One of the most famous-- and possibly apocryphal-- Hitchcock anecdotes concerns a five-year-old Alfred Hitchcock, sent to the local police station with a note from his father after some mischief making. After reading the note, a sergeant put young Alfred in a cell, and left him there for a few agonizing moments.
The policeman returned and let Alfred go, only to tell him, "This is what we do to naughty boys."
True or not, this story and Hitchcock's Roman Catholic background encompass all the themes Hitchcock would later put in his work-- terror inflicted upon the unknowing, and sometimes innocent victim; guilt (both real guilt and the appearance of it); fear, and redemption.

Alfred’s father died in 1912 so it was after this time he had to get a job to support the family.
Alfred’s first job outside the family business was an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company in Leytonstone, England.

He lived life as if he was on the outside looking in. Much like a person watching television or a director directing a picture. Reading was also a part of Hitchcock’s life from a young age. The novels ‘Bleak House’ and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ were two that stuck with him over the years.

Alfred was first introduced to the movie world by US trade journals and regularly visited cinemas where his love for the moving image was first created. He was fascinated by the mystery fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and spent much time at the local cinema; American and German films particularly appealed to him.

His filmmaking career began when he started to design the illustrations on the title cards for silent movies at Paramount’s famous players-lasky in London. It was here that he learned the skills of editing, scripting and art direction. With these new skills he slowly became assistant director for many silent movies in 1922.

During his time learning the trade of becoming a director, Alfred used to work behind the scenes of many films writing the scripts or being the art director. His first assistant director role was on the 1922 film Woman to woman where he was the screenwriter, art director and assistant director.

His later films were the 1924 ‘The passionate adventure’ and also in the same year the ‘Prudes Fall’. He was also assistant director on the set of the ‘Blackguard’ in 1925.

Directing Career begins with ‘No 13’

Alfred’s first venture into a full movie was ‘No.13’, which turned out to be a flop, and was scrapped due to poor investment, and which infact wasn’t totally finished.

The Pleasure Garden (1925) - Drama

His first solo directorial debut was ‘The Pleasure Garden’, a silent melodrama which was shot in Munich. The film centred around the uneven accounts of a pair of chorus girls, one a sweet and knowing woman played by Virginia Valli, and the other a waif who becomes a glamorous bitch played by Carmelita Geraghty.

The film also stared Miles Mander (Man in the Iron Mask), John Stuart and George Snell.

Following his experiences in Munich plus a stint at Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) it helped Alfred create the expressionist aspects of his films improving his visual schemes and thematic concerns.

The Lodger (1926) - Thriller

Alfred’s breakthrough movie was the 1926 film ‘The lodger’. This film could be said to be the

Prototypical example of the classic Hitchcock plot; an innocent protagonist is falsely accused of a crime and becomes involved in a web of intrigue. This was his first suspense thriller and was about a lodger (Novello) who is falsely accused of being Jack the Ripper by the jealous detective (Keen). The film contained a memorable finale when a bloodthirsty gang chases Novello. The film has had many remakes to its name, such as ‘The Case Of Jonathan Drew’ which was made in 1932 which also contained Novello. The film was also remade in 1944 and finally in 1954 as ‘Man In The Attic’.

Throughout the years Hitchcock directed many other movies. The 1927 film ‘Downhill’ wasn’t a Hitchcock classic, yet it had many of his masterful visual flair. The film is a silent movie that follows the downfall of a man, which begins when he is disowned as a child by his parents due to an indiscretion with a girl and then later, when his wife fritters away his unexpected inheritance. He also directed two more films that year. ‘Easy Virtue’ was his second that year, which was then followed by ‘The Ring’ which again had the classical touches reminiscent of Hitchcock such as his keen eye for detail and imaginative use of visuals to communicate feelings and points of view.

In ‘Easy Virtue’ Hitchcock contained his trademark Cameo appearances when he walked past a tennis court, carrying a walking stick.

‘Champagne’ and ‘The Farmers Wife’ (1928) – Romance - Comedy

In 1928 he directed two silent movies. ‘Champagne’ was a romantic film following the exploits of an irresponsible socialite (Balfour) whose father pretends he's broke to teach her a lesson Many fans said that the film was too long but featured some striking visuals.

The ‘Farmers Wife’ was a Hitchcock Silent comedy about a farmer who was unsuccessful at finding a bride. Unknown to him he is loved by his devoted housekeeper. The film stared Jameson Thomas and Lillian Hall-Davies.

Blackmail (1929) - Mystery

His first film that featured talking was the 1929 ‘Blackmail’. This London based film was first shot as a silent movie and then in places redubbed or reshot to create a talking version. This thriller is unusually imaginative and innovative which has that German feel to it with its pictorial style.

Anny Ondra plays a woman who kills a man who had tried to rape her. She is then caught between an investigative detective (Who is her boyfriend) and a blackmailer.

An early example of Hitchcock’s technical virtuosity was his creation of subjective sound. Hitchcock emphasised the young woman’s anxiety by distorting all but one word -KNIFE -of a neighbours dialogue the morning after the killing. He also used a continually clanging shop bell to convey the heroine’s feelings of guilt.

The film runs for 75 minutes but the silent version is significantly better. Due to Anny Ondra strong German accent, the talking version had to be redubbed. Hitchcock has a cameo role in this movie as a man who is pestered by a small boy as he is reading a book.

It was this film that Hitchcock first made the explicit link between sex and violence.

The Manxman (1929) - Drama

Hitchcock’s last Silent movie was the 1929 ‘The Manxman’ a relatively poor film for the standards he had set but an ok Melodrama about two friends, one a fisherman the other a lawyer who both fall in love with the character played by Anny Ondra.

‘Elstree Calling’, ‘Juno The Peacock ‘and ‘Murder’ (1930) - Drama - Mystery

The following year, Hitchcock directed two more films. ‘Elstree Calling’ was his first that year followed by ‘Juno and the Paycock’. ‘Juno and the Paycock’ was a dull film that disappointed his fans. The film was adapted from a stageplay by Sean O ‘ Casey but the straightforwardness of the material creates a dull atmosphere, yet Sara Allgood shines playing Juno.

His third film that year was a carefully designed mystery set among theatre people named 'Murder!’

The pace of the movie is allot more languid than his early 30's work and the actors dialogue is spoken in rhythms yet the film does have its inventive moments.

Herbert Marshall (The third day) plays a man on a jury who believes that a woman who has been accused of a murder is innocent. Taking the law into his own hands, he sets out to bring justice to the woman.

The murderer turns out to be a transvestite, which was a very risky route for Alfred Hitchcock to take considering the time this film was released. The film was adapted from a stageplay called ‘Enter Sir John’ by Alma Reville

The Skin Game (1931) - Drama

In 1931 Alfred directed ‘The Skin Game’ a poor adaptation of the Galsworthy play about the rivalry between two landowners. Hitchcock was disappointed with this film and said that he didn’t make it by choice, which was clearly shown by the over exhausted dialogue, which were very atypical of Hitchcock.

Number Seventeen (1932) – Crime/Comedy

The Man Who Knew Too Much was his first step into achieving International fame. This film contained one of Hitchcock’s most famous styles of directing, containing a pattern of an investigation of family relationships within a suspenseful story. The film centres around the attempted assassination plus the kidnapping of a small child played by Nove Pilbearn. Also along the cast were Leslie Banks a noted British actor and Hungarian born Peter Lorre. The film was created with flashes of Hitchcock’s ingenuity, flair and wit. Film buffs say that this version of the film (which was later redirected) is better and is a very heart pounding and popular suspense drama.

39 Steps (1935) - Spy

The 1935 film, '39 Steps' further pushed Hitchcock’s international popularity. The film shows the mature side of Hitchcock centering around a harrowing portrait of an innocent man struggling to prove his innocence while the world turns against him, which in turn results in one of Hitchcock's all-time greatest Thrillers. His cameo role was for him to throw some litter while Robert Donat and Lucie Mannheim run from the theater.

Synopsis of ’39 Steps’

Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is the innocent man, a Canadian rancher on vacation in London, who sees a vaudeville act at the Palladium in which "Mr. Memory" (Wylie Watson) draws on his photographic memory to answer questions posed by the audience. A shot rings out in the theatre, and in the ensuing chaos a frightened young woman (Lucie Mannheim) begs Donat to help her.

He gallantly takes her back to his apartment, where she confides that she is a British spy on the trail of a master spy plotting to smuggle valuable military secrets out of the country. All Mannheim knows about the identity of the master spy is that the little finger on his right hand is missing, severed at the first joint. She cryptically mentions something about "The 39 Steps" but refuses to go on for fear of involving Donat further.

Donat doesn't really believe her, but his mind is changed some hours later when Mannheim, to whom he has given refuge for the night, staggers into his room and falls forward, a knife buried in her back. Dying, she warns him that his own life is now in danger. Donat takes from her dead hand a map of Scotland, which has a circle drawn around a village, and flees from the apartment.

Fleeing to Scotland. He eludes the suspicious characters loitering outside his apartment with the collusion of an obliging milkman and makes his way to a train headed for Scotland. In Edinburgh, where he buys a newspaper, he learns that he is being sought all over the country as the prime suspect in the Mannheim killing.

As the train pulls out of the station, police begin searching the compartments, forcing the desperate Donat ahead of them—until more cops show up at the other end of the car, and he finds himself trapped. He tries to trick the cops by burying himself in a passionate embrace with a beautiful blonde (Madeleine Carroll), but she gives him away.

With that, Donat leaps out of the compartment, hanging on the side of the train until it stops at the great suspension bridge across the Firth of Forth. Donat now begins a perilous journey under the bridge, clinging to the girders high above the waters of the firth, as the police frantically search for him. Finally the train moves off, and he hurries across the barren Scottish highlands to a small farm.

The farmer (John Laurie) is persuaded to put him up for the night. Donat talks kindly to the farmer's young, pretty wife (Peggy Ashcroft), who is obviously terrorised by her husband. At dawn the young woman alerts Donat that detectives are outside looking for him, gives him one of her husband's old coats, and helps him to escape.

As the police chase Donat across the highlands, he takes refuge in a great house on a hill where a party is going on. But he is appalled to discover that his apparently genial host (Godfrey Tearle) is the man with the missing little finger; Donat has walked straight into the spymaster's den. Tearle shoots Donat, and he falls to the floor; but when Tearle leaves for a moment to get help removing the body, he comes back to find Donat gone.

Saved from the bullet by a Bible tucked away in the farmer's old coat, Donat has decided to tell the whole story to the local police commissioner, who promises to look into Tearle and the espionage plot. Almost immediately, however, a group of Scotland Yard detectives show up, to the commissioner's evident relief. With the police in hot pursuit, Donat smashes a window and escapes into the crowded street, where he conceals himself among the marchers behind a Salvation Army band.

Slipping out of line and into a hall where a political meeting is going on, he is mistaken for the long-overdue guest speaker. He gives an impassioned if slightly deranged speech that results in the bored voters' begging him to be their candidate.

Just then Carroll, the beautiful blonde from the train, arrives with the real guest speaker; spotting Donat, she alerts what she thinks are the police, who arrest Donat and insist that she come too, pulling her into the car and handcuffing her to Donat when she resists. Donat soon realises that they are not the police, and when the car is blocked by a herd of sheep, he seizes his opportunity and leaps out, dragging Carroll with him. She agrees that the detectives were phoneys, but she still distrusts him.

They find a small inn where the proprietor's wife, thinking they're runaway lovers, insists that they be given a room and brings them food. In what was for its time a daring scene, the handcuffed duo removes Carroll's wet stockings, then tries to get some sleep, Carroll lying uncomfortably next to Donat on the bed. Once he has fallen asleep, Carroll works her hand free of the handcuff and goes out into the hall where she overhears the fake detectives making a phone call that reveals that they are working for a secret organisation called "The 39 Steps." The innkeeper's wife covers for the "runaway lovers."

Carroll goes back into the room, disposed now to trust Donat and indeed to fall in love with him, and in the morning tells him of the overheard conversation, which included talk of picking up someone at the Palladium. As Donat rushes to the hall, Carroll goes to the police and tells them the whole story, but they refuse to believe her.

They follow her when she leaves, right to the London Palladium; Donat, sitting in the audience, has realised that it's Watson—Mr. Memory—that the spies are taking out of the country. Donat uses Mr. Memory's format of answering questions from the audience to trick the little performer into exposing the nature of "The 39 Steps," but before the answer is complete, a shot rings out; Tearle has shot Watson, mortally wounding him. Police swarm in from all sides and capture Tearle as the curtain swings shut. (This scene is almost an exact duplication of the Lincoln assassination in D.W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION, 1915—Hitchcock's private bow to the master filmmaker, Griffith.)

Watson is helped off the stage and rattles off a long, complicated mathematical formula for a military engine that Tearle had him commit to memory. Behind the dying Watson, lines of chorines kick their legs in the air, indifferent to the little man bleeding to death in the wings.

Details

The '39 steps' established Hitchcock as the master of the mystery-spy genre, especially with its inventive techniques, matching sound and visuals perfectly. One for the most noted use of sound and visual combination is the scene where the landlady finds a corpse at the beginning of the film. On finding the body she lets out a horrific scream which is then masterfully blended into the screech of a train whistle, thus allowing Hitchcock to cut to the station where Donat is boarding a train.

The casting of this film was as much adored than his camera techniques and exciting chase scenes, especially with the matching of a suave, handsome male in Donat to the blonde, intellectual and detached Caroll, who was the real type of Hitchcock women.

Hitchcock was also up to his usual pranks in the production of the film. Carroll and Donat had never met until their first day of shooting when Hitchcock promptly locked them up with handcuffs to get them used to the idea, then disappeared for the whole day, returning to face angry stars.

The herd of sixty sheep Hitchcock brought onto the set—the entire film was shot inside Lime Grove Studio on the Gaumont lot—caused the director no end of problems. The animals literally ate up his sets. Out of all this eccentricity and inventiveness came a film full of rapid-fire chases, wonderful hair's-breadth escapes, and muscular narrative sequences, marvellously shot against backgrounds that lent strength and logic to the drama.

At the time of making the film Alfred explained the point of his film as "I am out to give the public good, healthy, mental shake-ups. Civilisation has become so screening and sheltering that we cannot experience sufficient thrills at first hand. Therefore, to prevent our becoming sluggish and jellified, we have to experience them artificially"

When The 39 Steps opened in New York City in September of 1935, Andre Sennwald reviewed it for The New York Times. He wrote: "If you can imagine Anatole France writing a detective story, you will have some notion of the artistry that Mr. Hitchcock brings to the screen version of John Buchan's novel."

Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps is the most romantic of all his movies. But what do we mean by "romantic?" Romantic, I think, means that when a handsome man and a beautiful woman are handcuffed together for a number of hours, neither of them has to go to the bathroom. That is one definition of romantic.

It was this film that people started to later notice that Hitchcock had an interest of trains.

(The 39 Steps. The Lady Vanishes. Strangers On A Train. North by Northwest. The circus train episode in Sabotage)

Hitchcock said that Mysteries on trains are romantic because trains give freedom of movement within the movement. To be inside an automobile or aeroplane is to be trapped.

Hitchcock capped his use of sound in ’39 Steps’ with such scenes as the triple viewpoint of a murder linked by the whine of the victim’s dog. As the dog is shut in a room kilometers from the mountain where the murder occurs, the effect is one of animal telepathy. Elizabeth Weis suggests that the sound of the dog’s whine has a four-fold aspect. (1) Its length and descent - a kind of final howl - provide a correlative for the victim’s fall from the mountain. (2) Its tone is suitably mournful to represent our own emotions at the time. (3) It becomes associated with the guilt felt by two of the characters. And (4), it seems like nature’s protest against the wrong that has been perpetrated.

It points again to the opposition of inside and outside, and to the intense involvement of the audience at an emotional level. As we watch a Hitchcock film, never far away is that expressionist sine qua non: a sense of our being bound in subjectivity.

Sabotage and Secret Agent (1936) – Spy Thriller

Hitchcock's next film contained flaws that even the master admitted too. Hitchcock's theory was that providing the audience with information denied endangered characters develops suspense in a film. But to be most effective and cathartic, no harm should come to the innocent. Yet in ‘Sabotage’ and later ‘Secret agent’ both films contained some sort of harm to an innocent person.

‘Sabotage’ was a disappointing version of Somerset Maughams spy thriller, ‘Ashenden’ but it still stands up for itself with a bright, quick, fresh touch which is achieved from the two male leads, John Gielgud and Peter Lorre. The film is a strange fusion of comedy and thriller elements, which don’t quite create the perfect mixture. The plot is of Caroll and Gielgud who pose as husband and wife on a secret assignment to assassinate a spy.

‘Secret agent’ was already slated from the director himself, who said that the film wasn’t going to be a big hit. But his first feelings for the film were diminished when this became one of the most popular English Thrillers he made. The plot was elaborately detailed, which created a fine thriller about a young woman who suspects that her husband, played by Oscar Homolka is keeping a secret from her.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) – Mystery/Spy

Hitchcock’s penultimate film in England was the stylish, fast paced and witty Mystery/Spy film

‘The Lady Vanishes’. Directed in 1932 and adapted from the novel ‘The Wheel Spins’ by Ethel Lina White, this well scripted film by the witty writers Frank Lauder and Sidney Gilliat contains many of Hitchock's excellent attributes with its little shocks and perversities of editing and detail.

‘The Lady Vanishes’ is filled with the kind of intriguing characters everyone dreams of meeting on a train trip—without the hazards so expertly and chillingly presented. This clever, fast-paced spy classic was director Alfred Hitchcock's most celebrated British film, and the film that brought Hitchcock to the attention of Hollywood.

It is not clear, however, that the making of these films reflected Hitchcock's growing realization that the thriller genre best suited his temperament. Indeed, all six (The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, and The Lady Vanishes) were made for the same company, Gaumont-British Picture Corporation, and used many of the same creative and technical personnel.

These facts, as well as the subsequent variety of Hitchcock's Hollywood output of the 1940s, suggest that it was basically a question of studio economics and efficiency that led him to continue working in the thriller format from the mid- to late 1930s. Whatever the reasons, the "sextet" of thrillers worked in Hitchcock's favor, as his mastery of the genre led to unrivaled critical praise in Britain.

The film opens in a Balkan resort town, which is temporarily cut off from the outside world when an avalanche blocks the railroad. Passengers enter an inn looking for rooms, which are in short supply. A young Briton on holiday (Margaret Lockwood) is about to marry an office worker in London, although she doesn't especially relish this prospect. (As she tells her friends, "I've been everywhere and done everything—what's left for me except marriage?")

Other English guests at the inn include a politician (Cecil Parker) and his mistress (Linden Travers), a pair of gentlemen cricket addicts (Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford) whose only concern is to get back to England for an important upcoming match, a musician (Michael Redgrave) who is studying local mountain ballads, and the kindly, grandmotherly Dame May Whitty, who dines with Wayne and Radford and tells them that she is a retired governess on holiday.

When she hears a Balkan local singing outside, Whitty excuses herself and goes to her room, where she listens and methodically counts the measures of his song. Interrupted by a loud banging overhead, Whitty goes out into the hall and meets next-door neighbour Lockwood, who is also annoyed by the banging. She complains to the manager (Emile Boreo), who goes to Redgrave's room and finds him with some locals, recording them as they perform clog dances.

When Redgrave proves truculent, Lockwood pays Boreo to evict the musician, but she changes her mind later, after a confrontation with Redgrave. Meanwhile, Whitty continues listening to the local singer, counting the beats of his song, then tosses him a coin from her window.

The next day the train tracks are cleared of snow, and the passenger’s board the transcontinental express. Lockwood sees Whitty struggling with her bags and leans over to help her, whereupon a flower pot drops from a balcony and strikes Lockwood on the head—although it appears this missile was meant for the old lady. Waving goodbye to her friends from the train, Lockwood is in pain and suffers briefly from blurred vision.

She and Whitty sit in the same compartment along with some strangers, then go to the dining car where Whitty hands a tin of her own tea to the waiter and asks that he use it to make her tea. She introduces herself, but the train goes over a bridge and the noise drowns out her voice, so she writes her name—Froy—on the fogged window.

Returning to the compartment, Lockwood goes to sleep. When she awakens and finds that Whitty is not there, she asks the other passengers in the compartment where the English lady has gone—only to be told that there has been no English lady.

Flabbergasted, Lockwood looks in vain for Whitty's valise, then begins to search the train for her travelling companion. Stewards, waiters, porters, and conductors have no recollection or record of Whitty's being on the train.

In the third class section, Lockwood finds Redgrave, who is watching Balkan dances again. He expresses no pleasure at seeing Lockwood, but after she explains that Whitty is missing, he helps her search the train.

Search begins. A wealthy doctor (Paul Lukas) offers his help but can recall no English lady. A baroness (Mary Clare) also has not seen Whitty. Parker, too, denies seeing her, though Lockwood reminds him that he must have, since Whitty almost fell into his compartment. He insists he hasn't seen her, then retreats nervously into his compartment, where Travers is reading a magazine.

Later, Lukas suggests that Lockwood is suffering from a concussion after having been hit on the head with the pot and that she is hallucinating Whitty's having been on board in the first place. When the train pulls into a station, Redgrave and Lockwood watch both sides of the train to see if Whitty gets off. She does not, but a patient on a stretcher is put into Lukas's compartment.

Meanwhile, Parker is evasive when Travers asks him when he will divorce his wife in England. After musing about the possibility of his becoming a judge, he tells Travers that he would not admit to having seen Whitty because, if there were some trouble, they might have to testify as witnesses and their liaison would be revealed. Travers, angry at being treated like a dirty secret, steps into the corridor to tell Lockwood and Redgrave that she indeed did see Whitty as the lady passed her compartment with Lockwood.

Lukas then introduces another woman to Lockwood; a foreigner who is wearing the same clothes Whitty was wearing when Lockwood last saw her. Lukas tells Lockwood she's still suffering from the blow on the head and that she subconsciously substituted Whitty's face for that of the woman dressed like Whitty. Travers then sees the foreign woman and identifies her as the woman she saw with Lockwood. Travers hesitates, however, when making this identification and Lockwood later tells Redgrave, "She was lying, they're all lying."

Redgrave, supportive but sceptical, takes Lockwood to the dining car, where he tells her about himself. He's obviously attracted to her, but she tells him, perfunctorily, that she doesn't much care for him. He plunges on, trying to make small talk. Then, just as the train begins to enter a tunnel, Lockwood notices the name "Froy" written on the window. Lockwood appears to grow hysterical, loudly asking everyone to help her find the missing Whitty. When conductors try to subdue her, Lockwood runs to an emergency handle, pulls it, and stops the train.

Lockwood passes out, later waking in her compartment, where Lukas tells Redgrave that she is ill and he must look after her. Then Redgrave takes Lockwood into the corridor and tells her he believes her, having just seen the packet of tea Whitty gave the waiter.

They begin to search the train, going to the baggage car, where they find the professional paraphernalia of the magician "The Great Doppo" (Philip Leaver)—one of the passengers in Lockwood's compartment—including a "disappearing cabinet" with a false back. Searching further, Lockwood finds Whitty's spectacles. Leaver arrives and demands that they give the spectacles to him, claiming they are his. After a struggle in which Leaver pulls a knife, Redgrave knocks him out and puts him into one of the magician's chests, locking him in.

Later, Redgrave and Lockwood go to Lukas's compartment and attempt to inspect his patient, who is wrapped in bandages from head to foot. The nun attending the patient (Catherine Lacey) does not respond when Redgrave asks her if she speaks English, French, or German. As Redgrave leans over to undo the patient's bandages, Lukas bursts into the compartment and demands to know what Redgrave and Lockwood are doing, saying that they are jeopardising the life of his patient. He regains his composure, ushering them out of the compartment, then tells Redgrave and Lockwood that the nun is deaf and dumb. When Lukas returns to his compartment, however, Lacey yells at him, "Somebody must have tipped them off!"

Conspiracy revealed. Redgrave later confronts Lukas in the dining car, asking him about the "nun" and noting the peculiar fact that she is wearing high heels. Lukas shrugs this off, gives Redgrave and Lockwood some wine, and then takes the pair to a compartment adjoining his. There he tells them that, yes, his "patient" is Whitty and that she will soon be taken off the train for him to "operate" on her, clearly implying that he intends to kill her.

When Redgrave makes a move, Lukas aims a gun at the pair and admits that he is a part of "this conspiracy, as you term it." He then tells them that he has drugged their drinks and they will soon be unconscious, adding that he has been kind enough not to overdose them, since a larger dosage would render them insane.

Lockwood and Redgrave fall unconscious and Lukas leaves. But the couple have only been pretending to be knocked out and are soon breathing cool air from the open window. Redgrave then climbs outside the train and works his way to Lukas's compartment, where he begins to remove the bandages from the patient. Lacey tells him, "Go on, it is Miss Froy. You needn't worry. You haven't been drugged. He told me to put something in your drinks but I didn't do it."

A woman conspirator enters the compartment and Redgrave substitutes her for Whitty, whom he frees. Then, with Lacey resuming her vigil, Redgrave and Lockwood go back to the other compartment and pretend to be unconscious.

The train halts at a station and the bandaged conspirator is taken off and put into an ambulance,

He removes the bandages to find he has the wrong woman, then gets back on the train, informing Leaver (who has managed to free himself) and the baroness that they must kill not only Whitty, but also Lockwood and Redgrave.

Meanwhile, Redgrave discovers that the section of the train in which they are riding has been detached and is being hauled by a different locomotive along a branch line. He confronts Whitty, asking what and who she is and why she has gotten them all into so much trouble. She sputters that she's only a governess. They go to the dining car—since "it's tea time and all the English will be there"—where Redgrave explains what has happened, both to them and to the train, and asks everyone to help.

The train stops in a wooded area, a dazed Lacey staggers into the dining car, and an officer boards the train, politely asking everyone to get off and get into the cars waiting outside. They refuse and Redgrave knocks out the officer. The officers outside, who are with Lukas, then begin shooting at the train. Redgrave, using the unconscious officer's gun, fires back. Parker turns coward and tries to surrender but is killed.

Whitty takes Redgrave and Lockwood aside and tells them she must get away because she must deliver an urgent message to the foreign office at Whitehall in London. "Then you are a spy," Lockwood says. "I've always thought that was such a grim word," replies Whitty. She entrusts them with her message in case she does not get through, telling them they must remember "a tune that contains—in code, of course—a vital clause of a secret pact between two European countries. I want you to memorise it." She hums the tune to musician Redgrave, then slips off the train and disappears into the forest.

Redgrave manages to get the engine going and the train heads for the border with the military cars chasing it and Lukas and cronies firing upon it. The train reaches the border and chugs on to safety, leaving the foreign agents behind.

When Redgrave and Lockwood reach London, it's clear they have fallen in love. Later, the couple is shown at the foreign office in London, telling officials they have come to deliver an important message. Just then they hear a familiar tune and walk into a room where Whitty sits at a piano, playing the song and its secret message. She smiles widely at her two young benefactors, then takes them gratefully into her arms.

The film starts at a slow pace but minute after a minute its engine begins to ignite and speed up just like a train does when building up speed. Hitchcock’s mastery is evident in many parts of this film and it is this expertise behind the camera that attracted many young filmmakers of its time. Orson Welles was a big fan and it was said that he had seen the ‘Lady Vanishes’ eleven times.

Behind the scenes

Hitchcock had no patience with independent-minded actors, which resulted in a poor relationship with Redgrave during filming. Redgrave thought of himself as a stage actor and was reluctant from the beginning of the shooting to make the movie, which in the end turned him into n international star.

Redgrave’s insistence on extensive rehearsals for his scenes, just like the preparations of a stage play articulately irritated Hitchcock. Throughout the production the actor and director matched temperaments, with Hitchcock getting the best of their confrontations.

Redgrave, who would later complain bitterly about Hitchcock's lack of solicitude for his players, probably should have known better than to challenge Hitchcock; he had seen the single-minded genius in action before, when playing a bit part in Hitchcock's ‘Secret Agent’ (1936).

‘The Lady Vanishes’ received the 1938 New York Critics Award; the group also selected Hitchcock as Best Director that year.

Cameo Role; In Victoria station, wearing a black coat and smoking a cigarette.

Last British Film – ‘Jamaica Inn’ (1939)

Hitchcock’’s last British film was the forgettable 1939 adventure’ Jamaica inn’ from Daphne Du Maurier’s novel. Set in the times of king George IV, this gothic and uninspiring film disappoints and fails to deliver the expected outcome of Hitchcock’s movies. The films actors are other indulgent in the acting sense, giving performances which offer an over impersonating role of drunken louts.

Moving to America

In March 1939, Hitchcock, Alma, and Pat sailed for America on the Queen Mary. He would reside in Los Angeles for most of the rest of his life, although he would not become an U.S. citizen until 1955. He had elected to sign a long-term contract with Selznick International, thus alienating his most ardent critical supporters, the British press, which would continue for years to malign Hitchcock's American work as being inferior to his output in Britain.

First Hollywood Film - Rebecca (1940)

His first film in Hollywood after leaving England due to the persuasion of American producer David O. Selznick was ‘Rebecca’ another one of Dapne Du Mauriers Novels. This time however Hitchcock created a film which had stunning performances, a fantastically haunting score from Frank Waxman and the National Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Charles Gerhardt.

This superb, atmospheric psychological thriller is fascinating. It is also the film that established Hitchcock once and for all with American audiences.

Synopsis – ‘Rebecca’

The new Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine), who narrates her own perilous story, is a shy but attractive young lady who meets urbane and handsome Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) when both are vacationing on the Riviera. Following their quick marriage, the couple return to England and Olivier's vast estate, Manderley.

Fontaine is introduced to an army of servants who immediately, though subtly, display hostility toward her. Especially ice-cold toward Olivier's second wife is housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who lurks about in long dark hallways. She suddenly appears before a considerably frightened Fontaine from dark rooms and shadowy archways, always to correct the new mistress of the manor in her failing ways and to remind her of what a splendid woman her predecessor was, the beautiful, mysterious, and now deceased Rebecca.

An oil portrait of this woman hangs in the great hall. It intrigues and then begins to haunt Fontaine. Though she probes for information about Olivier's first wife, the servants and distant neighbors offer little but more mystery, and Olivier's attitude toward Fontaine turns frosty whenever she brings up Rebecca. Fontaine is so vexed by the pervasive image of the dead wife that she begins to believe she is being haunted by the woman and is losing her sanity. She also begins to doubt Olivier's love for her.

Anderson is always on hand to make Fontaine uneasy and fearful, and the housekeeper launches a psychological campaign to compel Fontaine to commit suicide, which Fontaine comes very close to doing. But drastic revelations come about when the ocean disgorges Rebecca’s boat after a storm and her body is discovered, such as the fact that the vessel was scuttled intentionally.

Jack Favell (George Sanders), a money-seeking conniver, concludes that Rebecca had been murdered and begins the systematic blackmailing of Olivier, who is finally forced to admit the truth to Fontaine. He tells her that Rebecca was anything but the wonderful, beautiful person held so dear by Anderson and others. She was a cruel, vicious, and cuckolding creature who drove him half-mad by insisting that she was pregnant with another man's child. He struck her, and she accidentally hit her head and was killed, confesses Olivier, and then, to cover the act, he took Rebecca's body to their boat and sank it, claiming later that his first wife was lost at sea during a storm.

Now the whole ugly story is about to explode, but Olivier is exonerated when it is learned that Rebecca had known all along that she was soon to die of cancer and provoked her husband to strike her down, trying to destroy him, as well.

Before any more secrets about the hideous Rebecca can be learned, Anderson sets fire to Manderley, determined to burn with the memory of her mistress, and walks through the cavernous mansion as the flames lick at her skirts. Olivier and Fontaine watch as the great building is completely consumed by fire and Anderson with it, then resolve to make a new, happy life together.

Behind the Scenes – ‘Rebecca’

Hitchcock took such care with this film that his mannered pace disturbed producer Selznick. Hitchcock's script also bothered Selznick right from the beginning. Selznick felt that Alfred was indulging himself with scenes neither pertinent to the film nor relevant to the original story.

In one scene, for example, Hitchcock had Olivier smoking a cigar on board a ship en route to the Riviera, which causes several passengers to vomit. The director was merely dealing here with a personal fixation with motion sickness. Hitchcock, who was always skirting the Hollywood censor, also altered the original story so that Olivier did not appear an outright murderer (which his character in the novel certainly is), by making the death of Rebecca accidental.

The film's cost of $1 million also unsettled the producer, although he had heralded the film as being produced on the same costly level as his immortal ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939). (Selznick went out of his way to make sure that the Manderley fire certainly appeared to equal the burning of Atlanta in ‘Gone With The Wind’, even though most of the blaze was done in miniature.)

That Hitchcock and Selznick were bound to clash was a certainty, though the director was on a salary. Each man was a determined and creative genius who wanted the film to project his interpretation and his stamp of identity. Selznick, as usual, won. Hitchcock was summoned on one occasion to Selznick's home and ordered to work on the script with screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood. The famous playwright drank and sailed little boats in the producer's swimming pool during the session, which exhausted Hitchcock and produced very little copy. Selznick later carped about Hitchcock's imperialistic manner and his sly way of demeaning those working with him in an offhand manner, passing little comments about their lethargy or drinking habits. Despite Selznick's misgivings, however, ‘Rebecca’ was a smash hit and established Hitchcock as a premier director of American-produced film. He would only go upward from here.

Cameo Role; Walking near the phone booth just after George Sanders makes a call.

‘Foreign Correspondent’ (1940)

During the same year, Alfred also directed the ‘Foreign Correspondent’ a spy/war film which was in the style of Hitchcocks traditional style.

Hitchcock appears to have concocted this spy thriller out of all the breathtaking climaxes he'd been hoarding; there's the assassination with the gun concealed by a newsman's camera, the Dutch windmill going against the wind, and a tremendous finale aboard a transatlantic plane from London on the very day war is declared.

‘Foreign Correspondent’ recieved many nominations of the Academy Awards. It was nominated for best picture, best supporting actor for Albert Basserman, nominated for writing (original Screenplay), nominated for art direction/set direction, nominated for cinematography and finally nominated for special effects.

Cameo Role; After Joel McCrea leaves his hotel, reading a newspaper.

‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ (1941)

This 1941 madcap comedy wasn’t in the typical style of Hitchcock, for which he was renowned for. Yet even though the film doesn’t show many of Hitchcock’s true masterful touches the film still carries itself nontheless. The film ran for 95 minutes with a simple plot line; Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery discover that their marraige wasn’t a legal one. Written by the American playwright and screenwriter Norman Krasna.

Cameo Role; Passing Robert Montgomery in front of his building.

‘Suspicion’ (1941)

Hitchcock returned to his favourite style, the Thriller, and produced a well made movie which won a best actress award for Joan Fontaine and whcih was also nominated for best picture and best score. The film was an explorarion of family dynamics with its storyline of a young woman whothinks that her Husband is a murderer and who is planning on making her the next victim.

Cameo Role; Mailing a letter at the village postbox.

‘Saboteur’ (1942)

Again using the spy/war style previously seen in ‘Foreign Correspondent’, Hitchcock delivers a very poor and mixed up spy thriller with a poor cast, but it is watchable with some interesting scary sequences. The film is about a munitions worker who is falsely accused of sabotage and forced to take it on the chin. The film has some excellent and outstanding set pieces especially the finale involving the Statue of Liberty, but running just under two hours long; this film can be a bit tedious.

Cameo Role; Standing in front of Cut Rate Drugs in New York as the saboteur's car stops.

‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943)

Alfred Hitchcock's favorite among his own films was based on the case of the real-life "Merry Widow Murderer," Earle Leonard Nelson, a mass strangler of the 1920s. The sly Hitchcock made this chiller all the more frightening by having his crafty homicidal maniac intrude into the tranquility of a warm, middle-class family living in a small town, deeply developing his characters and drawing from the soft-spoken Joseph Cotten one of the actor's most remarkable and fascinating performances.

Though some film critics viewed ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ as a kind of partial self-portrait in which Hitchcock explored his own darkness and then brought it to bear upon the audience, it seems more likely that the director is merely telling a good story, based not on his own experiences but on the character of a real-life killer who intrigued him. Critics are right, however, in noting the film's psychological realism. This is Hitchcock's most penetrating analysis of a murderer—a masterful profile, aided by Cotten's superb performance, of a subtle killer who cannot escape his dark passions, despite a superior intellect.

Based on a story by Gordon McDonnell, this Thriller shocks, amuses and entertains the audience with its clean, quiet, sleepy setting in Santa Rosa California which is then turned around by a psychopathic killer who comes to visit his unsuspecting and adoring relatives.

The film's construction is adroit and very calculated, letting the viewer know early on just what kind of man Cotten really is, but providing tension through Cotten's devious charade as a gentle, kind man deserving of his family's love—a tension that fuels the chilling cat-and-mouse game between Cotten and Wright that provides the film's suspenseful center.

Hitchcock took his time in making ‘Shadow Of A Doubt’, and the care shows. The director got Thornton Wilder to write the screenplay, assuming that the playwright who created Our Town would be the perfect scenarist to provide the right kind of ambiance and characterization to the film's small, close-knit Santa Rosa. Hitchcock made the right choice in Wilder, although he also wrote some scenes himself, independently of Wilder. This was his method of constructing a film, first doing his storyboards, depicting with his own stick drawings exactly how he envisioned each scene, and then working closely with the writer to develop the script.

He was to say later (in Jay Robert Nash's The Innovators): "I work on it [the script] from the beginning with the writer. It's not so much that I'm doing the writing, like dialogue and character, it's the fact that I'm bringing the writer into the direction of the picture. I'm making him aware of how we ought to do certain things, how it should be shot. It's not a question of my taking his script and interpreting it. If the writer goes to see the picture, he will see exactly on the screen what we have decided on ahead of time. Many writers turn in a script and when they look at the picture, it's all different from what they wrote."

Hitchcock shot most of this film on location in Santa Rosa, using the townspeople as Extras. Hitchcock semeed to take a liking to one of the extras and cast her as a small child, her name was Edna May Wonacott and is featured in the supporting cast credits.

The locasl alos bwelieved that the funeral procession during the film, was of someone really dying and removed their hats in honour of respect.

The film didn’t win any awards, but it was nominated for best writing.

Cameo Role; On the train to Santa Rosa, playing cards.

‘Lifeboat’ (1944)

An unusual film for Hitchock to undertake but his talents create an excellent movie about a group of people that are trapped on a torpedoed ship. Heading the cast is Tallulah Bankhead in a role which changed the opinions of viewers and catapulted her to stardom, with her comic sexiness. Her role as a mink-coated journalist who is a spoilt rich girl.

Others aboard the small boat include Canada Lee as a pickpocket, Henry Hull as a millionaire manufacturer, Heather Angel as a simpleton mother with a new baby and Mary Anderson as a nurse.

The film was nominated for the best director award for Alfred Hitchcock, best screenplay and Cinamatography.

Cameo Role; A difficult one to pull off since the entire film takes place on a lifeboat! Hitchcock appears in the "before" and "after" pictures in a newspaper ad for Reduco Obesity Slayer.

‘Spellbound’ (1945)

With an intriguing plotline of a murder mystery within a group of psychoanalysts, who learn the nature of the murder through a dream, this film falls flat on its face. Based on the novel ‘The House of Dr. Edwardes’ by Francis Beeding this film stars Ingrid Bergman in a role in whcih she wasn’t unsually asocciated with, is poorly cast.

Cameo Role; Coming out an elevator at the Empire Hotel, carrying a violin case.

‘Notorious’ (1946)

Hitchcock returns with this amazing film combining romance and suspense, mystery and action and presents startling performances from Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

Ingird Bergman plays the daughter of a man convicted of spying for the Nazis, as a dubious playgirl who is well known internationally. Cary Grant plays Devlin, an American agent who is assigned to keep a watchful eye on the female lead, but duroing his scouting he finds out that Ingrid rejects her fathers political leanings, and also falls in love with her. At the end of the movie they both end up in Rio De Janiero together.

The film contains one of the longest kiising scenes on record between the to leads Bergman and Grant. The scene lasts for at least three minutes and starts off with Grant nibbling at bergmans ear. This then progresses to the necks and then they both begin to kiss.

The inclusion of tyhis in the film was away for Hitchock to avert the then Hollywood censors from their restrictions on prolonged kissing scenes. The methodology even baffled the crafty Hecht when he showed up on the set to see this now famous kissing scene. "I don't get all this talk about chicken!" Hecht told Hitchcock, who only smiled in response.

The director later recalled a strange memory that had lingered for years in his mind and had prompted this scene in which the public had "the great privilege of embracing Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together. It was kind of a temporary ménage à trois—I felt that they should remain in an embrace and that we should join them. So when they got to the phone, the camera followed them, never leaving the closeup all the way, right over to the door, all in one continuous shot. The idea came to me many, many years ago when I was on a train going from Boulogne to Paris. There's a big, old, red brick factory, and two little figures at the bottom of the wall, a boy and a girl. The boy was urinating against the wall but the girl had hold of his arm and she never let go. She'd look down at what he was doing, and then look around at the scenery, and down again to see how far he'd got on. And that was what gave me the idea. She couldn't let go. Romance must not be interrupted, even by urinating."

The two leads later complained to Hitchock about then scene but Hitchcock said "I told them not to worry, it would look great on film, and that's all that mattered. It's one of my most famous scenes."

During a conference with his brilliant cinematograper Ted Tetzlaff, Hitchock was informed that the set was on fire. The revelation didn'’t sem to bother Hitchocock who simply turned to the messenger and said "Will someone please put that fire out?" and then continued with his sentence with Ted.

The film recieved nominations for the supporting role for Claude Rains and a nomination for best writing.

Cameo Role; At a big party in Claude Rains's mansion, drinking champagne.

Problems during filming

At the time of production, Ingrid Bergmans life was in turmoil. She had only been in America for a few years and found difficulties in the English language.

Cary Grant on the other hand never a problem. His character seemed to be part of him and he exuded sofistication and confidence but one scene caused Grant to ask Hitchcock a stupid question. He carped to the director that he had to open a door with his right hand while he was holding his hat with the same hand. Said Hitchcock, "Have you considered the possibility of transferring the hat to the other hand?"

‘The Paradine Case’ – (1948) – Drama

A very under par film from Hitchcock with a script by David Selznick. The film contains too much talking, creating a stiff atmosphere making the film unable to find the passionate tone that it needs.

The story taken from a novel by Robert Hichens is about a barrister who louses up a murder case because he falls in love with the defendent.

The film is a courtroom drama set in England whcih originally ran for 132 minutes. This was then cut down to 125 minutes and then finally 116 minutes.

Even thought the film was very disappointing, it still achieved an academy award nomination for the supporting actress, Ethel Barrymore.

Cameo Role; Leaving the train at Cumberland Station, carrying a cello.

‘Rope’ (1948) – Thriller – First Colour Film

‘Rope’ was the first Colour movie which Hitchcock directed. The film was shot in continous ten minute takes, which provided a seamless flow of movement. The film was taken from the stageplay by Patrick Hamilton and Adapted by Hume Cronyn.

Plot Line; Two young friends kill another friend just for the thrill of it. After the murder they then challenge each other by inviting guests to attend a party at the place where the body is hidden.

‘Under Capricorn’ (1949) – Drama

Another stinker from the master of suspense. This stuffy drama set in the nineteenth century in Australia is a poor adaption of Helen Simpson’s novel. Ingrid Bergman plays Lady Henrietta, a fine women who later becomes an alcoholic and then falls in love with her visiting cousin played by Michael Wilding.

Cameo Role; Within the first five minutes, wearing a blue coat and a brown hat during a parade in the town square. Ten minutes later, he is one of three men on the steps outside the Government House.

‘Stage Fright’ (1950) - Thriller

The master’s troubles continue with this poor thriller. Filmed in London, the story is of a young drama student who is suspected of commiting a murder.

Marlene Dietrich sings the song "The lasiest gal in Town’ during the film.

Cameo Role; Turning to look at Jane Wyman in her disguise as Marlene Dietrich's maid.

‘Strangers On A Train’ (1951) – Thriller

Probably one of Hitchcocks better American Films, ‘Stranger On A Train’ is a bizarre and malicious comedy, in which the late Robert Walker brought sportive originality to the role of the chilling wit, dear degenerate Bruno.

Bruno has thoughts about killing his father but then comes to the conclusion that he cannot commit the act himself. However with a bit of debating, he conjures up the bizarre plan that someone else could kill him. As time passes Bruno meets Guy, a tennis player that is having difficulties with his marriage. Bruno kills Guy’s wife and then expects Guy to repay the favour by killing Bruno’s Father.

Hitchcock paid Patricia Highsmith $7,500 for the film rights and then went about having a rough draft written for the screen, later bringing in the renowned mystery-novelist Raymond Chandler to do the finished script. However the two didn’t get along well and Chandler was dissaponited when Hitchcock didn’t reply to the script that Chandler had sent him. Chandler said "Not even a phone call. Not one word of criticism or appreciation. Silence. Blank silence then and since—. There are always things that need to be discussed. There are always places where a writer goes wrong, not being himself a master of the camera. There are always difficult little points which require the meeting of minds, the accommodation of points of view. I had none of this. I find it rather strange. I find it rather ruthless. I find it almost incomparably rude"

Robert Burks's extraordinary cinematography earned him an Oscar nomination.

Cameo Role; Boarding a train with a double bass fiddle.

‘I Confess’ (1953) – Drama

Taking a two year break, Hitchcock returned with a dull and uninspiring film set in Quebec.

The film is about a priest who hears a confession of murder, however he is the one accused of the crime. The preist however has a past and is caught in a trap; either he must betray the secrets of a murderer's confession or he himself will be convicted of the murder

Cameo Role; Crossing the top of a staircase after the opening credits.

‘Dial M For Murder’ (1954) – Thriller

An ingenious and almost entertaining film if you like Drawing–Room murder and cold, literate gentlemanly skullduggery. Ray Milland plays a suitably suave husband who wants someone to kill his rich, unfaithfull wife, Grace Kelly. Taken from Frederick Knott’s play, with some slight changes from the author, this film was released in 3-D format, but generally released in conventional form. The 3-D version was later reissued in 1980.

Cameo Role; In a class-reunion photo in Grace Kelly's apartment.

‘Rear Window’ (1954) – Thriller

This taut thriller is about a man confined to a wheelchair. The wheelchair-bound victim is desperate to solve a murder case that no one wants to believe happened.

This film was filmed on one set and has much excitement and suspense that it deters the notion of claustrophobia.

This film alongside ‘Shadow Of a doubt’ was one of Hitchcock’s favorite movies. Hitchcock was pleased with the picture, but was also pleased with the actors that created an excellent cast.

As with every woman that stared in Hitchcock’s movies, he personally selected the clothes and shoes that they wore. Edith Head (costume designer) told Grace Kelly that she must improve her bust size after Hitchcock had said that false breasts should be used.

Declining this idea, Grace simply stood erect and showed herself to Hitchcock. Pleased by what he saw, he turned to Edith with a glowing beam and said, "See what a difference they make"

Hitchcock, as usual, was concerned with every detail to authenticate his characters, story, and setting. For ‘Rear Window’, he personally supervised the construction of 31 full-scale apartments on the biggest set ever constructed at Paramount. "We had 12 of those apartments fully furnished," he later commented. "We could never have gotten them properly lit in a real location."

The result is a magnificent city scene of realistic-looking back porches, balconies, and windows, complete with day-and nighttime noises mixed with a clever, on-and-off Franz Waxman score. Although confining the set, it was still a challenge for the director to come up with a real thriller out of a normal backyard setting. He loved such problems, preferring to "box myself in and then figure a way out."

Inventive Cornell Woolrich story adapted by John Michael Hayes.

Cameo Role; Winding the clock in the songwriter's appartment.

‘To Catch A Thief’ (1955) – Crime/Romance/Comedy

Filmed with the picturesque background of the French Riviera, this entertaining caper stars Cary Grant as a reformed catburglar who is the main suspect after a wide spread of Jewel robberies.

The film won an Academy award for its beautiful Cinematography and was also nominated for the costume designs and art/set direction.

The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on a novel by David Dodge

Cameo Role; Sitting to the left of Cary Grant on a bus.

‘The Trouble With Harry’ (1955) – Comedy

From a script by John Michael Hayes, this Offbeat comedy can be quite humorous in places.

The film is about a corpse that is causing endless amounts of trouble in the New England community. Starring Edmund Gwenn and Shirley McClaine with a not so impressive score by Bernard Hermann, his first for Hitchcock and doesn’t seem to combine with the beautiful autumn locations.

Cameo Role; Walking past a parked limousine.

‘The Wrong Man’ (1956) – Crime

This semidocumentary film is an unusual style for hitchcock to take under his wing.

The film is taken from the real life story of a New york musician who is falsely accused of robbery.

Vera Miles plays the wife of the accused Henry Fonda, who gives an impressive performance as she cracks under the strain. The discovery of the real murderer is compelling and chilling, but this doesn’t seem to pull the film together. The story was written by a noted playwright Maxwell Anderson and Angus McPhail.

Cameo Role; Narrating the film's prologue.

‘Vertigo’ (1958) – Thriller

One of Hitchcocks most discussed fillm, this intensely personal, self-revealing picture, is the story of a man who is possessed by the image of a lost love and who becomes increasingly compulsive in his desire to re-create that same image.

The film is about a retired Police detective who is afraid of heights and is assgined to keep tabs on his old firends wife. Strange things begin to happen, unbelievable to think about such as the attempted suicide and the rebirth of someone who is dead.

Hitchcock tended to become fascinated with the actresses he starred in his films. He chose women whose cool, blonde, sophisticated looks played against their sexuality, carefully molding their appearances and actions to comply with his rigid standards of beauty and sexual appeal.

‘Vertigo’ is about just such attempts to realize an ideal image and to capture an illusion, using its main character's obsessive pathology to convey this theme. When the seemingly normal hero, who has become warped in his desire for a woman who never really existed, screams, "Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you exactly what to do and what to say?" he might easily be referring not to the murderer who set him up, but to himself and to Hitchcock—the master who obsessively trained his pupil-actresses.

Hitchcock's revelation of the murder plot midway through the film deepens our psychological understanding of the romantic dynamics. By suddenly freeing us from Stewart's point of view (with which we have identified up to this point), Hitchcock allows us to study his quixotic fixation in an objective light that reveals its hopelessness, at the same time letting us sympathize with Judy, who becomes the victim of romantic idealization. As Hitchcock pointed out, Stewart's pursuit of the image becomes a "form of necrophilia." It also makes him, like the character he played in Hitchcock's immediately preceding ‘Rear Window’, a voyeur who observes and imagines rather than acts in the real world.

One of ‘Vertigo’s’ most telling, and disturbing, scenes in this respect occurs after Stewart has pulled the unconscious Novak from the water, and she wakes up nude in his apartment, her clothes hanging up to dry. Since she could not have undressed herself, Stewart obviously undressed and viewed the image of his desire while she was unconscious.

In reality, however, Novak's suicidal trance was all part of the scheme to hook Stewart, which means that her attempted drowning was an act too—we learn later that she is an excellent swimmer—and that she was merely pretending to be unconscious when Stewart undressed her and put her in bed.

‘Vertigo’ is a masterpice of the filming techniquie. Hitchcock created one of the most important innovations in cinema the dolly-out, zoom-in shot that visually represents Stewart's sensation of vertigo. The dolly shot is to move the camera at a moving or stationery object while on a track and then zoom out. It can also be moving the camera away while zooming in.

Hitchcock said "I always remember one night at the Chelsea Arts Ball at Albert Hall in London when I got terribly drunk and I had the sensation that everything was going far away from me" Thhis type of technique was first used in Rebecca, but hitchcock was dissattfied with it then and thought about it for fifteen years.

Creating this effect though meant that the camera had to be physically moved which posed a problem for the camera men. For the effect in the bell tower, Hitchcock wanted the camera to dolly away from the stairs. When presenting the idea to his crew, Hitchcock was told it would cost $50,000, "because to put the camera at the top of the stairs would mean that they would have to have apparatus to lift it, counterweight it, and hold it up in space." Since there were no characters in the shot, Hitchcock asked, "Why can't we make a miniature of the stairway and lay it on its side, then take our shot by pulling away from it?" The resulting shot, which cost $19,000 to produce, is unique to Hitchcock and completely new to film.

The film was only nominated for two technical Oscars: Best Sound and Best Art Direction.

Cameo Role; In a gray suit walking the street.

‘North By Northwest’ (1959) – Thriller/Spy

Flawless example of Hitchcock's ability to entertain. Grant is spirited away by thugs who think he's a secret agent. This starts a cross-country adventure that includes the classic crop dusting scene and a breathless battle atop Mount Rushmore. Saint is a superb femme fatale. Bernard Herrmann contributes another perfect musical score.

Hitchcock took a debonair leading man and gave him Hitchcock's own personal hang-ups.

Cary Grant plays the character of a vacuous Madison Avenue advertising executive, divorced and overly attached to his mother, who is suddenly swept up into a bizarre plot of international intrigue. In the course of this plot development, Grant is gradually stripped of the superficial accessories of his existence until, in one of the monumental scenes in the American cinema, he is attacked by a crop-dusting plane while he stands alone in a desolate field.

While it is true that Hitchcock's relationship with women was dominated by his sense of his physical unattractiveness, this is not to say that many men as attractive as Grant do not suffer the same kinds of insecurities Grant's character does in North by Northwest. The female lead, Eva Marie Saint, plays a woman intent on seducing Grant, to which Grant reacts with disbelief and insecurity long after the Saint character has clearly indicated she loves Grant. There is nothing in his reaction, however, out of character with the part Grant is playing. It is Grant's character's gradual acceptance -- following the crop-duster scene -- of adult sexuality, intimacy, and responsibility which marks the resolution of the thematic and character issues in the film.

Although Ernest Lehman wrote the script, Hitchcock rewrote it verbally with the screenwriter through many months of wild mental imaginings. The director once stated (in Jay Robert Nash's The Innovators): "North By Northwest’ didn't end on Mt. Rushmore in one version. We got up into Siberia nearly with it, Ernie Lehman and I. I remember I had a sequence where the girl is kidnapped. They get her across the straits and they're going along a road in Siberia in an open car and a helicopter from the Alaskan side is chasing the car with a rope hanging from it and they were saying to the girl 'Grab the rope!' And she's rescued from the car but the heavies try to grab her back … it was the most daring rescue you've ever seen."

The title for the film came from a line appearing in Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, where Hamlet states to Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern: "I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." Hitchcock's tongue-in-cheek idea here was that neither he nor the tragic Hamlet were mad, although some of the scenes of ‘North By Northwest’ are certainly bizarre, for instance the crop dusting scene.

The director kept talking about making a film in which the hero is chased across the faces on Mt. Rushmore, and he later stated: "Now it so happened that a New York journalist had given me an idea about an ordinary businessman being mistaken for a decoy spy. I took that and, with Ernie Lehman, worked up the whole thing. It took about a year to write." Hitchcock received a $4 million budget for this film and a personal salary of $250,000 with 10 percent of the gross over $8 million (the film went on to earn $6.5 million in its initial release, but added another $14 million in rereleases).

Nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Story and Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Film Editing.

‘Psycho’ (1960) – Horror/Thriller

Psycho is the story of murder and deception, but at the same time (although slightly ambiguous) it is the story of split personality and not letting go. Suspense (and in some cases fear) is built up throughout the entire movie, making the viewer forget that there are only two actual scenes of violence. Psycho is a film that takes place more in the mind of the viewer than on the screen. The movie is based on a novel with the same name by Robert Bloch, which was a fictionalization of a real event in Wisconsin (Bowers 1393)

It was Psycho that changed the perception of Horror than any other film to date. Hitchock averted to Nudity, bloodbaths, necrophilia, transvestism, schizophrenia, and a host of other taboos and got away with it probably down to the fact that he was Hitchcock.

Hitchock seemed to get away with all this by clouding his motives by simply saying that ‘Psycho’ was nothing more than a big joke.

But even in todays society where youngsters have been brough up on Scream or the Kruger famalies, it was ‘Psycho’ that set the standard and scared its viewing audeince to tears.

Hitchcock opens this landmark film in his traditional manner, involving the viewer immediately with his players and his twisting plot. The camera pans the skyline of Phoenix, Arizona, and then focuses on one building, zeroing in on one hotel window, going through it to show Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), wearing only a bra and slip, reclining sensuously on a bed, her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) standing over her. From the onset of their conversation we realize that they are having an adulterous affair and that Gavin is too poor to get a divorce. (In presenting the opening scene in this manner, like a peep show, Hitchcock transforms the viewer into a voyeur.)

The colour of the Bra is Whitre, whihc seems to be signifyiing innocence.

Marion Crane is the first character that is really introduced. She is upset because her and her boyfriend Sam can not get married due to financial difficulties. Marion’s boss entrusts her to deposit $40,000 of a client’s money. The next time we see Marion she is packing a bag and has the money with her, obviously planning to leave with it. Even though she is a thief, the audience is still sympathetic towards her because of her situation. Marion trades in her car for a new one and leaves Phoenix heading towards California, where her and Sam plan to get married. When Marion pulls over for the night, the first view of the now famous Bates motel and mansion. A figure of an old woman is visible in the window. As Marion wanders around the motel she meets Norman, the proprietor, and also sees his hobby of stuffing birds. After she is taken to her room, she is sitting on her bed (with the bathroom and shower clearly visible in the background) and she hears an argument between Norman and his mother. Marion then decides to take a bath before bed, and the most famous murder scene in movie history takes place. The infamous shower sequence, totally takes the viewer by surprise. Marion who appears to be the main character is killed off in the first third of the movie. This scene required over 60 still shots, 70 setups, and over a week of attempts; all for a less than a minute on screen. True Hitchcock genius, you never actually see the knife strike Marion, but the loud, high pitched screeching music, and the close-ups of her face and the knife sends chills through the body. An investigator comes out to the motel, and becomes the next victim. Soon the audience learns that there is no Mother Bates, when one of the other investigators discovers her body in the basement, where she is attracted by Norman, the split personality, dressed in his mother’s clothing. The movie has foreshadowing and imagery through out, such as the credits splitting apart, and all the use of mirrors, implying that perhaps other characters are split also (Spoto 357), and the presence of the shower and all the stuffed birds in the background. As William Blowitz said "The star of this picture is Alfred Hitchcock." (Kapasis 83).

When it came to that famous shower scene, Hitchcock not only approved of every little detail in the scene—from toilet to shower nozzle—but he demonstrated every move the killer and victim were to make. The director even showed Perkins exactly how he was to wrap the body in the shower curtain.

Ironically, Perkins was not present for the filming of Leigh's murder. He later commented: "Not many people know this, but I was in New York rehearsing for a play when the shower scene was filmed in Hollywood. It is rather strange to go through life being identified with this sequence knowing that it was my double. Actually the first time I saw PSYCHO and that shower scene was at the studio. I found it really scary. I was just as frightened as anybody else. Working on the picture, though, was one of the happiest filming experiences of my life. We had fun making it—never realizing the impact it would have."

It was Hitchcock who specifically ordered this murder shown as a brutal thing, scribbling in his own hand for shot 116: "The slashing. An impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film." This filmic slaying is long, terrifying, and gory.

Another of the inventive techniques Hitchcock employs in this legendary scene is the way in which he shows the spray coming directly out of the shower nozzle. Jets of water encompass the camera without ever hitting the lens, as if Leigh is looking directly into the nozzle. To achieve this effect, Hitchcock ordered a huge shower nozzle made, then moved his camera in for a closeup.

Although a stand-in was used for the shots of Leigh's corpse wrapped in the plastic curtain on the bathroom floor, Leigh performed the rest of the shower scene herself, though she was concerned about displaying her bosom, even before a few technicians in a closed set. She and aides researched various transparent garments worn by strippers but did not come up with anything that would work.

A technician finally came up with an answer, flesh-colored moleskin. But during shooting hot water from the shower undermined this solution. "I felt something strange happening around my breasts," Leigh later said. "The steam from the hot water had melted the adhesive on the moleskin and I sensed the napped cotton fabric peeling away from my skin. What to do?—To spoil the so far successful shot and be modest? Or get it over with and be immodest. I opted for immodesty—that was the printed take, and no one noticed my bareness before I could cover it up. I think!"

(Janet Leigh, There Really Was a Hollywood.)

The film earned Hitchcock his last Oscar nomination for Best Director, but the award went to Billy Wilder for ‘The Apartment’. Leigh earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Ironically, Shirley Jones, who had been considered for the Marion Crane role, won the award for her performance in ‘Elmer Gantry’. The film was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Trivia

The Necktie Murderer is at large in London and innocent man Finch is wrongly accused of the crimes. One of Hitchcock's most violent movies, and also one of his most comical, although the laughs are of the macabre variety. In this, his second last movie, Hitchcock proved he could still design gripping set pieces (a silent pulling back on the camera from a murder scene is stunning), and he could still tell, at age 73, a mystery story that makes light of his phobias and keeps the audience on its toes.

It was October 1955 when CBS flipped the switch that put "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" on the television screen. After switching to NBC for one season (1960-1961), the program returned to CBS to end its run in June 1962, to be replaced by an hour-long format, 1962-1965. But it was far from the final curtain for the half-hour anthology series. Even as the millennium approaches, Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette is still on television screens in the United States and dozens of countries around the world. Only "I Love Lucy" and "The Twilight Zone" can rival its re-run record.
The best one-word description of the program is "classic." Viewers knew exactly what they could expect after Alfred Hitchcock made his ironic, humorous, and sometimes mordant introductions to stories of mystery, crime, horror and the supernatural, invariably with a twist in the tale. Ratings were consistently high, and the show gave career impetus to some of today's best-known actors, including Robert Redford, Walter Matthau, Katherine Ross, Charles Bronson, Robert Duvall, Joanne Woodward, Gena Rowlands, and the late Steve McQueen. The list of directors is also a distinguished one: Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack, Arthur Hiller, Stuart Rosenberg, Paul Henreid, Robert Stevens, and of course, Alfred Hitchcock himself, who directed several episodes.
Hitchcock also credited a great deal of the show's success to its writers. He greatly preferred published material over "developed" stories, and many of the show's authors are household names, like Eric Ambler, Robert Bloch, John Cheever, Roald Dahl, Eric Ambler, Evan Hunter (also known as Ed McBain), Garson Kanin, Ellery Queen, Richard Levinson, William Link, and Henry Slesar.
There's no doubt that one reason for the show's quick acceptance was Hitchcock's film reputation. It was a daring move for so prominent a cinematic director to "lower" himself to the small screen. Hitchcock had doubts at first, but one factor which aided his decision was his fondness for personal appearance (he made sure he was briefly seen in each of his movies.) His personal fame was enormously advanced by hosting the television series; it's arguable that he became the most recognizable non-acting theatrical personality in America, and perhaps the world.
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was the brainchild of his friend and ex-agent Lou Wasserman, president of MCA. It was produced by MCA's Universal Television, and Hitchcock called his company Shamley Productions, after his summer home in England. While his title was Executive Producer, the greatest burden of responsibility was given to the late, multi-talented Joan Harrison, who had been Hitchcock's closest collaborator and family friend (and the wife of Eric Ambler.) Joan Harrison had the daunting task of choosing all the material for the show. She was later joined by Gordon Hessler and Norman Lloyd, both outstanding producers and directors. Norman Lloyd was also a formidable actor (he was the villain who fell from the Statue of Liberty in Hitchcock's Saboteur) and he is still giving superb performances in film and television.
Every episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" opened with an iconic silhouette (drawn by Hitchcock himself), the familiar "Hitchcock music" (actually Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette) and a trenchant and amusing introduction written by James Allardice. Often, the comments made insulting reference to the commercials that followed, but the sponsors learned to love them.
The stories told on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" emphasized irony as their chief ingredient, and as a result, many of them ended with virtue unrewarded and villains unpunished. The networks censors were appalled, resulting in the famous Hitchcock "disclaimers" at the conclusion of many shows, also written by James Allardice. Most of the "disclaimers" were so tongue-in-cheek that the censors could do nothing but sigh and bear it.
There was an unusual postscript to the demise of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". In 1985, five years after his death, Hitchcock became the first posthumous host of a television series. Colorized, he introduced new productions of a short-lived "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", most of which were remakes of the original.

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was surely a landmark in the history of the television medium. It won its share of Emmys and other TV awards. Most significantly, it won the affection of millions of people, who had tuned into countless "good evenings" from the master of suspense.

A continuous single shot incorporating any number of camera levels and angles. Achieved through the use of a boom, this versatile shot permits the fluid filming of an entire sequence or even a whole film (as Hitchcock nearly did in ‘Rope’) without breaking up the action into units of montage.

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