Alfred Hitchcock

Best known for his highly distinctive contributions to the suspense and psychological thriller film genres. His single most famous film, Psycho, came towards the end of an already distinguished career as a director, both in England and the United States.

He was dubbed “the master of suspense”, but even that title seems rather insufficient for Sir Alfred. Those who want to plumb the depths of this singular auteur’s body of work will never be short of complexities, idiosyncrasies, irony, paradox, paranoia, sexual deviance (Hitchcock likened Jimmy Stewart’s obsession in “Vertigo” to necrophilia), and great humor.

Hitch attributes his affinity for wrongly accused characters to an incident from his childhood. Born in London in 1899 to a strict religious family, Alfred was quiet, a loner, and well behaved. When he was six, though, his father sent him to the local police station with a note for the captain to lock him up for a few minutes as a warning to be good. His fear of the police lasted his entire lifetime, so much so that he never had a driver’s license because he feared being stopped.

Never drinking or dating until he was 23, Hitchcock detested surprises. This mania for order caused him to rarely deviate from a carefully planned course in either his life or the making of his films. He and his wife, Alma, always vacationed in the same cities, at the same hotels, insisting on the same suites at those hotels, and rarely going out.

Likewise, Sir Alfred planned his films so carefully that every part of every shot was worked out well before the cameras rolled. He never needed to look behind the camera, and, in fact, considered the actual filming of his vision a necessary evil — the creative satisfaction had already been reached. Though he had some difficulty with actresses like Kim Novak, many of his stars claimed that he rarely discussed their roles with them: he knew his job and respected them for knowing theirs. Consequently, he never forgave Paul Newman for giving him pages of notes on “Torn Curtain”.

His first films were silent pictures, in the ’20s, in London. Alfred moved to the U.S. to direct “Rebecca” for David O. Selznick in 1940, which earned him his only Oscar. Though it was a fruitful partnership, Hitchcock would produce most of his own films. “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943), one of his favorites, was his first big U.S. hit in his own genre. Reaching his peak in the ’50s and culminating with his most famous film, “Psycho” in 1960, Hitchcock was much less successful in the ’60s. He returned to London, though, to shoot “Frenzy” (1972), to great acclaim.

Primarily because of the extreme popularity of his television show, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour”, which ran from 1955 to 1965, Hitch was easily the most famous director in America. Though he was shunned by the Academy for virtually his entire American career, he won countless other awards, and (like Jerry Lewis) was recognized early by the French for his particular genius.

Sir Alfred lived comfortably within the “oxymoron of popular artist”. He eschewed academic discussions of the complexity in his films primarily because he was afraid they would interfere with the box office. He was also genuinely surprised at how serious the critics regarded his work. The films are rife with wry absurdity, irony and comedy; like the dry wit, though, his humor often goes undetected — unless you watch for it diligently.

— Nate Lee