Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (August 13, 1899 – April 29, 1980) was a British-American film director closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. He began directing in Britain before working in the United States from 1939 onwards. With more than fifty feature films to his credit, in a career spanning six decades, from silent film to talkies to the color era, Hitchcock remains one of the best known and most popular directors of all time, famous for his expert and often unrivaled control of pace and suspense throughout his movies.

Biography

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Early life

Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, in Leytonstone, London, the second son and youngest of the three children of William Hitchcock, a greengrocer, and his wife, Emma Jane Hitchcock (nee Whelan). His family was mostly Irish Catholic. Hitchcock was sent to Catholic boarding schools in London. He has said his childhood was very lonely and sheltered.

Related Topics:
August 13 - 1899 - Leytonstone - London - Irish Catholic

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At 14, Hitchcock lost his father and left the Jesuit-run St Ignatius' College, his school at the time, to study at the School for Engineering and Navigation. After graduating, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company.

Related Topics:
St Ignatius' College - Draftsman - Advertising

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About that time, Hitchcock became intrigued by photography and started working in film in London. In 1920, he obtained a full-time job at Islington Studios under its American owners, Players-Lasky, and their British successors, Gainsborough Pictures, designing the titles for silent movies. In 1925, Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures gave him a chance to direct his first film, The Pleasure Garden.

Related Topics:
Photography - 1920 - Players - Gainsborough Pictures - Silent movie - 1925 - Michael Balcon - The Pleasure Garden

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Pre-war British career

As a major talent in a new industry with plenty of opportunity, he rose quickly. His third film, ' was released in 1927. Like many of his earlier works it was influenced by Expressionism in Germany. In it, attractive blondes are strangled and the new lodger (Ivor Novello) in the Bunting family's upstairs apartment falls under heavy suspicion. This is the first truly "Hitchcockian" film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man".

Related Topics:
1927 - Expressionism - Germany - Ivor Novello

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In 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director Alma Reville. The two had a daughter Patricia in 1928. Alma was Hitchcock's closest collaborator. She wrote some of his screenplays and worked with him on every one of his films.

Related Topics:
1926 - Alma Reville

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In 1929, he began work on Blackmail, his tenth film. While the film was in production, the studio decided to make it one of Britain's first sound pictures.

Related Topics:
1929 - Blackmail

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In 1933, Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), is often considered the best film from his early period.

Related Topics:
The Man Who Knew Too Much - The 39 Steps

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His next major success was in 1938, The Lady Vanishes, a clever and fast-paced film about the search for a kindly old Englishwoman (Dame May Whitty), who disappears while on board a train in the fictional country of Vandrika (a thinly-veiled reference to Nazi Germany).

Related Topics:
1938 - The Lady Vanishes - Dame May Whitty - Nazi - Germany

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By the end of the 1930s, Hitchcock was at the top of his game artistically, and in a position to name his own terms when David O. Selznick managed to entice the Hitchcocks across to Hollywood.

Related Topics:
David O. Selznick - Hollywood

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Hollywood

With the prestigious picture Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American movie, although it was set in England and based on a novel by English author Dame Daphne du Maurier. This Gothic melodrama explores the fears of a naïve young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with a distant husband, a predatory housekeeper, and the legacy of the dead woman who was her husband's first wife. It has also subsequently been noted for lesbian undercurrents. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940.

Related Topics:
Rebecca - 1940 - Daphne du Maurier - Gothic - Melodrama - Academy Award - Best Picture

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Hitchcock's gallows humour continues in his American work, together with the suspense that became his trademark. Due to Selznick's perennial money problems and Hitchcock's unhappiness with the amount of creative control demanded by Selznick over his films, Hitchcock was subsequently loaned to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock films himself.

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Hitchcock's work during the early 1940's was very diverse, ranging from the romantic comedy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), to the dark and disturbing Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

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Shadow of a Doubt, his personal favorite, was about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Spencer (Joseph Cotten) of murder. In its use of overlapping characters, dialogue, and closeups it has provided a generation of film theorists with psychoanalytic potential, including Jacques Lacan and Slavoj ?i?ek. The film also harkens to one of Cotten's better known films, Citizen Kane.

Related Topics:
Shadow of a Doubt - Teresa Wright - Joseph Cotten - Jacques Lacan - Slavoj ?i?ek - Citizen Kane

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Spellbound explored the then very fashionable subject of psychoanalysis and featured a dream sequence which was designed by Salvador Dali. The actual dream sequence in the film was considerably cut from the original planned scene that was to run for some minutes but proved too disturbing for the finished film.

Related Topics:
Spellbound - Psychoanalysis - Salvador Dali

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Notorious (1946), with Ingrid Bergman, linked her to another of his most prominently recurring stars, Cary Grant. Featuring a plot about Nazis, radium and South America, Notorious is considered by many critics as Hitchcock's masterpiece. Its inventive use of suspense and props briefly led to Hitchcock being under surveillance by the CIA due to his use of uranium as a plot device.

Related Topics:
Notorious - 1946 - Ingrid Bergman - Cary Grant - CIA - Uranium

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Rope (his first colour film) came next in 1948. Here Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense via the use of exceptionally long takes - up to ten minutes (see Themes and devices). Rope features Jimmy Stewart in the leading role. Based on the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s, Rope is among the earliest openly gay-themed films to emerge from the Hays Office controlled Hollywood studio era.

Related Topics:
Rope - Themes and devices - Jimmy Stewart - Leopold and Loeb - Hays Office

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Under Capricorn, set in nineteenth-century Australia, also used this short-lived technique, but to a more limited extent. For these two films he formed a production company with Sidney Bernstein, called Transatlantic Pictures, which folded after these two unsuccessful pictures.

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With Strangers on a Train (1951), Hitchcock combined many of the best elements from his preceding British and American films. Two men casually meet and speculate on removing people who are causing them difficulty. One of the men, though, takes this banter entirely seriously. With Farley Granger reprising some elements of his role from Rope, Strangers continues the director's interest in the narrative possiblities of homosexual blackmail and murder.

Related Topics:
Strangers on a Train - Farley Granger

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Three very popular films, all starring Grace Kelly, followed. Dial M for Murder was adapted from the popular stage play by Frederick Knott. This was originally another experimental film, with Hitchcock using the technique of 3D cinematography. Rear Window, starred Stewart again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Here the wheelchair-bound Stewart observes the movements of his neighbours across the courtyard. He becomes convinced that the wife of a near neighbour has been murdered. To Catch a Thief, set in the French Riviera, starred Kelly and Cary Grant.

Related Topics:
Grace Kelly - Dial M for Murder - 3D - Rear Window - Thelma Ritter - Raymond Burr - To Catch a Thief - Cary Grant

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In 1958, Hitchcock released Vertigo, a film almost universally agreed to be his masterpiece, which starred Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. Three more recognised classics followed: North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). The latter two were particularly notable for their unconventional soundtracks, both by Bernard Herrmann: the screeching strings in the murder scene in Psycho pushed the limits of the time, and The Birds dispensed completely with conventional instruments, using the first electronically produced soundtrack in a commercial film. These were his last great films, after which his career slowly wound down. In 1972 Hitchcock returned to London to film Frenzy, his last major success. For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had before been taboo, in one of his films. Failing health slowed down his output over the last two decades of his life.

Related Topics:
1958 - Vertigo - Jimmy Stewart - Kim Novak - Barbara Bel Geddes - North by Northwest - 1959 - Psycho - 1960 - The Birds - 1963 - Bernard Herrmann - London - Frenzy

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Family Plot (1976) was his last film. It related the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler played by Barbara Harris, a fradulent spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern making a living from her phony powers. William Devane and Katherine Helmond co-starred.

Related Topics:
Family Plot - Barbara Harris - Bruce Dern - William Devane - Katherine Helmond

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Hitchcock was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire on January 3, 1980, by Queen Elizabeth II, just four months before his death on April 29 and long after he had become a U.S. citizen. Alfred Hitchcock died of renal failure in his Bel Air, Los Angeles, home at the age of 80 and was survived by his wife Alma Reville Hitchcock, and their daughter, Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell. His body was cremated, and apparently there was no public funeral or memorial service.

Related Topics:
January 3 - 1980 - April 29 - Renal failure

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