Happy 117th Birthday Alfred Hitchcock

Today is the 117th birthday of Alfred Hitchcock.

My mother first introduced my sister and me to Alfred Hitchcock via the movies Psycho and Rear Window (we watched them after school quite often), she taught us to look for his cameos at the beginning of the films. I am not exactly sure what age, I feel like I have always known him and I went on to read a Hardy Boys type of mysteries called “Three Investigators” that Hitchcock wrote the introductions to and even loved the old reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on TV. I have gone on to love both of those movies and have added The Trouble with Harry, Lifeboat, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, The Birds, Strangers on a Train, and The Man Who Knew Too Much to my list of favorite Hitchcock films. How can you not fall in love with North by Northwest? The color of the film, the cut of the clothes, the architecture, train travel. The Trouble with Harry is so absurdly clever and Shirley MacLaine is absolute perfection. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

alfred hitchcock 01 NAME: Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock
OCCUPATION: Director, Producer, Television Personality, Screenwriter
BIRTH DATE: August 13, 1899
DEATH DATE: April 29, 1980
EDUCATION: St. Ignatius College, University of London
PLACE OF BIRTH: London, United Kingdom
PLACE OF DEATH: Bel Air, California
EDGAR ALLAN POE AWARD: Grand Master (1973)
EDGAR ALLAN POE AWARD: Raven Award (1960)
OSCAR: (honorary) 1968 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
GOLDEN GLOBE: 1958 for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: 1979
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME: 7013 Hollywood Blvd. (television)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME: 6506 Hollywood Blvd. (motion pictures)
KNIGHTHOOD: 1980

BEST KNOWN FOR: Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director known for his work in the suspense genre. He made over 60 films, nearly all commercial and critical successes.

Television has brought back murder into the home – where it belongs.

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen, whilst remaining a British subject.

Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person’s gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing. His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside “icy blonde” female characters. Many of Hitchcock’s films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder, and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or “MacGuffins” meant only to serve thematic elements in the film and the extremely complex psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock’s films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual undertones. Through his cameo appearances in his own films, interviews, film trailers, and the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he became a cultural icon.

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, which said: “Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.” The magazine MovieMaker has described him as the most influential filmmaker of all-time, and he is widely regarded as one of cinema’s most significant artists.

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
Family Plot (9-Apr-1976)
Frenzy (21-Jun-1972)
Topaz (17-Dec-1969)
Torn Curtain (14-Jul-1966)
Marnie (22-Jul-1964)
The Birds (28-Mar-1963)
Psycho (16-Jun-1960)
North by Northwest (17-Jul-1959)
Vertigo (9-May-1958)
The Wrong Man (22-Dec-1956)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1-Jun-1956)
The Trouble with Harry (3-Oct-1955)
To Catch a Thief (5-Aug-1955)
Rear Window (1-Aug-1954)
Dial M for Murder (29-May-1954)
I Confess (22-Mar-1953)
Strangers on a Train (30-Jun-1951)
Stage Fright (23-Feb-1950)
Under Capricorn (8-Sep-1949)
Rope (28-Aug-1948)
The Paradine Case (31-Dec-1947)
Notorious (15-Aug-1946)
Spellbound (31-Oct-1945)
Lifeboat (11-Jan-1944)
Bon Voyage (1944)
Aventure malgache (1944)
Shadow of a Doubt (12-Jan-1943)
Saboteur (22-Apr-1942)
Suspicion (14-Nov-1941)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (31-Jan-1941)
Foreign Correspondent (16-Aug-1940)
Rebecca (27-Mar-1940)
Jamaica Inn (15-May-1939)
The Lady Vanishes (1-Nov-1938)
Young and Innocent (Nov-1937)
Sabotage (2-Dec-1936)
Secret Agent (May-1936)
The 39 Steps (Jun-1935)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (Dec-1934)
Waltzes from Vienna (Mar-1934)
Number Seventeen (1932)
Rich and Strange (10-Dec-1931)
The Skin Game (26-Feb-1931)
Murder! (2-Aug-1930)
Juno and the Paycock (29-Jun-1930)
Elstree Calling (1930)
The Manxman (6-Dec-1929)
Blackmail (30-Jun-1929)
Champagne (20-Aug-1928)
Easy Virtue (5-Mar-1928)
The Farmer’s Wife (2-Mar-1928)
Downhill (24-Oct-1927)
The Ring (1-Oct-1927)
The Lodger (14-Feb-1927)
The Pleasure Garden (3-Nov-1925)