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Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master of Suspense - Alfred Hitchcock

He was born Alfred Joseph Hitchcock on the 13th of August 1899 in Leytonstone, London, UK. The third son to greengrocers William Hitchcock (1862-1914) and Emma Jane Whelan (1863-1942), his older brother was called William Hitchcock JR (Born 18900 and his sister was called Eileen (Born 1892). They were all strict Roman Catholics.
It is a popular (and true) story that when Alfred Hitchcock was around 5 years old (His exact age when the incident took place varies in different accounts) his father sent him down to the local police station with a note telling an officer to put him in a cell for 5 minutes, when they released young Alfred Hitchcock the officer reportedly said "This is what we do to naughty little boys."
Hitchcock attended a College in Stamford Hill until the age of 14 when his father died and then he attended a school of Engineering and Navigation. After graduating he became a draftsman and an advertising designer with a cable company and a telegraph company.

In 1920, Hitchcock heard that Lasky were opening a studio in London, he was quickly assigned as a title designer, he was then moved up the ranks. In 1922, when the director of the film Always Tell Your Wife (Hugh Croise) fell ill, Hitchcock completed the film. The studio were impressed by his work and they assigned him as director on a film called “Number 13” but the studio closed its British Operation and the project was scrapped during the production and all that was shot has now been lost. Afterwards, Michael Balcon as assistant director in Gainsborough Studios, there he met his future wife Alma Reville who was only a day younger than he was. In 1925 Balcon gave the chance to direct “The Pleasure Garden” and until 1939, Hitchcock made British films which are regarded as some of the greatest films ever made, including the first British talkie called “Blackmail, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in 1934 starring Peter Lorre in his first English language film (He remade it in 1956 starring James Stewart and Doris Day) and “The 39 Steps” in 1935 starring Robert Donat.

In 1940 he signed a 7 year contract with David O. Sleznick, there he made “Rebecca” with Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and George Sanders, he was loaned out several times and made classics like “Foreign Correspondent” with Joel McCrea and George Sanders, “Shadow Of A Doubt” starring Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright. Towards the end of the 40’s he made with Selznick as producer “Spellbound” starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, “Notorious” with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman and then “The Paradine Case” with Gregory Peck.

The 1950’s is regarded as the heyday not only for Hollywood but for Hitchcock as well, he made classics such as “Strangers On A Train,” “Murder.html">Dial M For Murder,” “Rear Window,” “To Catch A Thief,” “The Wrong Man,” “Vertigo,” and in 1959, “North by Northwest. Also in the 50’s Hitchcock started his highly successful television series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”

In 1960, Hitchcock made his most famous film, “Psycho” starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles and John Gavin. Then in 1963 he made “The Birds” starring Rod Taylor his new star Tippi Hedren. Hitchcock slowed down his film making speed and made only five more film over the course of the next 13 years. In 1979 he was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award and a knighthood. He was planning to make another film but died during pre-production due to renal failure peacefully in his sleep at 9:17 AM 29th April 1980



News | What members say | Filmography | Watch online (6)

Alfred Hitchcock - news / articles


  • Hitchcock returns to the big screen - 11 February 2009
    -Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock is to be brought back to life in a movie about his early years.- -Kung-Fu Panda and Good Luck Chuck star Dan Fogler has signed on to play the heavyweight auteur in Number 13 - alongside stars Ewan McGregor and Emily Mortimer. - - The


  • The Essential Guide to Alfred Hitchcock - 9 September 2008
    - The Essential Guide to Alfred Hitchcock- Born 1899, Leytonstone, England- Died 1980, Bel Air, USA - - -More books have been written about Alfred Hitchcock than any other filmmaker, alive or dead. He was the self-styled “master of suspense”. In a care


  • Hitchcock tops Oscars that never were - 24 January 2005
    The man behind The Birds, Psycho and Vertigo should have been given an Oscar, according to a new poll.-Alfred Hitchcock was nominated six times as best director at the Academy Awards but he was never actually given the gong.-But voters in a survey by the Turner Classic Mo

Alfred Hitchcock - what members say


  • Psycho
  • Psycho review by A customer from Kent
    Rated - 4 stars Psycho 22 September 2008
    ...Alfred Hitchcock - a classic as always still keeps you in suspense. Very good film ...  
  • Vertigo
  • Vertigo review by from London
    Rated - 4 stars A film that really hits the heights 4 October 2004
    ...one of the best collaborations between James Stewart and the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. Set in San Franciso, John Ferguson (Stewart) suffers will agoraphobia after ...  
  • Notorious
  • Notorious review by from Manchester, England
    Rated - 2 stars Dated spy thriller with an interesting subtext 7 July 2009
    ...Early Alfred Hitchcock film starring Carry Grant and Ingrid Bergman. The narrative follows Bergman, an alcoholic German defector, who is offered a mission to uncover state secr...  

Alfred Hitchcock - filmography


  • Frenzy on DVD (1972)
    Starring: Jon Finch,  Alec McCowen,  Barry Foster
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: 18
    FRENZY was Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film--and the first film he'd made in England in 20 years. Based on an Arthur La Bern novel, the film focuses on many of the same motifs that Hitchcock had obsessively examined throughout his life's work: the wrong man theme, doubling (in which one person ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 66% from 2,255 members
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  • Marnie on DVD (1964)
    Starring: Tippi Hedren,  Sean Connery,  Diane Baker
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: 15
    This thriller, based on a best-selling novel by Wilson Graham, revolves around Marnie (Tippi Hedren), a pathological liar and compulsive thief who is befriended by her latest victim, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery). Despite his sincere love, dashing looks, and wealth, some deep-seated neurosis makes ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 68% from 3,157 members
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  • The Birds on DVD (1963)
    Starring: Rod Taylor,  Tippi Hedren,  Jessica Tandy
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: 15
    In THE BIRDS, Alfred Hitchcock's heart-pounding followup to PSYCHO, the director couples a tone of rigorous morality with dark humor to create a thriller that begins as a light comedy and ends as an apocalyptic allegory. Wealthy, reformed party girl Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) enjoys a brief ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 71% from 13,374 members
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  • Psycho on DVD (1960)
    Starring: Anthony Perkins,  Vera Miles,  John Gavin
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: 15
    Credited with inventing the genre of the modern horror film, PSYCHO has had its share of sequels and imitators, none of which diminishes the achievement of this shocking and complex horror thriller. Alfred Hitchcock's choreography of elements in PSYCHO is considered so perfect it inspired a shot-by-..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 73% from 22,081 members
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  • The Wrong Man on DVD (1956)
    Starring: Henry Fonda,  Vera Miles,  Anthony Quayle
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    Henry Fonda plays musician Manny Balestro, a man full of visible but unspoken rage at his wrongful arrest. Vera Miles is his distraught wife Rose, driven to madness by the ordeal.
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 67% from 881 members
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  • I Confess on DVD (1953)
    Starring: Montgomery Clift,  Anne Baxter
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: TBC
    Father Logan apparently a model of clerical piety, hears a killer's conffesion. Eyewitnesses point to a priest as the murderer and the sacrament penance forbids Logan to speak out - even in his own defense - when circumstancial evidence targets Logan as the prime suspect!
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 67% from 767 members
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  • Rope on DVD (1948)
    Starring: James Stewart,  John Dall,  Farley Granger
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    Based on the famous Leopold and Loeb murder case (from which two other films, COMPULSION and SWOON, were also derived), ROPE both challenges and terrifies the audience. Alfred Hitchcock disdained the whodunit crime story, which he felt lacked emotional force, and ROPE shows the director's ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 71% from 5,050 members
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  • Notorious on DVD (1946)
    Starring: Cary Grant,  Ingrid Bergman,  Claude Rains
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    NOTORIOUS is Alfred Hitchcock's classic romantic espionage thriller, with passionate, brilliant performances by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, featuring one of the most famous screen kisses in film history. At the end of World War II, American military intelligence drafts the alluring daughter (..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 70% from 5,263 members
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  • Rebecca on DVD (1940)
    Starring: Laurence Olivier,  Joan Fontaine,  George Sanders
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    A string of classic suspense films produced in England had earned Alfred Hitchcock a reputation in the United States, and his first American production, REBECCA, cemented his fame. Based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, REBECCA was conceived to rival producer David O. Selznick's previous epic, ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 73% from 7,573 members
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  • Jamaica Inn on DVD (1939)
    Starring: Charles Laughton,  Maureen O'Hara,  Leslie Banks
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
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    Set in 19th-century Cornwall, this tale of a young woman who visits her aunt, only to discover she's residing in a haven for throat-slashing pirates, is one of Hitchcock's lesser-known films. A period melodrama, the film features an excellent Maureen O'Hara in one of her earlier roles. JAMAICA INN ..read more »
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 56% from 1,199 member
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  • Sabotage (1936)
    Starring: Sylvia Sidney,  Desmond Tester,  John Loder
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
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    An innocent boy becomes the innocent victim of a foreign agitator when he unwittingly carries a bomb aboard a busy bus.
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 61% from 517 members
    Not currently released
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  • The Man Who Knew Too Much on DVD (1934)
    Starring: Leslie Banks,  Edna Best,  Peter Lorre
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
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    Hitchcock's first and arguably superior production of the same story he retold in 1956 with James Stewart and Doris Day, and critics continue to argue the film's merits versus its successor. An English couple on holiday in Switzerland find themselves embroiled in an international plot to ..read more »
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 64% from 1,367 member
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  • Early Hitchcock - Number Seventeen on DVD (1932)
    Starring: Leon M.Lion,  Anny Ondra,  Anne Grey
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    An early Hitchcock effort that mixes the suspense, scares and humor prevalent in his later masterpieces. A tramp joins a group of jewel thieves, a pretty girl and a detective in a search for a valuable stolen necklace. The search starts in a spooky house and leads to a train and a bus.
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 57% from 63 members
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  • Early Hitchcock - Blackmail on DVD (1929)
    Starring: Anny Ondra,  Sara Allgood,  Charles Paton
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920's London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice agrees to go back ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 stars out of 5 66% from 131 members
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Alfred Hitchcock - watch online


  • Bon Voyage to Watch Now (1941)
    Starring: John Blythe
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: U (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 26 minutes
    A young Scottish RAF gunner is debriefed by French officials about his escape from occupied territory, and in particular one person who may or may not have been a German agent
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 55% from 2 members
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  • Jamaica Inn to Watch Now (1939)
    Starring: Charles Laughton,  Horace Hodges,  Hay Petrie
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 107 minutes
    Set in Cornwall where the young orphan, Mary, is sent to live with Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss who are the landlords of the Jamaica Inn. Mary soon realizes that her uncle's inn is the base of a gang of pirates who lure ships to their doom on the rocky coast. The girl starts fearing for her life...read more »
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 61% from 12 members
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  • Secret Agent to Watch Now (1936)
    Starring: Madeleine Carroll,  Peter Lorre,  John Gielgud
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: U (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 83 minutes
    A bizarre cat and mouse game is played out in the Swiss Alps and many of Hitchcock's famed set-pieces, including the fake funeral, the murder on the mountainside and the gripping climax in the chocolate factory.
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 61% from 6 members
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  • Sabotage to Watch Now (1936)
    Starring: Sylvia Sidney,  Oskar Homolka,  John Loder
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 73 minutes
    An innocent boy becomes the innocent victim of a foreign agitator when he unwittingly carries a bomb aboard a busy bus....
    Rate this: 4.5 stars out of 5 86% from 6 members
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  • The Man Who Knew Too Much to Watch Now (1934)
    Starring: Leslie Banks,  Edna Best,  Peter Lorre
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: PG (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 84 minutes
    Hitchcock's first and arguably superior production of the same story he retold in 1956 with James Stewart and Doris Day, and critics continue to argue the film's merits versus its successor. An English couple on holiday in Switzerland find themselves embroiled in an international plot to ..read more »
    Rate this: 4 stars out of 5 76% from 16 members
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  • Downhill to Watch Now (1927)
    Starring: Ivor Novello,  Ben Webster,  Robin Irvine
    Director: Alfred Hitchcock
    Certificate: Certificate: U (TBC)
    Watch now: Subscribe and watch this as part of an unlimited package.
    Run time: 80 minutes
    A sixth-form schoolboy is suspected and accused of theft. He is expelled in disgrace, but his main worry is that he will not be able to play for the Old Boys! He has to leave the area and is sent to Marseilles where his antics go from bad to worse. However, when he is found innocent, what path will ..read more »
    Rate this: 3 stars out of 5 60% from 2 members
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Alfred Hitchcock facts

5 most recent films

Family Plot - 3.0 stars
Frenzy - 3.5 stars
Topaz - 2.5 stars
Torn Curtain - 3.0 stars
Marnie - 3.5 stars

5 highest-rated films

North By Northwest - BLU-RAY Version - 4.5 stars
Rear Window - 4.0 stars
Dial M For Murder - 4.0 stars
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Three - 4.0 stars
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Two - 4.0 stars

5 lowest-rated films

The Pleasure Garden - 0.5 stars
Murder - 2.5 stars
Early Hitchcock - Murder! - 3.0 stars
Early Hitchcock - Champagne - 3.0 stars
Hitchcock - The Wartime Resistance Films - Bon Voyage And Aventure Malgache - 3.0 stars

Most frequent co-stars

Herbert Marshall - 12 times - show films
Malcolm Keen - 12 times - show films
Helen Haye - 12 times - show films
Norah Baring - 11 times - show films
Joan Barry - 10 times - show films

Most frequent directors

James Neilson - 2 times - show films
Robert Stevens - 2 times - show films


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