Anna Denniston

Mrs. Borger-Germann
English 9H
21 January 2015
Alfred Hitchcock: The Master Of Suspense
We have all sat there, in the movie theater, our extra large bag of popcorn resting precariously on
our lap, staring, transfixed, as the brave heroine slowly descends the creaky staircase. And we have all
jumped and probably even screamed a little, spilling our popcorn, when the man with the knife steps out
from the behind the door. And when we get home, we all check behind our own door before we enter a
room. It is with the knowledge that everyone will check for that man with the knife that film director Sir
Alfred Hitchcock was able to make his movies influence so many peoples lives.
Hitchcock is considered one of the all time great thriller directors. He grew up in London in a
strict, Catholic family, the son of an East End grocer (Lehman, 3). Nicknamed Fred or Cocky, he had
a lonely and sheltered childhood, without any close friends, a result of his solitary and brooding nature
(Alfred Hitchcock). When he was six, his father sent him down to the police station with a note, which
told the police to lock him up for ten minutes, and which gave him an appreciation for practical jokes,
something he had the rest of his life (Lehman). He attended St. Ignatius College, a Jesuit school, where,
already interested in films, he took art courses and advertising (Alfred Hitchcock). He next went to the
U of London, getting a job as a draftsman and advertising designer for the cable company Henlys
(Alfred Hitchcock). While working there, he began submitting short articles for in-house publication,
and even then, his stories consisted of false accusations, conflicted emotions and twist endings (Alfred
Hitchcock). In 1920, he entered the film industry, and it was during this time that he directed Lodger,
which his studio executives said was so dreadful that were just going to put it on a shelf and forget
about it (Kehoe). However, during his London career, he directed such notable films as The Lady
Vanishes, 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Blackmail, which was the first british talkie, or

non-silent movie (Alfred Hitchcock). In 1939, Hitchcock signed a contract with producer David O.
Selznick and left for America, as he thought it would provide better filming opportunities (Alfred
Hitchcock).
And it did. Hitchcocks Rebecca got him a nomination for Best Director in 1940, and though the
film ended up winning Best Picture, Hitchcock himself never got an Oscar (Kehoe). He joked about this
to the public --What do I want with another doorstop?-- but privately he was a little offended (Kehoe).
Rebecca was just the beginning. Through-out his 60-year career, he would direct over fifty movies, his
most famous including Psycho, The Birds, Strangers On A Train, and Rear Window (Lehman). Rope, the
first movie he made after leaving Selznick in 1948, wasnt a big success (Alfred Hitchcock).
Six years after moving to America, Hitchcock married his assistant director Alma Reville, with
whom he had one girl named Pat, who appeared as small parts in some of his movies (Kehoe). He worked
with famous actors and actresses, including Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. It was well known he had a
fascination with blondes, especially for the leads (Kehoe). During the filming of The Birds, he
developed a crush (though some categorize it as more of an obsession) with his star Tippi Hedren, hiring
two crew members to spy on her when she left the set, and repeatedly pressur[ing] her to drink martinis
during rehersals (Windolf). He once said he liked to torture the women, and greatly enjoyed knocking
the ladyness out of his actresses (Windolf). He also was known for having an odd obsession with
womens shoes, toilets, blondes, and the use of staircases, especially at important scenes, such as in
Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho (Kehoe). A man with a gift for suspense, his nickname soon changed
from Cocky to the master of suspense (Lehman). For publicity, Hitchcock allowed his name to be
used in mystery magazine[s] and book series, such as The Three Investigators, and the cameo role
became his trademark (Kehoe). He became known all over the world for his thrillers, and the tv show
Alfred Hitchcock Presents --which lasted for eight seasons-- turned him into a national icon (Alfred
Hitchcock).
His biggest hit, and a personal favorite, was Psycho, made in 1960 (Windolf). To him, the fact
that it was a number one box office seller was because it had been the pure film, rather than the actors,

the setting or the costumes, that had grabbed the audiances attention (Windolf). It is tremendously
satisfying, he once said, for us to use the cinematic art to achieve something of mass emotion
(Windolf). Psycho was the first of its kind, and became the forefather of later horror films, changing the
idea of what a horror film was (Windolf). The shower scene is one of the most well known, classic
horror scenes in thriller history, and many subsequent sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat scenes stem from it
(Lehman). The Birds also affected many later films; it set a new record for its first network television
showing in the mid 1960s, and was the basis of future nature gone mad pictures (Alfred Hitchcock).
What Hitchcock wanted this movie to do was to scare the hell out of people, which he very much
succeeded in doing (Windolf). The Birds, however, was a little astray in terms of his usual, and favorite,
plot, which was the story of a man who is wrongly accused of a crime, normally murder, and has to track
down the real culprit in order to prove his innocence (Lehman). The various ways in which this plot was
presented was arguably one of the most important keys to his success. He was able to tell this same story
over and over, each time with a different and unexpected twist. He also liked to go against the typical
images associated with horror (Windolf). For example, in his North by Northwest, Cary Grant is running
from a plane that is trying to kill him. However, he is not in the dark city streets, running through dark
alleys and on cobblestone streets. He is instead put in an open and flat cornfield in the middle of
nowhere, the exact opposite of what we would usually connect with that classic chase scene (Windolf).
Hitchcocks greatness was in some cases the result of his oddball nature. He was extremely
socially awkward, with an intimidating, set-in-stone expression (Windolf). He weighed roughly 300
pounds, but it wasnt until the filming of Lifeboat, when he was at 365 pounds, that he became extremely
concerned about his weight and tried a strenuous diet to lose 100-200 pounds (Windolf). During the last
years of his life, he became hypochondriacal and at times paranoid, and it became harder and harder to
keep his obsessions in check, making actresses refuse to work with him anymore (Kehoe). He took up
drinking and was soon an alcoholic (Kehoe). The death of his composer Bernard Herrmann resulted in the
bad script and all-out failure of Torn Curtain, released in 1966 (Alfred Hitchcock). By the mid 60s, his
movies were beginning to seriously decline at the box office, though his last film Family Plot achieved

some respect from cult audiances (Alfred Hitchcock). In 1979, Hitchcock won the American Film
Institutes Life Achievement Award (Alfred Hitchcock). One year later, while peacefully sleeping in
California, he died (Alfred Hitchcock).
Long after the master of suspense has been dead, his movies continue to capture us, controll us,
and keep us on the look-out for that shadow through the shower curtain. They expose the fears and
desires that everyone has and no one shows, giving
life to our nighttime anxieties and desires (Windolf). A recurring theme in his films is the illusion of
safety and places where we can be completely out of harms way (Lehman). For example, the shower
scene in Psycho is the scariest and most threatening because it violates the defenseless heroine in the
most private and intimate of places (Lehman). She is relaxing in the shower, under the false impression
that she is safe from harms way. It is this idea that makes us look elsewhere, and not see the danger right
in front of us, which in turn makes us easy prey (Lehman). And we are all like this, all under the
illusion of safety, all looking the other way. This is what Hitchcock plays off of, what he turns into
thrillers. He uses his movies to put into shape his own messes and obsessions, which then in turn help
shape our own (Windolf). He found his great acceptance [through] working with thrillers, and he
employed a kind of psychological suspense in his films that made them more distinct than previous
horror movies (Alfred Hitchcock).
Perhaps, however, what gives his films the most power is not only the idea that we are under an
illusion of safety, but that people arent always what they seem. The belief that they are, in fact, is the
downfall of so many of Hitchcocks characters, and through these characters Hitchcock suggests that we,
the audience, share this downfall (Lehman). The better the villain, the better the movie was his
philosophy, and many of his plots merely function as decoys meant to serve as a tool for understanding
complex psychological characters (Alfred Hitchcock). Hitchcocks Shadow of a Doubt, made in 1943, is
thought of as one of his most unsettling film[s], as it shows the twisted, complicated, double lives of the
people we trust (Alfred Hitchcock). Some of his most creepy films contain bad guys that are of the
everyday sort: uncles, friends, birds, or a lonely motel manager, the people who we assume are good are

really the worst of them all, and that is whats so scary (Lehman). His villains, though villainous, are also
charming and attractive, while his heros are regular guys with flaws or wounds (Lehman). There is
nothing unusual about his villains (they dont contain especially villainous qualities) and there is nothing
unusual about his heroes (they dont contain especially heroic qualities) (Lehman). And though each
definitely have some of the traits that define them as good or bad, and it is this idea that we all have
good and bad traits is the premise of his films power. And so it is with bad good-guys and good bad-guys
that Hitchcock can make us doubt what we were once so sure of. It is with pressed clothing, beautiful
blondes, perfect hair, and iconic settings, contrasted against dark themes, characters and plots, that give
Hitchcock the power to play with and confuse our minds (Windolf).
Why do we continue to watch these films, to love these films, time after time again? Because it is
the element of threat [that] endures beyond the solution of the puzzle at hand and the restoration of
order (Lehman). It is the idea that the manager of the road-side motel you pull into one late night could
kill you, or the birds you see at the park could suddenly go berzerk that makes him so powerful. And so
Hitchcock-- the unsocial, overweight, oddball of a man-- was able to mold and construct his films so
beautifully that they begin to control us, control where we spend the night on the road and why we eye the
birds in the park trees suspiciously.
Hitchcock as the man is nothing. He has no influence and no power. But as the director, he is
able to control our nightmares, our fears and our doubts. He challenges our definition of a villain, our
ideas of safety, and he reveals the double lives people live. He is able to obtain so much power, over the
society and over us as individuals, all because he knows that we will always peek behind that door before
we enter the room.

Works Cited
"Alfred Hitchcock." The New York times n.d.: 1-2. Print.

Kehoe, John. "Alfred Hitchock." MasterF

ILE Premier. EBSCO, Oct. 1998. Web. 7 Jan. 2015.
Lehman, David. "Alfred Hitchcock's AMERICA." MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO,
2007. Web. 7 Jan. 2015.
Windolf, Jim. "ALFRED HITCHCOCK." MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO, Mar. 2008.
Web. 7 Jan. 2015.