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Alfred Hitchcock: 50 Years of Movie Magic

Alfred Hitchcock is among the few directors to combine a strong

reputation for high-art film-making with great audience popularity. Throughout

his career he gave his audiences more pleasure than could be asked for. The

consistency of quality plot-lines and technical ingenuity earned him the

recognition of being one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His films

earned him the reputation of being the "master of suspense", and after viewing

two of his more popular films, Psycho and The Birds, it is evident why. There

is a distinction between surprise, which lasts only a few seconds, and suspense

which captivates one's attention the entire length of a film. This is something

that Hitchcock realized early on, and applied into his movies. He is one of the

few directors whose name on a marquee is as important, if not more so, than any

actor who appears in the film itself. Both his style of directing, and that of

the movies that he has directed are very unique, making him stand out in the

film industry. He pioneered the art of cinematography and special effects,

which along with his cameos, are what he is most often associated with.

Hitchcock led a long and prosperous life in the movie industry, starting as a

teenager and making movies up until his death in 1980, while working on the 54th

of his career (Sterrit 3).

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1889 in London, England.

As a child his parents were very strict with him and they imposed severe and

unusual punishments upon him, as what they considered to be discipline. One of

these incidents scarred him for life. As punishment for arriving home late one

night, young Alfred's father had a policeman friend lock the boy up in a cell

for five minutes, "in order to teach him where naughty little boys who come home

after 9 o'clock would eventually end up." (Phillips 27). Throughout his career

he used the innocent man being arrested and imprisoned in his films, and claimed

that forever after he had a fear of the police (Spoto 16). Fear was also a big

part of his childhood, which later was evident in many of his movies. "Fear? It

has influenced my life and my career." (18) explains Hitchcock, he also had a

fear of being alone and of darkness which once again appeared in many of his

movies. "...fear you see is an emotion that people like to feel when they know

they are safe." (39).

Hitchcock led a life of fantasy, and spent much of his time alone,

entertaining himself because he did not have many friends growing up. 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. He also really enjoyed Edgar Allan

Poe, stating that "Very likely it's because I was so taken by the Poe stories

that I later made suspense films." (39). In 1915 he started work for the Henley

Telegraphy Company. He soon began to study art at the University of London,

which led to being promoted to Henley's advertising department to design cable

ads. But Hitchcock's true love was the movies. He hunted all over the famous

Wardour Street trying to obtain a position in film-making. In 1920 a co-worker

at Henley's helped him put together a portfolio and he was hired instantly by

The Famous Players-Lasky as a title designer for silent films. For two years

Hitchcock wrote and designed for popular British movie directors. The hard

working Hitchcock was recognized by his employers as well as leading actors of

the day. In 1922 the director of Always Tell Your Wife, a film in progress, got

very sick and had to leave the movie. The lead actor Seymore Hicks had to take

over the duties of direction, but was stumped on ideas. The young Hitchcock

assisted him with the rest of production, and a legacy had been born (Rohmer 4).

Hitchcock's solo directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden was released in

January of 1927, but it was not until three weeks later that the illustrious

career of Alfred J. Hitchcock really took off. In February of 1927 The Lodger

was released and it attracted mass audiences because of the rave reviews it

received early on. It marked the first time in British film history that a

director got more praise than did any of his stars (Kapsis 20). Besides being

Hitchcock's first acclaimed motion picture, The Lodger is also note worthy

because it was the movie in which one of the greatest movie traditions of all

time would begin; the famous Hitchcock cameo appearance, a unique trademark of

his films for the next fifty years. In April of 1926, Michael Balcon told

Hitchcock he wanted to make a movie of the 1913 mystery novel The Lodger, and

felt that Hitchcock's sense of character and narrative would be perfect (Spoto

84). So early in his career, Hitchcock already had a reputation for the true

art of film-making.

Hitchcock always prided himself as being the total film-maker, planning

and having total control over every aspect of his films, from casting to

publicity. Hitchcock loved to be publicized, and some critics feel that the

original intent of his unusual camera shots were no more than a publicity stunt

at first. Regardless, Hitchcock brought cinematography to new levels,

pioneering the point-of-view shot, which among other things was recognized for

its ability to bring about viewer-character identification (Sterrit 11).

Hitchcock's cameos, which he admitted to have borrowed from Charles Chaplin in A

Woman of Paris (Kapsis 21), was just another example of Hitchcock's

personalization and perhaps little "gimmicks" of his films. He did not just

become characters like did colleagues Orson Welles or Woody Allen, but his

presence and style was always recognized.

During the first decade of his career Hitchcock toyed with a variety of

formats including theatrical adaptation, romance, musical, and of course,

thrillers. It was not until 1934 when Hitchcock filmed The Man Who Knew Too

Much that Hitchcock started making thrillers on a regular basis. That film

marked the first is a secession of six thrillers which would become known as the

classic "thriller sextet". Following the 1938 release of The Lady Vanishes,

Hitchcock was voted to be the best director of that year by New York film

critics (23).

Throughout the 1940's his reputation continued to flounder with the hit

movies Spellbound (1944 [in which artist Salvador Dali painted some scenery]),

and Notorious (1946). The 1950's was the beginning of Hitchcock's most

productive and popular era. Movies like Dial "M" for Murder (1954), Rear Window

(1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and North By Northwest (1959) were on

the big screen and the Hitchcock name was everywhere. In 1955 the television

program "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was also released. The style and reputation

that came with the Hitchcock name was visible in every movie, in every scene.

North By Northwest to this point had gone where no other film had gone before.

The airplane chase in the cornfield became one of the most famous sequences in

movie history, and really identified Hitchcock as a cinematographer and a

director. Well, it is only fitting that the most famous murder-thriller movie

of all...

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