In the early part of his career,
Alfred Hitchcock
was widely considered to be Britain's best film director. Silent films such as
The Lodger
(1926),
The Ring
(1927) and
The Farmer's Wife
(1928) were greeted with great enthusiasm by critics, and, at a time of expansion and increasing optimism for the British film industry, they were heralded as evidence that British films had reached an international standard of artistry. In 1929,
Blackmail
was hailed by British critics as a film which used sound and dialogue with more flair and imagination than any
Hollywood
or European film of the time. And in the mid-1930s,
Hitchcock
's
The 39 Steps
(1935) and
The Lady Vanishes
(1938) reinvigorated the
thriller
genre
with their fast pace and distinctively British sense of wit and irony.
Hitchcock
was thus an admired and prominent figure in British film culture, so much so that a newspaper report on the premiere of
The 39 Steps
in 1935 could affectionately refer to him as 'the Buddha of British films'. In the wake of his departure for
Hollywood
in 1939, however, his centrality within British film culture quickly waned.
After the outbreak of the Second World War he was one of those accused in the British press as having 'gone with the wind up' to
Hollywood
. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, British critics favoured realism above all else, and they looked with disdain upon the
Hollywood
glamour and opulence that characterises much of
Hitchcock
's work during this time.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when
auteurist
critics celebrated
Hitchcock
's films, it was mainly the
Hollywood
Hitchcock
that they admired, and these (largely American and French) critics had little interest in his British films. Of course
Hitchcock
's public persona in his later years was still very closely associated with his English background, as his appearances on the
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
television programmes demonstrate. But his dark suits, careful formality, deadpan irony and macabre humour seemed to be the contrivances of a long time expatriate.
It can be surprising, then, to discover the esteem that
Hitchcock
enjoyed in his native country during his first dozen years as a director. When
The Lodger
was first shown in 1926, it was declared to be a masterpiece and its director was proclaimed as a youthful genius.
Hitchcock
was already twenty-seven years old at the time, but his rise does seem to have been remarkable.
He had been born on the eastern edge of London, in Leytonstone, Essex, on 13 August 1899, and his family lived above their greengrocers shop on Leytonstone High Road and later in the East End neighbourhoods of Poplar and Stepney. He left school at the age of fourteen, and worked as a clerk at the Henley Telegraph Company and took evening lessons in draughtsmanship and drawing at the University of London. In 1919, these skills enabled him to get a job as a title card designer with the American production company
Famous Players-Lasky
when it began making films in a converted power station in Islington.
The Americans did not stay long in Islington, but
Hitchcock
's ascent quickened when the studio was taken over by
Michael Balcon
's
Gainsborough Pictures
in 1924.
Balcon
allowed
Hitchcock
to work at an array of jobs for
Gainsborough
: as a set designer, scenario writer, editor and as the assistant director to
Graham Cutts
, who was then
Gainsborough
's top director.
In 1925,
Hitchcock
was given his own directorial assignments with
The Pleasure Garden
and
The Mountain Eagle
, both of which were filmed in Munich's
Emelka Studios
as part of a co-production deal between
Gainsborough
and the German producer
Erich Pommer
. Neither film garnered much attention, and it was not until the release of his third film,
The Lodger
, that both the critics and the public took notice of
Hitchcock
.
Indeed,
The Lodger
seemed able to please just about everyone. With filmic techniques informed by the international art cinema of the 1920s, an Oedipal narrative format borrowed from
Hollywood
, and subject matter that was distinctly English (a
Jack the Ripper
story with authentic London settings), it remains a remarkable hybrid and a stunning example of late silent cinema.
The Lodger
also introduced several of
Hitchcock
's most enduring story elements: a protagonist whose innocence is in doubt, a romance filled with suspicion and mistrust, wry humour and a murderous fascination with blondes, to name but a few, that would endure for many years.
His reputation as the 'master of suspense' was far in the future, however, and during these early years
Hitchcock
was known primarily for the visual creativity of his films. The German director
F.W. Murnau
was a strong influence in this regard. While filming in Germany in 1924,
Hitchcock
visited the set of
Der Letze Mann
(
The Last Laugh
, Germany, 1924) and observed
Murnau
at work. It was a key moment in his development as a filmmaker.
Murnau
's interest in an 'unchained' camera and his pursuit of 'pure cinema' (telling the story in visual terms alone) would be lifelong interests of
Hitchcock
's too. He was also a member of the
London Film Society
, and its screenings of French, German and Soviet art films, as well as early and pioneering American films, provided a unique forum for the consideration of film form and technique, and one that influenced
Hitchcock
and many other aspiring British filmmakers of the time.
One can point further to
Hitchcock
's interest in drawing and draughtsmanship as factors that enriched and informed the visual dynamic of his films. In his silent films, this was so striking that critics regularly cited 'the
Hitchcock
touch', referring to the visually dramatic sequences that distinguished his work. Such moments might convey an amusing, sinister or romantic story point, or they might dramatise a thematic element of the story, but they always demonstrated the director's ability to tell the story without recourse to intertitles for dialogue or explanation.
Perhaps the most striking example is the use of a glass ceiling in
The Lodger
, enabling the cinema audience to see what the characters 'hear': their lodger pacing back and forth in the room above them. In
Downhill
(1926) there is a recurrent visual motif of descent; in
The Ring
a boxer's career progress is demonstrated through his improved billing on a succession of posters and billboards; and in
Easy Virtue
(1927) the audience is able to 'listen' to a marriage proposal over the telephone by watching the facial expressions of an eavesdropping switchboard operator. These techniques were particularly useful and even liberating narrative devices, given that in these years most of
Hitchcock
's stories were adaptations of stage plays and the witty dialogue of West End favourites such as
Noel Coward
could not be transferred directly to the silent screen.
In 1927
Hitchcock
left
Gainsborough
for the larger
British International Pictures
(BIP), and his new contract made him the highest paid director in Britain. Being assigned to direct BIP's first talking film was another sign of his status, and
Blackmail
proved that such regard was fully deserved. At the time, many cinephiles thought that '
talkies
' would reduce cinema to being only 'pictures of people talking' but
Hitchcock
's inventive and
expressionist
use of sound demonstrated that the new technology actually opened a new realm of possibilities.
In the wake of
Blackmail
, it appears that the search for new challenges was not entirely fruitful or fulfilling. There were further adaptations of high profile West End plays (
Juno and the Paycock
(1929),
The Skin Game
(1931)), two more thrillers (
Murder!
(1930),
Number Seventeen
(1932)) and an intriguingly odd marital drama (appropriately named
Rich and Strange
).
Hitchcock
also tried producing films (
Lord Camber's Ladies
(d. Benn W. Levy, 1932)) and, after leaving
British International
, he even directed a musical operetta (
Waltzes from Vienna
(1933)). Yet none of these projects was wholly successful, and it is apparent that his career had lost some of its steam, both commercially and critically, during this period. Then a remarkable reversal of fortune was achieved when
Hitchcock
's old mentor,
Michael Balcon
, invited him to join
Gaumont-British
in 1934.
Balcon
was now the executive producer at this ambitious company, and he gave Hitchcock his choice of film projects, the freedom to develop his films without interference and his choice of collaborators.
Hitchcock
chose to return to the thriller genre, and to work with
Charles Bennett
(the author of
Blackmail
) on an original screenplay that became
The Man Who Knew Too Much
(1934).
This proved to be the first of several witty, suspense-filled and highly popular thrillers that continued with
The 39 Steps
,
The Secret Agent
(1936),
Sabotage
(1936),
Young and Innocent
(1937) and
The Lady Vanishes
. Like
Blackmail
, these 1930s thrillers often progress from the depiction of private, hidden and repressed impulses to much more public displays of unleashed fear and violence in very public and well known venues (such as the
Royal Albert Hall
and the
London Palladium
).
By contrast with
Blackmail
, though, the 1930s thrillers seem more politically aware and attuned to their times. All except
Young and Innocent
are centred on espionage, and they convey a strong sense of political complacency, instability and an impending threat from abroad. In reviving this genre,
Hitchcock
had also found the means of circumventing Britain's strict system of
censorship
, which insisted that films should be escapist entertainment and not engage with topical or controversial issues.
Many have said that
Hitchcock
found his true calling with the 1930s thrillers, while for others this concentration on one genre represents a limiting of
Hitchcock
's talent and interests. Either way, their popularity ensured that he was invited to
Hollywood
, and in 1939 he took up a contract with the producer
David O. Selznick
.
This opportunity must have been an irresistible one. In the late 1930s, the British film industry had become mired in a financial crisis, and its difficulties would only intensify with the outbreak of war. It must have been all the more galling, for those eager to criticise him, that he was able to go to
Hollywood
and yet continue to work on British stories and with largely British casts in films such as
Rebecca
(1940),
Foreign Correspondent
(1940) and
Suspicion
(1941). Yet it is evident that
Hitchcock
was eager to maintain ties with Britain. He returned in wartime to make two short films for the Ministry of Information,
Bon Voyage
and
Aventure Malgache
(both 1944).
In the immediate post-war period, he and the
Granada
cinema chain owner
Sidney Bernstein
formed a production company,
Transatlantic Pictures
, that was designed to enable him to make films in Britain, and to free him from the interference of
Hollywood
producers such as
Selznick
. Of the company's two films,
Rope
(1948) and
Under Capricorn
(1949), only the latter was filmed in Britain, and although both are remembered for their bold experimentation with long takes and deep focus, neither was a popular success.
Transatlantic
soon folded, and
Hitchcock
subsequently worked with a range of
Hollywood
studios.
He made only two further films in Britain. The first,
Stage Fright
(1950), was a thriller set in the
West End
theatre world that had enthralled him in his youth, but the film's sense of time and place is weakened by its international cast and its curiously limited use of location shooting. The second,
Frenzy
(1972), seems to hit much closer to home and can be seen to represent a remake or an updating of
The Lodger
. The story is centred on a man wrongly accused of being a sadistic serial killer of women, and it was filmed with a largely British cast and in a London setting that benefits from extensive location shooting around the old Covent Garden market.
Frenzy
was not Hitchcock's last film, but it can be seen as a revisiting of his career's dramatic beginnings in Britain and as a homecoming for a director who found his greatest success and celebrity abroad.
Bibliography
Barr, Charles,
English Hitchcock
(Moffat: Cameron and Hollis, 1999)
Durgnat, Raymond,
The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock
(London: Faber and Faber, 1974)
Glancy, Mark,
The 39 Steps: A British Film Guide
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2002)
Hutchings, Peter, 'Frenzy: A Return to Britain', in
All Our Yesterdays
, Charles Barr (ed.), (London: British Film Institute, 1986)
McArthur, Colin, 'The Critics Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and the Absent Class Paradigm' in
Film Studies
, no 2, 2000, pp. 15-28
Ryall, Tom,
Alfred Hitchcock and the British Cinema
(London: Croom Helm, 1987)
Ryall, Tom,
Blackmail
(London: British Film Institute, 1993)
Spoto, Donald,
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
(New York: Little Brown, 1983)
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Hitch: The Life and Work of Alfred Hitchcock
(London: Faber and Faber, 1978)
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Hitchcock
(London: Secker and Warburg, 1968)
Yacower, Maurice,
Hitchcock's British Films
(Hamden: Archon, 1977)
Mark Glancy, Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors
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