Alfred Hitchcock

Spenser Pringle
Galotti Block 2
Film and Lit
November 16, 2015

Spenser Pringle
Film and Lit

Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899 and died on April 29, 1980. He was a
producer and director. He was known for making a cameo in each of his films. The cameo could
be thirty seconds into the film like in the Birds or be thirty minutes into the film like

Rearview Window. Alfreds Nickname was the master of suspense because of how he
created many uses of suspense in his films. Hitchcocks films also had featured a platinum
blonde in each of them.
Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England which is now part of London. He
said his childhood was lonely. He got teased because he was obese. When Alfred was five years
old, his dad sent him to the police station with a note saying that Alfred needs to be locked up for
five minutes because of bad behavior. This action by his father made Hitchcock deathly afraid of
policemen. The fear had often lead up to wrong convictions by policemen in his films. At the age
of fifteen, Alfreds dad had died. He left the school he was sent to so he could study at the
London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation. He was hired by a cable
company by the name of Henleys as the advertisement director which is where he started
being creative with work.
He became interested with photography and started working in film which lead him to be
a title card designer for Paramount Pictures which wasnt paramount at the time. He became a
screenwriter, art director, and assistant director in a series of five films Woman to Woman in

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Film and Lit

1923, The White Shadow in 1924, The Passionate Adventure in 1924, The Blackguard in 1925,
and The Prude's fall in 1925.
His first project he directed was in 1922 by the name of Number 13. The film was
cancelled due to financial issues and all the progress made on the film was lost. Hitchcocks first
success was in his first thriller film called The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog in 1927. He
went on to marry the assistant director, Alma Reville and they had one daughter in 1928.
Hitchcock created his first sound film in 1929 when the production company British
International Pictures (BIP) decided to start making sound films. The film was called

Blackmail. His name started spreading across England as he was given the nickname Alfred
the Great" by Picturegoer magazine.
David Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven year contract beginning in March 1939.
Because of this, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. Selznick was troubled by financials and wasnt
very successful. Hitchcock was always not happy. Samuel Goldwyn was trying to bid out the
contract of Alfred Hitchcock but was turned down by Selznick.
Rebecca in 1940 was Hitchcocks first American movie. Psycho was one of Hitchcocks
best films. He produced it on a budget of $800,000. It broke box-office records in Asia, France,
Britain, South America, the United States and Canada. It was the most profitable black and white
sound film ever made and Hitchcocks most successful film.

Spenser Pringle
Film and Lit

References
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/
http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-hitchcock-9340006
http://hitchcock.tv/bio/bio.html