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The Life and Films of Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director who emigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. He was noted for his films of suspense, beginning in the silent era and extending through the development of sound and into the television era. He was born in 1899 in London. His father was a poultry dealer and fruit importer. Hitchcock was educated at the Jesuits' Saint Ignatius College. He also attended the School of Engineering and Navigation at the University of London, where he studied mechanics, electricity, acoustics, and navigation. His first job was as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph Company; he was nineteen. In the evenings he studied art at the University of London and soon transferred to the advertising department of the electric cable manufacturer to design ads for cables. His interest in the growing film industry led to his submission of a portfolio of title designs to accompany the silent films of Famous Players-Lasky, which was opening a London branch, and he wrote and designed the title cards for several movies beginning in 1921. His first film as a director was Number Thirteen in 1922, but the film was never completed. Hitchcock would later film the story as a sound film. In 1922 Hitchcock stepped in and finished Always Tell Your Wife when the original director fell ill. Hitchcock was an assistant director to Graham Cutts on several films for the newly-formed Gainsborough Pictures. It was during this time that he met Alma Reville, a film editor he would marry in 1926. In 1925 Hitchcock was asked by producer Michael Balcon to direct The Pleasure Garden, his first film to be completed (Spoto, 1976, pp. 3-4).

Hitchcock's films are generally divided into a series of periods, beginning with the silent films as a block and then listing the British sound films as another. The first American period lasted through the 1940s. A peak period is seen in the 1950s up through The Birds in 1963 and sometimes Mar...

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The Life and Films of Alfred Hitchcock. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:05, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1684664.html