Alfred Hitchcock

 

Cary Grant + Eva Marie Saint in North by northwestKim Novak in VertigoJames Stewart + Grace Kelly in Rear window

Biography

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock
Actors are cattle

Movie news

This week 61 years ago Under Capricorn premiered (September 8, 1949)

Born:

August 13, 1899

Born as:

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock

Died:

April 29, 1980

The young Alfred was educated at a variety of Jesuit schools and was a solitary and introspective child. After a job with an electrical cable company Hitchcock began to take a great interest in the cinema. And so in 1920 he produced the title designs for The great day. Designing titles for a string of twelve films, Hitch tried to to get his own movie off the ground (1922) , but the production was not finished.

In 1925 Hitchcock finally got his chance to make his credited debut as a director with The pleasure garden. In the thirties his classic British period started including The man who knew to much (1934), The 39 steps (1935) and The lady vanishes (1938).

In 1939 Hitch accepted an offer from Gone with the wind producer David O Selznick to go to Hollywood. His first film there, the romantic thriller Rebecca (1940), cemented his standing and started and endless line of successes.

In 1955 Alfred agreed to host a weekly TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a diversion that lasted a full ten years. In the same period he directed his greatest films, Rear window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). In 1979 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to British culture.

Academy awards

1968 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1968)
1961 Nominated Best Director for: Psycho (1960)
1955 Nominated Best Director for: Rear Window (1954)
1946 Nominated Best Director for: Spellbound (1945)
1945 Nominated Best Director for: Lifeboat (1944)
1942 Nominated Best Picture for: Suspicion (1941)
1941 Nominated Best Director for: Rebecca (1940)

Selected Movies:

Books:

by John Russell Taylor -> Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock (1978)

 

Anthony Perkins in Psycho

News

Poster of Under Capricorn

This week 61 years ago Under Capricorn premiered (September 8, 1949)

Trivia

Alfred never won a best director Oscar. However, he was awarded the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award at the 1967 Oscars.

Hitchcock’s Notorious was being advertised as the film with the longest screen kiss in the history of the cinema. Cary Grant kissed Ingrid Bergman two and a half minutes, broken only by some words necessary to satisfy the 30-second contact limit imposed by the censors. Source / More (Book)

Hitchcock wanted to use Vera Miles for Vertigo but she became pregnant. Vera was replaced by Kim Novak. Hitchcock: “She couldn’t resist her Tarzan of a husband, Gordon Scott. She should have taken a Jungle Pill!” Source / More (Book)

Alfred has a star on Hollywood Boulevard.
It’s located between Wilcox and Whitley avenues.

A famous Hitchcock quote is “Actors are cattle”. But Hitch denied to have said that: “My actor friends know I would never be capable of such a thoughtless, rude, and unfeeling remark; that I would never call them cattle. What I probably said was that actors should be treated like cattle” Source / More (Book)

Hitch appears on a 32 cent U.S. postage stamp, in the legends of Hollywood series.

MacGuffins were objects or devices which Hitchcock invented and used to drive the plot. They were inconsequential and could be forgotten once they had served their purpose. Source / More (Book)

Hitchcock tested the scare factor of various versions of the Mother corpse prop, by placing them on various days in Janet Leigh’s dressing room. Leigh: “[Hitchcock] liked teasing me because I’m a good audience, and he loved scaring me”. Source / More (Book)

James Stewart was very interested in starring in North by northwest, begging Hitchcock to let him play Thornhill. Hitch claimed that Vertigo ’s (1958) lack of financial success was because Stewart looked too old. Source / More (Book)

Bibliography