked on '' Woman to Woman'' (1923) with the director Graham Cutts
John Henry Graham Cutts (1884 – 7 February 1958), known as Graham Cutts, was a British film director, one of the leading British directors in the 1920s. His fellow director A. V. Bramble believed that Gainsborough Pictures had been built ...
, designing the set, writing the script and producing. He said: "It was the first film that I had really got my hands onto." The editor and "script girl" on ''Woman to Woman'' was Alma Reville
Alma Lucy Reville, Lady Hitchcock (14 August 1899 – 6 July 1982), was an English director, editor, and screenwriter. She was the wife of the film director Alfred Hitchcock. She collaborated on scripts for her husband's films, including '' Sha ...
, his future wife. He also worked as an assistant to Cutts on '' The White Shadow'' (1924), ''The Passionate Adventure
''The Passionate Adventure'' is a 1924 British silent drama film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Clive Brook and Alice Joyce. The film was adapted from a novel by Frank Stayton by Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Morton, with Hitchcock also ...
'' (1924), ''The Blackguard
''The Blackguard'' (german: Die Prinzessin und der Geiger) (1925) is a British-German drama film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Jane Novak, Walter Rilla, and Frank Stanmore.
Plot
Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, a violini ...
'' (1925), and ''The Prude's Fall
''The Prude's Fall'' is a 1925 British silent drama film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Jane Novak, Julanne Johnston and Warwick Ward.
The film was shot at Islington Studios, produced by a company that would soon develop into Gainsbo ...
'' (1925). ''The Blackguard'' was produced at the Babelsberg Studios
Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...
in Potsdam, where Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter.
He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at th ...
's '' The Last Laugh'' (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions.
In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct '' The Pleasure Garden'' (1925), starring Virginia Valli
Virginia Valli (died September 24, 1968) was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s.
Early life
Born Virginia McSweeney in ...
, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka at the Geiselgasteig studio near Munich. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. Although the film was a commercial flop, Balcon liked Hitchcock's work; a ''Daily Express'' headline called him the "Young man with a master mind". Production of ''The Pleasure Garden'' encountered obstacles which Hitchcock would later learn from: on arrival to Brenner Pass
The Brenner Pass (german: link=no, Brennerpass , shortly ; it, Passo del Brennero ) is a mountain pass through the Alps which forms the border between Italy and Austria. It is one of the principal passes of the Eastern Alpine range and has ...
, he failed to declare his film stock
Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed,
edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent ...
to customs and it was confiscated; one actress could not enter the water for a scene because she was on her period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
; budget overruns meant that he had to borrow money from the actors. Hitchcock also needed a translator to give instructions to the cast and crew.
In Germany, Hitchcock observed the nuances of German cinema and filmmaking which had a big influence on him. When he was not working, he would visit Berlin's art galleries, concerts and museums. He would also meet with actors, writers, and producers to build connections. Balcon asked him to direct a second film in Munich, '' The Mountain Eagle'' (1926), based on an original story titled ''Fear o' God''. The film is lost, and Hitchcock called it "a very bad movie". A year later, Hitchcock wrote and directed '' The Ring''; although the screenplay was credited solely to his name, Elliot Stannard assisted him with the writing. ''The Ring'' garnered positive reviews; the ''Bioscope'' magazine critic called it "the most magnificent British film ever made".
When he returned to England, Hitchcock was one of the early members of the London Film Society, newly formed in 1925. Through the Society, he became fascinated by the work by Soviet filmmakers: Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (russian: Лев Владимирович Кулешов; – 29 March 1970) was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film theorist, one of the founders of the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. He ...
, Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
, and Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin ( rus, Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин, p=ˈfsʲevələt ɪlərʲɪˈonəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈdofkʲɪn; 16 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwrite ...
. He would also socialise with fellow English filmmakers Ivor Montagu and Adrian Brunel
Adrian Brunel (4 September 1892 – 18 February 1958) was an English film director and screenwriter. Brunel's directorial career started in the silent era, and reached its peak in the latter half of the 1920s. His surviving work from the 1920s, ...
, and Walter C. Mycroft.
Hitchcock established himself as a name director with his first thriller, '' The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog'' (1927). The film concerns the hunt for a Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer w ...
-style serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. A landlady suspects that her lodger is the killer, but he turns out to be innocent. To convey the impression footsteps were being heard from an upper floor, Hitchcock had a glass floor made so that the viewer could see the lodger pacing up and down in his room above the landlady. Hitchcock had wanted the leading man to be guilty, or for the film at least to end ambiguously, but the star was Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
He was born into a musical ...
, a matinée idol, and the "star system
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a '' star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly speaking ...
" meant that Novello could not be the villain. Hitchcock told Truffaut: "You have to clearly spell it out in big letters: 'He is innocent.'" (He had the same problem years later with Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...
in ''Suspicion
Suspicion is a feeling of mistrust.
Suspicion(s), The Suspicion, or Suspicious may also refer to:
Film and television Film
* ''Suspicion'' (1918 film), an American silent film directed by John M. Stahl
* ''Suspicion'' (1941 film), an American ...
'' (1941).) Released in January 1927, ''The Lodger'' was a commercial and critical success in the UK. Upon its release the trade journal ''Bioscope'' wrote: "It is possible that this film is the finest British production ever made". Hitchcock told Truffaut that the film was the first of his to be influenced by German Expressionism
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
: "In truth, you might almost say that ''The Lodger'' was my first picture." He made his first cameo appearance
A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
in the film, sitting in a newsroom.
Marriage
On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married the English screenwriter Alma Reville
Alma Lucy Reville, Lady Hitchcock (14 August 1899 – 6 July 1982), was an English director, editor, and screenwriter. She was the wife of the film director Alfred Hitchcock. She collaborated on scripts for her husband's films, including '' Sha ...
at the Brompton Oratory
Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...
in South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
. The couple honeymooned in Paris, Lake Como
Lake Como ( it, Lago di Como , ; lmo, label=Western Lombard, Lagh de Còmm , ''Cómm'' or ''Cùmm'' ), also known as Lario (; after the la, Larius Lacus), is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the thir ...
and St. Moritz, before returning to London to live in a leased flat on the top two floors of 153 Cromwell Road
Cromwell Road is a major London road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designated as part of the A4. It was created in the 19th century and is said to be named after Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, who once owned a hous ...
, Kensington. Reville, who was born just hours after Hitchcock, converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, apparently at the insistence of Hitchcock's mother; she was baptised on 31 May 1927 and confirmed at Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It is the largest Catholic church in the UK and the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster.
The site on which the cathedral stands in the City o ...
by Cardinal Francis Bourne
Francis Alphonsus Bourne (1861–1935) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the fourth Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911.
Biography
Early life
Francis Bo ...
on 5 June.
In 1928, when they learned that Reville was pregnant, the Hitchcocks purchased "Winter's Grace", a Tudor farmhouse set in 11 acres on Stroud Lane, Shamley Green
Wonersh is a village and civil parish in the Waverley district of Surrey, England and Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Wonersh contains three Conservation Areas and spans an area three to six miles SSE of Guildford. In the ...
, Surrey, for £2,500. Their daughter and only child, Patricia Alma Hitchcock, was born on 7 July that year. Patricia died on 9 August 2021 at 93.
Reville became her husband's closest collaborator; Charles Champlin
Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer.
Life and career
Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the ...
wrote in 1982: "The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma's." When Hitchcock accepted the AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the board of directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973, to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion picture ...
in 1979, he said that he wanted to mention "four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville." Reville wrote or co-wrote on many of Hitchcock's films, including '' Shadow of a Doubt'', ''Suspicion'' and ''The 39 Steps''.
Early sound films
Hitchcock began work on his tenth film, ''Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
'' (1929), when its production company, British International Pictures
Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), originally British International Pictures (BIP), was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970 when it was absorbed into EMI. ABPC also owned appr ...
(BIP), converted its Elstree studios
Elstree Studios is a generic term which can refer to several current and demolished British film studios and television studios based in or around the town of Borehamwood and village of Elstree in Hertfordshire, England. Production studios ha ...
to sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...
. The film was the first British "talkie
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
"; this followed the rapid development of sound films in the United States, from the use of brief sound segments in ''The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolate ...
'' (1927) to the first full sound feature '' Lights of New York'' (1928).; also see ; ''Blackmail'' began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The ...
. In the PBS series ''The Men Who Made The Movies'', Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder. During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own dur ...
, ''Elstree Calling
''Elstree Calling'' is a 1930 British comedy musical film directed by Adrian Brunel and Alfred Hitchcock at Elstree Studios.
Synopsis
The film, referred to as "A Cine-Radio Revue" in its original publicity, is a lavish musical film revue and ...
'' (1930), and directed a short film, ''An Elastic Affair
''An Elastic Affair'' (1930) is a 10-minute short comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock which features the two winners—Cyril Butcher (1909–1988) as "the Boy" and Aileen Despard (1908–1981) as "the Girl"—of a film acting scholarship ...
'' (1930), featuring two ''Film Weekly'' scholarship winners. ''An Elastic Affair'' is one of the lost films.
In 1933, Hitchcock signed a multi-film contract with Gaumont-British, once again working for Michael Balcon. His first film for the company, '' The Man Who Knew Too Much'' (1934), was a success; his second, '' The 39 Steps'' (1935), was acclaimed in the UK and gained him recognition in the United States. It also established the quintessential English "Hitchcock blonde" ( Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. Screenwriter Robert Towne
Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz;'' Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'' by Peter Biskind page 30, 1999 Bloomsbury edition November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He started with writing films for Roger ...
remarked, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with ''The 39 Steps''". This film was one of the first to introduce the "MacGuffin
In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for ...
" plot device, a term coined by the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail
Angus Roy MacPhail (8 April 1903 – 22 April 1962) was an English screenwriter, active from the late 1920s. He is best remembered for his work with Alfred Hitchcock.
Early life and education
Son of merchant clerk Angus MacPhail and Fanny ...
. The MacGuffin is an item or goal the protagonist is pursuing, one that otherwise has no narrative value; in ''The 39 Steps'', the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans.
Hitchcock released two spy thrillers in 1936. ''Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
'' was loosely based on Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not spe ...
's novel, ''The Secret Agent
''The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907.. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). ''The Secret Agent ...
'' (1907), about a woman who discovers that her husband is a terrorist, and ''Secret Agent
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
'', based on two stories in '' Ashenden: Or the British Agent'' (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
.
At this time, Hitchcock also became notorious for pranks against the cast and crew. These jokes ranged from simple and innocent to crazy and maniacal. For instance, he hosted a dinner party where he dyed all the food blue because he claimed there weren't enough blue foods. He also had a horse delivered to the dressing room of his friend, actor Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier (26 March 1873 – 11 April 1934) was an English actor and manager. He was the son of author George du Maurier and his wife, Emma Wightwick, and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1903, he ...
.
Hitchcock followed up with '' Young and Innocent'' in 1937, a crime thriller based on the 1936 novel '' A Shilling for Candles'' by Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author. Her novel '' The Daughter of Time'' was a detective work investigating the role of Richard III of England in the death of the Pr ...
. Starring Nova Pilbeam
Nova Margery Pilbeam (15 November 1919 – 17 July 2015) was an English film and stage actress. She played leading roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1930s, and made her last film in 1948.
Early life
Pilbeam was born in Wimbledon, Sur ...
and Derrick De Marney
Derrick Raoul Edouard Alfred De Marney (21 September 1906 – 18 February 1978) was an English stage and film actor and producer, of French and Irish ancestry.
Actor
The son of Violet Eileen Concanen and Arthur De Marney, and the grandson of ...
, the film was relatively enjoyable for the cast and crew to make. To meet distribution purposes in America, the film's runtime was cut and this included removal of one of Hitchcock's favourite scenes: a children's tea party which becomes menacing to the protagonists.
Hitchcock's next major success was '' The Lady Vanishes'' (1938), "one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era", according to Philip French
Philip Neville French OBE (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film crit ...
, in which Miss Froy (May Whitty
May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days.
May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...
), a British spy posing as a governess, disappears on a train journey through the fictional European country of Bandrika. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director. Benjamin Crisler of the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote in June 1938: "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not: Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by t ...
, the Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames clos ...
and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world." The film was based on the novel '' The Wheel Spins'' (1936) written by Ethel Lina White.
By 1938 Hitchcock was aware that he had reached his peak in Britain. He had received numerous offers from producers in the United States, but he turned them all down because he disliked the contractual obligations or thought the projects were repellent. However, producer David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick (May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced '' Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca'' (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture.
...
offered him a concrete proposal to make a film based on the sinking of , which was eventually shelved, but Selznick persuaded Hitchcock to come to Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywoo ...
. In July 1938, Hitchcock flew to New York, and found that he was already a celebrity; he was featured in magazines and gave interviews to radio stations. In Hollywood, Hitchcock met Selznick for the first time. Selznick offered him a four-film contract, approximately $40,000 for each picture ().
Early Hollywood years: 1939–1945
Selznick contract
Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in April 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. The Hitchcocks lived in a spacious flat onWilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...
, and slowly acclimatised themselves to the Los Angeles area. He and his wife Alma kept a low profile, and were not interested in attending parties or being celebrities. Hitchcock discovered his taste for fine food in West Hollywood, but still carried on his way of life from England. He was impressed with Hollywood's filmmaking culture, expansive budgets and efficiency, compared to the limits that he had often faced in Britain. In June that year, ''Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
'' magazine called him the "greatest master of melodrama in screen history".
Although Hitchcock and Selznick respected each other, their working arrangements were sometimes difficult. Selznick suffered from constant financial problems, and Hitchcock was often unhappy about Selznick's creative control and interference over his films. Selznick was also displeased with Hitchcock's method of shooting just what was in the script, and nothing more, which meant that the film could not be cut and remade differently at a later time. As well as complaining about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", their personalities were mismatched: Hitchcock was reserved whereas Selznick was flamboyant. Eventually, Selznick generously lent Hitchcock to the larger film studios. Selznick made only a few films each year, as did fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor an ...
, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. In a later interview, Hitchcock said: " elznickwas the Big Producer. ... Producer was king. The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the 'only director' he'd 'trust with a film'."
Hitchcock approached American cinema cautiously; his first American film was set in England in which the "Americanness" of the characters was incidental: ''Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
'' (1940) was set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was Geo ...
. Selznick insisted on a faithful adaptation of the book, and disagreed with Hitchcock with the use of humour. The film, starring Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...
and Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...
, concerns an unnamed naïve young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She lives in his large English country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
, and struggles with the lingering reputation of his elegant and worldly first wife Rebecca, who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won Best Picture
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the 13th Academy Awards
The 13th Academy Awards were held on February 27, 1941, to honor films released in 1940. This was the first year that sealed envelopes were used to keep the names of the winners secret. The accounting firm of Price Waterhouse was hired to coun ...
; the statuette was given to producer Selznick. Hitchcock received his first nomination for Best Director, his first of five such nominations.
Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller ''Foreign Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locat ...
'' (1940), set in Europe, based on Vincent Sheean
James Vincent Sheean (December 5, 1899, Pana, Illinois – March 16, 1975, Arolo, Frz. of Leggiuno, Italy) was an American journalist and novelist.
Career
Sheean's most famous work was ''Personal History'' (New York: Doubleday, 1935).
It wo ...
's book ''Personal History'' (1935) and produced by Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger (born Walter Feuchtwanger; July 11, 1894 – November 18, 1968) was an American film producer active from the 1910s, his career concluding with the turbulent production of ''Cleopatra,'' his last film, in 1963. He began at Param ...
. It was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while Britain was at war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort. Filmed in 1939, it was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as covered by an American newspaper reporter played by Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he bec ...
. By mixing footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood backlot
A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions, or space for temporary set construction.
Uses
Some movie studios build a wide variety of ...
, the film avoided direct references to Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
, Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, and Germans, to comply with the Motion Picture Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
at the time.
Early war years
In September 1940 the Hitchcocks bought the Cornwall Ranch nearScotts Valley
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mount ...
, California, in the Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...
. Their primary residence was an English-style home in Bel Air, purchased in 1942. Hitchcock's films were diverse during this period, ranging from the romantic comedy '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (1941) to the bleak film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American '' ...
'' Shadow of a Doubt'' (1943).
''Suspicion
Suspicion is a feeling of mistrust.
Suspicion(s), The Suspicion, or Suspicious may also refer to:
Film and television Film
* ''Suspicion'' (1918 film), an American silent film directed by John M. Stahl
* ''Suspicion'' (1941 film), an American ...
'' (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer and director. It is set in England; Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz for the English coastline sequence. The film is the first of four in which Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...
was cast by Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant plays a sinister character. Grant plays Johnnie Aysgarth, an English conman
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have d ...
whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his shy young English wife, Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...
). In one scene, Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife; the light ensures that the audience's attention is on the glass. Grant's character is actually a killer, as per written in the book, '' Before the Fact'' by Francis Iles, but the studio felt that Grant's image would be tarnished by that. Hitchcock therefore settled for an ambiguous finale, although he would have preferred to end with the wife's murder. Fontaine won Best Actress
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...
for her performance.
''Saboteur
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identiti ...
'' (1942) is the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
during the decade. Hitchcock was forced by Universal to use Universal contract player Robert Cummings
Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (June 9, 1910 – December 2, 1990) was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as '' The Devil and Miss Jones'' (1941) and ''Princess O'Rourke'' (1943), and in ...
and Priscilla Lane
Priscilla Lane (born Priscilla Mullican, June 12, 1915 – April 4, 1995) was an American actress, and the youngest sibling in the Lane Sisters of singers and actresses. She is best remembered for her roles in the films ''The Roaring Twenties'' ...
, a freelancer who signed a one-picture deal with the studio, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. The story depicts a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd
Norman Nathan Lloyd (' Perlmutter; November 8, 1914 – May 11, 2021) was an American actor, producer, director, and centenarian with a career in entertainment spanning nearly a century. He worked in every major facet of the industry, including ...
) atop the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, ...
. Hitchcock took a three-day tour of New York City to scout for ''Saboteur''s filming locations. He also directed ''Have You Heard?'' (1942), a photographic dramatisation for ''Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
'' magazine of the dangers of rumours during wartime. In 1943, he wrote a mystery story for '' Look'' magazine, "The Murder of Monty Woolley", a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to find clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick, and make-up man Guy Pearce.
Back in England, Hitchcock's mother Emma was severely ill; she died on 26 September 1942 at age 79. Hitchcock never spoke publicly about his mother, but his assistant said that he admired her. Four months later, on 4 January 1943, his brother William died of an overdose at age 52. Hitchcock was not very close to William, but his death made Hitchcock conscious about his own eating and drinking habits. He was overweight and suffering from back aches. His New Year's resolution in 1943 was to take his diet seriously with the help of a physician. In January that year, '' Shadow of a Doubt'' was released, which Hitchcock had fond memories of making. In the film, Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa.
At 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock approached John Steinbeck with an idea for a film, which recorded the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack. Steinbeck began work on the script for what would become '' Lifeboat'' (1944). However, Steinbeck was unhappy with the film and asked that his name be removed from the credits, to no avail. The idea was rewritten as a short story by Harry Sylvester and published in ''Collier's'' in 1943. The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance; it 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". He told Truffaut in 1962:
Hitchcock's typical dinner before his weight loss had been a roast chicken, boiled ham, potatoes, bread, vegetables, relishes, salad, dessert, a bottle of wine and some brandy. To lose weight, his diet consisted of black coffee for breakfast and lunch, and steak and salad for dinner, but it was hard to maintain; Donald Spoto wrote that his weight fluctuated considerably over the next 40 years. At the end of 1943, despite the weight loss, the Occidental Insurance Company of Los Angeles refused his application for life insurance.
Wartime non-fiction films
Hitchcock returned to the UK for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944. While there he made two short propaganda films, ''Bon Voyage (1944 film), Bon Voyage'' (1944) and ''Aventure Malgache'' (1944), for the Ministry of Information (United Kingdom), Ministry of Information. In June and July 1945, Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" on a Holocaust documentary that used Allies of World War II, Allied Forces footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The film was assembled in London and produced by Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Sidney Bernstein of the Ministry of Information, who brought Hitchcock (a friend of his) on board. It was originally intended to be broadcast to the Germans, but the British government deemed it too traumatic to be shown to a shocked post-war population. Instead, it was transferred in 1952 from the British War Office film vaults to London's Imperial War Museum and remained unreleased until 1985, when an edited version was broadcast as an episode of PBS ''Frontline (U.S. TV series), Frontline'', under the title the Imperial War Museum had given it: ''Memory of the Camps''. The full-length version of the film, ''German Concentration Camps Factual Survey'', was restored in 2014 by scholars at the Imperial War Museum.Post-war Hollywood years: 1945–1953
Later Selznick films
Hitchcock worked for David Selznick again when he directed '' Spellbound'' (1945), which explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned; Selznick edited it to make it "play" more effectively. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...
), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past. Two Point-of-view shot, point-of-view shots were achieved by building a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on some copies of the black-and-white film. The original musical score by Miklós Rózsa makes use of the theremin, and some of it was later adapted by the composer into Rozsa's Piano Concerto Op. 31 (1967) for piano and orchestra.
The spy film '' Notorious'' followed next in 1946. Hitchcock told François Truffaut that Selznick sold him, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Ben Hecht's screenplay, to RKO Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) because of cost overruns on Selznick's ''Duel in the Sun (film), Duel in the Sun'' (1946). ''Notorious'' stars Bergman and Grant, both Hitchcock collaborators, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium and South America. His prescient use of uranium as a plot device led to him being briefly placed under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to Patrick McGilligan, in or around March 1945, Hitchcock and Hecht consulted Robert Millikan of the California Institute of Technology about the development of a uranium bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction", only to be confronted by the news of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.
Transatlantic Pictures
Hitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film. With ''Rope (film), Rope'' (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with ''Lifeboat''. The film appears as a very limited number of continuous shots, but it was actually shot in 10 ranging from 4- to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film was the most that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. 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. The film features James Stewart
James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...
in the leading role, and was the first of four films that Stewart made with Hitchcock. It was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. Critical response at the time was mixed.
''Under Capricorn'' (1949), set in 19th-century Australia, also uses 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, black-and-white for several years. Transatlantic Pictures became inactive after the last two films. Hitchcock filmed ''Stage Fright (1950 film), Stage Fright'' (1950) at Elstree Studios (Shenley Road), Elstree Studios in England, where he had worked during his British International Pictures contract many years before. He paired one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the expatriate German actor Marlene Dietrich and used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding (actor), Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first proper production for Warner Bros., which had distributed ''Rope'' and ''Under Capricorn'', because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties.
His thriller '' Strangers on a Train'' (1951) was based on the Strangers on a Train (novel), novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker (actor, born 1918), Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain. ''I Confess (film), I Confess'' (1953) was set in Quebec City, Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest.
Peak years: 1954–1964
''Dial M for Murder'' and ''Rear Window''
''I Confess'' was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
: ''Dial M for Murder
''Dial M for Murder'' is a 1954 American crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, and John Williams. Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which it was b ...
'' (1954), ''Rear Window
''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
'' (1954), and ''To Catch a Thief'' (1955). In ''Dial M for Murder'', Ray Milland plays the villain who tries to murder his unfaithful wife (Kelly) for her money. She kills the hired assassin in self-defence, so Milland manipulates the evidence to make it look like murder. Her lover, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings
Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (June 9, 1910 – December 2, 1990) was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as '' The Devil and Miss Jones'' (1941) and ''Princess O'Rourke'' (1943), and in ...
), and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams (actor), John Williams) save her from execution. Hitchcock experimented with 3-D film, 3D cinematography for ''Dial M for Murder''.
Hitchcock moved to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and filmed ''Rear Window
''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
'' (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character is a photographer named Jeff (based on Robert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. Out of boredom, he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, then becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Jeff eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with ''Lifeboat'' and ''Rope'', the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment".
''Alfred Hitchcock Presents''
From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents
''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was r ...
''. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. The title-sequence of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of his profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled. The series theme tune was ''Funeral March of a Marionette'' by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893).
His introductions always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are shown with a sign "Two chairs—no waiting!" He directed 18 episodes of the series, which aired from 1955 to 1965. It became ''The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'' in 1962, and NBC broadcast the final episode on 10 May 1965. In the 1980s, a Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985 TV series), new version of ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.
Hitchcock's success in television spawned a set of short-story collections in his name; these included ''Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology'', ''Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV,'' and ''Tales My Mother Never Told Me''. In 1956, HSD Publications also licensed the director's name to create ''Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine'', a monthly Digest size, digest specialising in crime and detective fiction. Hitchcock's television series' were very profitable, and his foreign-language versions of books were bringing revenues of up to $100,000 a year ().
From ''To Catch a Thief'' to ''Vertigo''
In 1955, Hitchcock became a United States citizen. In the same year, his third Grace Kelly film, ''To Catch a Thief'', was released; it is set in the French Riviera, and stars Kelly and Cary Grant. Grant plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him. "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; she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and ended her film career afterward. Hitchcock then remade his own The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 film), 1934 film ''The Man Who Knew Too Much'' The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film), in 1956. This time, the film starred James Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be), Que Sera, Sera", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a big hit. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall. ''The Wrong Man'' (1956), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Bros., is 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 to star Henry Fonda, playing a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief, who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (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.
While directing episodes for ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' during the summer of 1957, Hitchcock was admitted to hospital for hernia and gallstones, and had to have his gallbladder removed. Following a successful surgery, he immediately returned to work to prepare for his next project. ''Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'' (1958) again starred James Stewart, with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. He had wanted Vera Miles to play the lead, but she was pregnant. He told Oriana Fallaci: "I was offering her a big part, the chance to become a beautiful sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We'd have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children."
In ''Vertigo'', Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who becomes obsessed with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock did not opt for a happy ending. Some critics, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that ''Vertigo'' is the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the ''Pygmalion (mythology), Pygmalion''-like obsessions of a man who moulds a woman into the person he desires. ''Vertigo'' explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death, than any other work in his filmography.
''Vertigo'' contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts, commonly referred to as a dolly zoom, which has been copied by many filmmakers. The film premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and Hitchcock won the Silver Seashell prize. ''Vertigo'' is considered a classic, but it attracted mixed reviews and poor box-office receipts at the time; the critic from ''Variety (magazine), Variety'' magazine opined that the film was "too slow and too long". Bosley Crowther of the ''New York Times'' thought it was "devilishly far-fetched", but praised the cast performances and Hitchcock's direction. The picture was also the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. In the 2002 ''Sight & Sound'' polls, it ranked just behind ''Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
'' (1941); ten years later, in the same magazine, critics chose it as the best film ever made.
''North by Northwest'' and ''Psycho''
After ''Vertigo'', the rest of 1958 was a difficult year for Hitchcock. During pre-production of ''North by Northwest
''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture ...
'' (1959), which was a "slow" and "agonising" process, his wife Alma was diagnosed with cancer. While she was in hospital, Hitchcock kept himself occupied with his television work and would visit her every day. Alma underwent surgery and made a full recovery, but it caused Hitchcock to imagine, for the first time, life without her.
Hitchcock followed up with three more successful films, which are also recognised as among his best: ''North by Northwest'', '' Psycho'' (1960) and '' The Birds'' (1963). In ''North by Northwest'', Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. He is pursued across the United States by enemy agents, including Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). At first, Thornhill believes Kendall is helping him, but then realises that she is an enemy agent; he later learns that she is working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. During its opening two-week run at Radio City Music Hall, the film grossed $404,056 (equivalent to $ million in ), setting a non-holiday gross record for that theatre. ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine called the film "smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining".
'' Psycho'' (1960) is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film. Based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel ''Psycho (novel), Psycho'', which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein, the film was produced on a tight budget of $800,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) and shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents
''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was r ...
''. The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early death of the heroine, and the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer became the hallmarks of a new horror-film genre. The film proved popular with audiences, with lines stretching outside theatres as viewers waited for the next showing. It broke box-office records in the United Kingdom, France, South America, the United States and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period.
''Psycho'' was the most profitable of Hitchcock's career, and he personally earned in excess of $15 million (equivalent to $ million in ). He subsequently swapped his rights to ''Psycho'' and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA Inc., MCA, making him the third largest shareholder and his own boss at Universal, in theory at least, although that did not stop studio interference. Following the first film, ''Psycho'' became an American horror Media franchise, franchise: ''Psycho II (film), Psycho II'', ''Psycho III'', ''Bates Motel (film), Bates Motel'', ''Psycho IV: The Beginning'', and a colour Psycho (1998 film), 1998 remake of the original.
Truffaut interview
On 13 August 1962, Hitchcock's 63rd birthday, the French directorFrançois Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more th ...
began a 50-hour interview of Hitchcock, filmed over eight days at Universal Studios, during which Hitchcock agreed to answer 500 questions. It took four years to transcribe the tapes and organise the images; it was published as a book in 1967, which Truffaut nicknamed the "Hitchbook". The audio tapes were used as the basis of a documentary in 2015. Truffaut sought the interview because it was clear to him that Hitchcock was not simply the mass-market entertainer the American media made him out to be. It was obvious from his films, Truffaut wrote, that Hitchcock had "given more thought to the potential of his art than any of his colleagues". He compared the interview to "Oedipus' consultation of the oracle".
''The Birds''
The film scholar Peter William Evans wrote that '' The Birds'' (1963) and ''Marnie
''Marnie'' is an English crime novel, written by Winston Graham and first published in 1961. It has been adapted as a film, a stage play and an opera.
Plot
''Marnie'' is about a young woman who makes a living by embezzling her employers' funds, ...
'' (1964) are regarded as "undisputed masterpieces". Hitchcock had intended to film ''Marnie'' first, and in March 1962 it was announced that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco since 1956, would come out of retirement to star in it. When Kelly asked Hitchcock to postpone ''Marnie'' until 1963 or 1964, he recruited Ed McBain, Evan Hunter, author of ''The Blackboard Jungle'' (1954), to develop a screenplay based on a Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was Geo ...
short story, "The Birds (story), The Birds" (1952), which Hitchcock had republished in his ''My Favorites in Suspense'' (1959). He hired Tippi Hedren to play the lead role. It was her first role; she had been a model in New York when Hitchcock saw her, in October 1961, in an NBC television advert for Sego (diet drink), Sego, a diet drink: "I signed her because she is a classic beauty. Movies don't have them any more. Grace Kelly was the last." He insisted, without explanation, that her first name be written in single quotation marks: 'Tippi'.
In ''The Birds'', Melanie Daniels, a young socialite, meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a bird shop; Jessica Tandy plays his possessive mother. Hedren visits him in Bodega Bay, California, Bodega Bay (where ''The Birds'' was filmed) carrying a pair of lovebirds as a gift. Suddenly waves of birds start gathering, watching, and attacking. The question: "What do the birds want?" is left unanswered. Hitchcock made the film with equipment from the Revue Studio, which made ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents''. He said it was his most technically challenging film, using a combination of trained and mechanical birds against a backdrop of wild ones. Every shot was sketched in advance.
An HBO/BBC television film, ''The Girl (2012 TV film), The Girl'' (2012), depicted Hedren's experiences on set; she said that Hitchcock Tippi Hedren#Troubled relations, became obsessed with her and sexually harassed her. He reportedly isolated her from the rest of the crew, had her followed, whispered obscenities to her, had her handwriting analysed, and had a ramp built from his private office directly into her trailer. Diane Baker, her co-star in ''Marnie'', said: "[N]othing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was." While filming the attack scene in the attic—which took a week to film—she was placed in a caged room while two men wearing evening glove, elbow-length protective gloves threw live birds at her. Toward the end of the week, to stop the birds' flying away from her too soon, one leg of each bird was attached by nylon thread to elastic bands sewn inside her clothes. She broke down after a bird cut her lower eyelid, and filming was halted on doctor's orders.
''Marnie''
In June 1962, Grace Kelly announced that she had decided against appearing in ''Marnie
''Marnie'' is an English crime novel, written by Winston Graham and first published in 1961. It has been adapted as a film, a stage play and an opera.
Plot
''Marnie'' is about a young woman who makes a living by embezzling her employers' funds, ...
'' (1964). Hedren had signed an exclusive seven-year, $500-a-week contract with Hitchcock in October 1961, and he decided to cast her in the lead role opposite Sean Connery. In 2016, describing Hedren's performance as "one of the greatest in the history of cinema", Richard Brody called the film a "story of sexual violence" inflicted on the character played by Hedren: "The film is, to put it simply, sick, and it's so because Hitchcock was sick. He suffered all his life from furious sexual desire, suffered from the lack of its gratification, suffered from the inability to transform fantasy into reality, and then went ahead and did so virtually, by way of his art."
A 1964 The New York Times, ''New York Times'' film review called it Hitchcock's "most disappointing film in years", citing Hedren's and Connery's lack of experience, an amateurish script and "glaringly fake cardboard backdrops".
In the film, Marnie Edgar (Hedren) steals $10,000 from her employer and goes on the run. She applies for a job at Mark Rutland's (Connery) company in Philadelphia and steals from there too. Earlier she is shown having a panic attack during a thunderstorm and fearing the colour red. Mark tracks her down and blackmails her into marrying him. She explains that she does not want to be touched, but during the "honeymoon", Mark rapes her. Marnie and Mark discover that Marnie's mother had been a prostitute when Marnie was a child, and that, while the mother was fighting with a client during a thunderstorm—the mother believed the client had tried to molest Marnie—Marnie had killed the client to save her mother. Cured of her fears when she remembers what happened, she decides to stay with Mark.
Hitchcock told cinematographer Robert Burks that the camera had to be placed as close as possible to Hedren when he filmed her face. Ed McBain, Evan Hunter, the screenwriter of ''The Birds'' who was writing ''Marnie'' too, explained to Hitchcock that, if Mark loved Marnie, he would comfort her, not rape her. Hitchcock reportedly replied: "Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face!" When Hunter submitted two versions of the script, one without the rape scene, Hitchcock replaced him with Jay Presson Allen.
Later years: 1966–1980
Final films
Failing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal imposed two films on him, ''Torn Curtain'' (1966) and ''Topaz (1969 film), Topaz'' (1969), the latter of which is based on a Leon Uris novel, partly set in Cuba. Both were spy thrillers with Cold War-related themes. ''Torn Curtain'', with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the 12-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock was unhappy with Herrmann's score and replaced him with John Addison, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Upon release, ''Torn Curtain'' was a box office disappointment, and ''Topaz'' was disliked by critics and the studio.
Hitchcock returned to Britain to make his penultimate film, ''Frenzy'' (1972), based on the novel ''Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square'' (1966). After two espionage films, the plot marked a return to the murder-thriller genre. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect in the investigation into the "Necktie Murders", which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster (actor), Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites as in ''Strangers on a Train''.
In ''Frenzy'', Hitchcock allowed nudity for the first time. Two scenes show naked women, one of whom is being raped and strangled; Donald Spoto called the latter "one of the most repellent examples of a detailed murder in the history of film". Both actors, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anna Massey, refused to do the scenes, so models were used instead. Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the head of the Motion Picture Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
. Hitchcock would add subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such material and were actually amused, as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences".
''Family Plot'' (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It relates the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler, played by Barbara Harris (actress), Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi-driver lover Bruce Dern, making a living from her phony powers. While ''Family Plot'' was based on the Victor Canning novel ''The Rainbird Pattern'' (1972), the novel's tone is more sinister. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman originally wrote the film, under the working title ''Deception'', with a dark tone but was pushed to a lighter, more comical tone by Hitchcock where it took the name ''Deceit'', then finally, ''Family Plot''.
Knighthood and death
Toward the end of his life, Hitchcock was working on the script for a spy thriller, ''The Short Night'', collaborating with James Costigan, Ernest Lehman and David Freeman (screenwriter), David Freeman. Despite preliminary work, it was never filmed. Hitchcock's health was declining and he was worried about his wife, who had suffered a stroke. The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's book ''The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock'' (1999).
Having refused a Order of the British Empire, CBE in 1962, Hitchcock was appointed a Order of the British Empire, Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1980 New Year Honours. He was too ill to travel to London—he had a Artificial cardiac pacemaker, pacemaker and was being given cortisone injections for his arthritis—so on 3 January 1980 the British consul general presented him with the papers at Universal Studios. Asked by a reporter after the ceremony why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, "I suppose it was a matter of carelessness." Cary Grant, Janet Leigh, and others attended a luncheon afterwards.
His last public appearance was on 16 March 1980, when he introduced the next year's winner of the American Film Institute award. He died of kidney failure the following month, on 29 April, in his Bel Air home. Donald Spoto, one of Hitchcock's biographers, wrote that Hitchcock had declined to see a priest, but according to Jesuit priest Mark Henninger, he and another priest, Tom Sullivan, celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home, and Sullivan heard his Sacrament of Penance, confession. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. His funeral was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills on 30 April, after which his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean on 10 May 1980.
Filmmaking
Style and themes
Hitchcock's film production career evolved from small-scale silent films to financially significant sound films. Hitchcock remarked that he was influenced by early filmmakers George Méliès, D.W. Griffith and Alice Guy-Blaché. His silent films between 1925 and 1929 were in the crime and suspense genres, but also included melodramas and comedies. Whilst Visual narrative, visual storytelling was pertinent during the silent era, even after the arrival of sound, Hitchcock still relied on visuals in cinema; he referred to this emphasis on visual storytelling as "pure cinema". In Britain, he honed his craft so that by the time he moved to Hollywood, the director had perfected his style and camera techniques. Hitchcock later said that his British work was the "sensation of cinema", whereas the American phase was when his "ideas were fertilised". Scholar Robin Wood writes that the director's first two films, ''The Pleasure Garden'' and ''The Mountain Eagle'', were influenced by German Expressionism
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
. Afterward, he discovered Cinema of the Soviet Union, Soviet cinema, and Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
's and Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin ( rus, Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин, p=ˈfsʲevələt ɪlərʲɪˈonəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈdofkʲɪn; 16 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwrite ...
's theories of Soviet montage theory, montage. 1926's ''The Lodger'' was inspired by both German and Soviet aesthetics, styles which solidified the rest of his career. Although Hitchcock's work in the 1920s found some success, several British reviewers criticised Hitchcock's films for being unoriginal and conceited. Raymond Durgnat opined that Hitchcock's films were carefully and intelligently constructed, but thought they can be shallow and rarely present a "coherent worldview".
Earning the title "Master of Suspense", the director experimented with ways to generate tension in his work. He said, "My suspense work comes out of creating nightmares for the audience. And I ''play'' with an audience. I make them gasp and surprise them and shock them. When you have a nightmare, it's awfully vivid if you're dreaming that you're being led to the electric chair. Then you're as happy as can be when you wake up because you're relieved." During filming of ''North by Northwest'', Hitchcock explained his reasons for recreating the set of Mount Rushmore: "The audience responds in proportion to how realistic you make it. One of the dramatic reasons for this type of photography is to get it looking so natural that the audience gets involved and believes, for the time being, what's going on up there on the screen." In a 1963 interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, Hitchcock was asked how in spite of appearing to be a pleasant, innocuous man, he seemed to enjoy making films involving suspense and terrifying crime. He responded:
Hitchcock's films, from the silent to the sound era, contained a number of recurring themes that he is famous for. His films explored audience as a Voyeurism, voyeur, notably in ''Rear Window'', ''Marnie'' and ''Psycho''. He understood that human beings enjoy voyeuristic activities and made the audience participate in it through the character's actions. Of his fifty-three films, eleven revolved around stories of mistaken identity, where an innocent protagonist is accused of a crime and is pursued by police. In most cases, it is an ordinary, everyday person who finds themselves in a dangerous situation. Hitchcock told Truffaut: "That's because the theme of the innocent man being accused, I feel, provides the audience with a greater sense of danger. It's easier for them to identify with him than with a guilty man on the run." One of his constant themes were the struggle of a personality torn between "order and chaos"; known as the notion of "double", which is a comparison or contrast between two characters or objects: the double representing a dark or evil side.
According to Robin Wood, Hitchcock had mixed feelings towards homosexuality despite working with gay actors in his career. Donald Spoto suggests that Hitchcock's Sexual repression, sexually repressive childhood may have contributed to his exploration of Deviance (sociology), deviancy. During the 1950s, the Motion Picture Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
prohibited direct references to homosexuality but the director was known for his subtle references, and pushing the boundaries of the censors. Moreover, ''Shadow of a Doubt'' has a double incest theme through the storyline, expressed implicitly through images. Author Jane Sloan argues that Hitchcock was drawn to both conventional and unconventional sexual expression in his work, and the theme of marriage was usually presented in a "bleak and skeptical" manner. It was also not until after his mother's death in 1942, that Hitchcock portrayed motherly figures as "notorious monster-mothers". The espionage backdrop, and murders committed by characters with Psychopathy, psychopathic tendencies were common themes too. In Hitchcock's depiction of villains and murderers, they were usually charming and friendly, forcing viewers to identify with them. The director's strict childhood and Jesuit education may have led to his distrust of authoritarian figures such as policemen and politicians; a theme which he has explored. Also, he used the "MacGuffin
In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for ...
"—the use of an object, person or event to keep the plot moving along even if it was non-essential to the story. Some examples include the microfilm in ''North by Northwest'' and the stolen $40,000 in ''Psycho''.
Hitchcock appears briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train ('' Strangers on a Train''), walking dogs out of a pet shop ('' The Birds''), fixing a neighbour's clock (''Rear Window
''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
''), as a shadow (''Family Plot''), sitting at a table in a photograph (''Dial M for Murder
''Dial M for Murder'' is a 1954 American crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, and John Williams. Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which it was b ...
''), and riding a bus (''North by Northwest
''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture ...
'','' To Catch a Thief'').
Representation of women
Hitchcock's portrayal of women has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Bidisha wrote in ''The Guardian'' in 2010: "There's the vamp, the tramp, the snitch, the witch, the slink, the double-crosser and, best of all, the demon mommy. Don't worry, they all get punished in the end." In a widely cited essay in 1975, Laura Mulvey introduced the idea of the male gaze; the view of the spectator in Hitchcock's films, she argued, is that of the heterosexual male protagonist. "The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again", Roger Ebert wrote in 1996: "They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated."
The victims in ''The Lodger'' are all blondes. In '' The 39 Steps'', Madeleine Carroll is put in handcuffs. Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...
, whom Hitchcock directed three times ('' Spellbound'', '' Notorious'', and ''Under Capricorn''), is dark blonde. In ''Rear Window'', Lisa (Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. In ''To Catch a Thief'', Francie (also Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In ''Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'' and ''North by Northwest'' respectively, Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint play the blonde heroines. In '' Psycho'', Janet Leigh's character steals $40,000 and is murdered by Norman Bates, a reclusive psychopath. Tippi Hedren, a blonde, appears to be the focus of the attacks in ''The Birds''. In ''Marnie
''Marnie'' is an English crime novel, written by Winston Graham and first published in 1961. It has been adapted as a film, a stage play and an opera.
Plot
''Marnie'' is about a young woman who makes a living by embezzling her employers' funds, ...
'', the title character, again played by Hedren, is a thief. In ''Topaz (1969 film), Topaz'', French actresses Dany Robin as Stafford's wife and Claude Jade as Stafford's daughter are blonde heroines, the mistress was played by brunette Karin Dor. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was Barbara Harris (actress), Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in ''Family Plot'' (1976), his final film. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black wears a long blonde wig in several scenes.
His films often feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers, such as Norman Bates in ''Psycho''. In ''North by Northwest'', Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...
) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In ''The Birds'', the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself from a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in ''Frenzy'' has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in ''Strangers on a Train'' hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in ''Notorious'' has a clearly conflicting relationship with his mother, who is (rightly) suspicious of his new bride, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...
).
Relationship with actors
Hitchcock became known for having remarked that "actors should be treated like cattle". During the filming of '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (1941), Carole Lombard brought three cows onto the set wearing the name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery (actor), Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise him. In an episode of ''The Dick Cavett Show'', originally broadcast on 8 June 1972, Dick Cavett stated as fact that Hitchcock had once called actors cattle. Hitchcock responded by saying that, at one time, he had been accused of calling actors cattle. "I said that I would never say such an unfeeling, rude thing about actors at all. What I probably said, was that all actors should be treated like cattle...In a nice way of course." He then described Carole Lombard's joke, with a smile. Hitchcock believed that actors should concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. He told Bryan Forbes in 1967: "I remember discussing with a method actor how he was taught and so forth. He said, 'We're taught using improvisation. We are given an idea and then we are turned loose to develop in any way we want to.' I said, 'That's not acting. That's writing.'" Recalling their experiences on ''Lifeboat'' for Charles Chandler, author of ''It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography,'' Walter Slezak said that Hitchcock "knew more about how to help an actor than any director I ever worked with", and Hume Cronyn dismissed the idea that Hitchcock was not concerned with his actors as "utterly fallacious", describing at length the process of rehearsing and filming ''Lifeboat''. Critics observed that, despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, actors who worked with him often gave brilliant performances. He used the same actors in many of his films; Cary Grant and James Stewart both worked with Hitchcock four times, and Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly three. James Mason said that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props". For Hitchcock, the actors were part of the film's setting. He told François Truffaut: "The chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be used and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights."Writing, storyboards and production
Hitchcock planned his scripts in detail with his writers. In ''Writing with Hitchcock'' (2001), Steven DeRosa noted that Hitchcock supervised them through every draft, asking that they tell the story visually. Hitchcock told Roger Ebert in 1969: Hitchcock's films were extensively storyboarded to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to, although in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternative takes to consider.
This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine ''Cahiers du Cinéma'', in his book ''Hitchcock at Work''. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn 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 films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of ''North by Northwest'' was not 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 when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like ''Notorious'' reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of ''The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including '' Strangers on a Train'' and ''Topaz (1969 film), Topaz''. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant 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 were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.
Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they chose (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.
According to Krohn, this and a great deal of 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. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.
Legacy
Awards and honours
Hitchcock was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 February 1960 with two stars: one for television and a second for his motion pictures. In 1978, John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor (born 19 June 1935) is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such figures in film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, ...
described him as "the most universally recognizable person in the world" and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius". In 2002, ''MovieMaker Magazine, MovieMaker'' named him the most influential director of all time, and a 2007 ''The Daily Telegraph'' critics' poll ranked him Britain's greatest director. David Gritten, the newspaper's film critic, wrote: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." In 1992, the ''Sight & Sound'' Critics' Poll ranked Hitchcock at No. 4 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time. In 2002, Hitchcock was ranked 2nd in the critics' top ten poll and 5th in the directors' top ten poll in the list of ''The Greatest Directors of All Time'' compiled by the ''Sight & Sound'' magazine. Hitchcock was voted the "Greatest Director of 20th Century" in a poll conducted by Japanese film magazine ''kinema Junpo''. In 1996, ''Entertainment Weekly'' ranked Hitchcock at No. 1 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. Hitchcock was ranked at No. 2 on ''Empire (film magazine), Empire'' magazine's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005. In 2007, ''Total Film'' magazine ranked Hitchcock at No. 1 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.
He won two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards, including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award and, in 1979, an AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the board of directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973, to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion picture ...
. He was nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Director. ''Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
'', nominated for 11 Oscars, won the Academy Award for Best Picture#1940s, Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940; another Hitchcock film, ''Foreign Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locat ...
'', was also nominated that year. By 2021, nine of his films had been selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
: ''Rebecca'' (1940; inducted 2018), ''Shadow of a Doubt'' (1943; inducted 1991), ''Notorious'' (1946; inducted 2006), ''Strangers on a Train'' (1951; inducted 2021), ''Rear Window'' (1954; inducted 1997), ''Vertigo'' (1958; inducted 1989), ''North by Northwest'' (1959; inducted 1995), ''Psycho'' (1960; inducted 1992), and ''The Birds'' (1963; inducted 2016).
In 2012, Hitchcock was selected by artist Peter Blake (artist), Sir Peter Blake, author of the Beatles' ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' album cover, to appear in a new version of the cover, along with other British cultural figures, and he was featured that year in a BBC Radio 4 series, ''The New Elizabethans'', as someone "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character". In June 2013 nine restored versions of Hitchcock's early silent films, including ''The Pleasure Garden'' (1925), were shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre; known as "The Hitchcock 9", the travelling tribute was organised by the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
.
Archives
The Alfred Hitchcock Collection is housed at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood, California. It includes home movies, 16mm film shot on the set of ''Blackmail'' (1929) and ''Frenzy'' (1972), and the earliest known colour footage of Hitchcock. The Academy Film Archive has preserved many of his home movies. The Alfred Hitchcock Papers are housed at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library. The David O. Selznick and the Ernest Lehman collections housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in Austin, Texas, contain material related to Hitchcock's work on the production of ''The Paradine Case'', ''Rebecca'', ''Spellbound'', ''North by Northwest'' and ''Family Plot.''Hitchcock portrayals
* Anthony Hopkins in ''Hitchcock (film), Hitchcock'' (2012) * Toby Jones in ''The Girl (2012 TV film), The Girl'' (2012) * Roger Ashton-Griffiths in ''Grace of Monaco (film), Grace of Monaco'' (2014) * EpicLLOYD in the YouTube comedy series Epic Rap Battles of History. (2014)Filmography
Films
Silent films Sound filmsSee also
* Alfred Hitchcock's unrealized projects * List of Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearances * List of film director and actor collaborationsNotes and sources
Notes
References
Works cited
Biographies ''(chronological)'' * * * * * * * * * Miscellaneous * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Further reading
Articles
Hitchcock's Style
– British Film Institute, BFI Screenonline
Alfred Hitchcock: England's Biggest and Best Director Goes to Hollywood
– ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
'', 20 November 1939, p. 33-43
Alfred Hitchcock Now Says Actors Are Children, Not Cattle
– ''Boston Globe'', 1 June 1958, p. A–11
'Twas Alfred Hitchcock Week in London
– ''Variety (magazine), Variety'', 17 August 1966, p. 16
Books
* *Deflem, Mathieu. 2016. "Alfred Hitchcock: Visions of Guilt and Innocence."
pp. 203–227 in Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, edited by Caroline Joan S. Picart, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, and Cecil Greek. Latham, MD; Madison, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield; Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Slavoj Žižek et al.:''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock'', London and New York, Verso, 2nd edition 2010.
External links
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