Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock

13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980

An English film director, screenwriter and producer. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, renowned as England's best director, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1955.

Alfred Hitchcock often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense", as he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres.

As director, writer, producer

• No. 13 (1922) 
• The Pleasure Garden (1925) 
• The Mountain Eagle (1926) 
• The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) 
• The Ring (1927) 
• Downhill (1927) 
• The Farmer's Wife (1928) 
• Easy Virtue (1928) 
• Champagne (1928) 
• The Manxman (1929) 
• Blackmail (1929) 
• Juno and the Paycock (1929) 
• Murder! (1930) 
• The Skin Game (1931) 
• Rich and Strange (1931) 
• Number Seventeen (1932) 
• Waltzes from Vienna (1933) 
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) 
• The 39 Steps (1935) 
• Secret Agent (1936) 
• Sabotage (1936) 
• Young and Innocent (1937) 
• The Lady Vanishes (1938) 
• Jamaica Inn (1939) 
• Rebecca (1940) 
• Foreign Correspondent (1940) 
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) 
• Suspicion (1941) 
• Saboteur (1942) 
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 
• Lifeboat (1944) 
• Spellbound (1945) 
• Notorious (1946) 
• The Paradine Case (1947) 
• Rope (1948) 
• Under Capricorn (1949) 
• Stage Fright (1950) 
• Strangers on a Train (1951) 
• I Confess (1953) 
• Dial M for Murder (1954) 
• Rear Window (1954) 
• To Catch a Thief (1955) 
• The Trouble with Harry (1955) 
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) 
• The Wrong Man (1956) 
• Vertigo (1958) 
• North by Northwest (1959) 
• Psycho (1960) 
• The Birds (1963) 
• Marnie (1964) 
• Torn Curtain (1966) 
• Topaz (1969) 
• Frenzy (1972) 
• Family Plot (1976) 

Quotations

* * *

Puns are the highest form of literature.

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Ideas come from everything.

* * * 

Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual.

* * * 

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

* * * 

Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

* * * 

Drama is life with the dull parts left out.

* * * 

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

* * * 

If I won't be myself, who will?

* * * 

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

* * * 

I’ve never been very keen on women who hang their sex round their neck like baubles. I think it should be discovered. It’s more interesting to discover the sex in a woman than it is to have it thrown at you, like a Marilyn Monroe or those types. To me they are rather vulgar and obvious.

* * * 

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

* * * 

I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.

* * * 

I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

* * * 

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

* * * 

A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.

* * * 

There is nothing so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.

* * * 

Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.

* * * 

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

* * * 

I'm sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

* * * 

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere,there's somebody nobody knows about.

* * * 

I’m full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm.

* * * 

It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you're on.

* * * 

If you can't do it naturally, then fake it.

* * * 

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

* * * 

I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes … have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it.

* * * 

A clear horizon — nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive… I can’t bear quarreling, I can’t bear feelings between people — I think hatred is wasted energy, and it’s all non-productive. I’m very sensitive — a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they’re close to me, hurts me for days. I know we’re only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you’re going to create something — I think that’s as happy as I’ll ever want to be.

* * * 

In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.

* * * 

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

* * * 

I never said actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

* * * 

Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.

* * * 

Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake.

* * * 

Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

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