Recurring themes:
Throughout a career spanning more than 50 years, Hitchcock sounded the same themes again and again: Mistaken identity. Innocents falsely accused. Ordinary people thrust into extraordinary predicaments. People who are not what they seem to be. Trust and betrayal. Hair-breadth escapes. Perfect crimes and double-crosses.In just about every Hitchcock film there’s a central couple -- lovers who turn out to be either very good for each other or very, very bad. There’s usually a gorgeous blonde who rescues a great guy from a tough spot; sometimes it’s a bad guy with an idea for the perfect crime; and often, bumbling policemen after the wrong man.
There are always moments of macabre humor, and lots of playful sexual tension and teasing -- along with darker explorations of the unsettling relationship between violence and sex.
Thrills and chills:
Hitchcock knew that the suspense is generated when the audience can see danger his characters cannot see, or can only suspect. He once said, "There's no terror in the bang of the gun, only the anticipation of it." And while his later films grew more graphic (and less effective), his earlier work could create vivid terror in the mind of the viewer with very little spatter on the screen.The early silent films:
The director started out in 1919 as a designer of title cards for silent films. His work on an unsuccessful German/British collaboration, The Pleasure Garden, is credited with inspiring the expressionistic streak that runs throughout his work. His early silent film The Lodger was the first to establish the classic Hitchcock plot of the innocent man caught in a web of intrigue.The great English films:
The Man Who Knew Too Much was acclaimed in 1934, and a year later, The 39 Steps established Hitchcock among Britain’s leading directors. In the great Hitchcock tradition, the hero of 39 Steps is a man falsely accused and on the run -- relying on the help of a pretty blonde to save his hide, prove his innocence, and solve an international espionage plot. Hitchcock followed with the comic suspense film Sabotage, and The Lady Vanishes, a diverting mystery set aboard a train.The Hollywood era:
In 1940, David O. Selznick lured Hitchcock to Hollywood to direct Rebecca. They made great movies together, but their battles were legendary, and the last film they made together together was Spellbound in 1945. "Hitch" split with Selznick, and was at the top of his game in the years that followed.The great works:
He produced several undisputed masterpieces in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Try Strangers On a Train, a tense thriller with an innocent man entangled in a psychotic charmer’s murder plot. Or Rear Window, with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in the nail-biting tale of a man stuck in a wheelchair who thinks he sees his neighbor kill his wife. And don’t miss Notorious, a masterful spy story with Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains.For my money, the best is North by Northwest, a hugely entertaining cross-country thriller with Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason that winds up at Mount Rushmore, of all places. (One of the working titles was “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose.” Ugh.) Many critics tag Vertigo as Hitchcock’s greatest film, an “is-she-or-isn’t-she” spellbinder with Kim Novak in a double role.
The big shocker:
Psycho, while not his best film, might be his most famous. The psychological thriller was controversial for its violence at the time (1960) and therefore extremely lucrative. It inspired so many imitators that it seems clichéd and a little campy now, but it can still deliver a shock or two, and Anthony Perkins is still deliciously creepy. Hannibal Lecter owes him a thing or two.The later films:
The Birds is the best of Hitchcock’s later movies, departing from his traditional themes. It’s an odd, nerve-wracking tale of birds attacking a seaside town in waves of inexplicable savagery. The sight of silent crows settling one by one on a schoolyard jungle gym is unforgettable.Hitchcock’s last film, 1979’s Frenzy, marked his return to England. A lot of critics love it, but I found its rape scene too raw and too real, even by modern standards.
Signatures:
Hitchcock and his off-screen collaborators pioneered and popularized many now-familiar tricks of the trade, including the “Hitchcock zoom,” in which the foreground remains steady while the background swells closer, producing the sensation that the world is closing in on the helpless subjects.He appeared in cameos in all of his films, usually as a face in the crowd, a bus passenger or some such mundane extra. In Lifeboat, a tense thriller set entirely on a tiny boat, the only way he could manage to appear was as the “before and after” photo in a newspaper ad for a diet program.
Off-screen:
For a man who specialized in movie mayhem, he had a stable and by all accounts happy home life. He was devoted to his wife, Alma Reville, whom he married in 1926, and who collaborated with him on every film. Nevertheless, he had his quirks. He was said to be unable to look at Alma when she was pregnant with their only child, Patricia. He once sent a doll that looked like Tippi Hedren (who he detested) in a coffin to the daughter of the ice-blonde star of The Birds. And he had a dreadful fear of eggs.Humor and wit:
Hitchcock was celebrated for his dry one-liners and funereal delivery. When an actor inquired what his motivation for a scene ought to be, Hitchcock replied, “Your salary.” Of his television show, he said, “Television has brought murder back into the home, where it belongs.” And he gave the shortest and best Oscar acceptance speech ever made: “Thank you.”He departed the stage to a well-deserved ovation.
