9 best films by Alfred Hitchcock

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

On August 13, 1899, Alfred Hitchcock was born - a great film director and screenwriter, a master of the thriller and suspense genres. In memory of the legend of cinema, let us recall 9 of his most striking films.

Rebecca

The film won two Oscars, including the Best Film of the Year award.

A young naive girl marries a rich man Maximilian de Winter, but her new home - a spacious and luxurious mansion - does not receive her with hospitality, because all households walk in sadness, as if under the shadow of the deceased wife of a millionaire - Rebecca, and the servants are not at all very friendly refer to the new Mrs. de Winter, comparing her to her predecessor. Gradually, the situation becomes more confusing and ominous.

The adaptation of the novel of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier became Hitchcock's first Hollywood film. She received two Oscars, including Best Picture of the Year. Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine played the main roles in the film.

Spellbound

One of Hitchcock's early tapes, based on the novel by Francis Beading "The House of Dr. Edwards." Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck played the main roles in it.

According to the plot, a new director arrives at the Institute of Psychiatry - a scientist by the name of Edwards. An employee of the institute, Constance Pietersen, shows not only a professional interest in him, but also a personal one. They have an affair. However, it is soon discovered that the professor is not who he claims to be, he is an impostor, suffering from amnesia, and also a criminal.

The legendary artist Salvador Dali also worked on this tape. He created huge six-meter paintings for her, which are exhibited today in one of the London galleries.

Bad reputation

The plot of the film is based on the story of John Taintor Foote "Song of the Dragon".

The main character Alicia - the daughter of a man who worked for the Nazis, a party-goer, becomes a secret agent of the special services and helps to uncover a Nazi conspiracy in Rio de Janeiro. In parallel, she starts a stormy "spy" romance with FBI agent Davlin.

The main roles in the film were played by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, and the director, while working on the script, consulted with Nobel laureate Robert Millikan on the topic of creating the atomic bomb. These consultations even brought Hitchcock to the attention of the FBI.

The film was a participant in the Cannes Film Festival in 1946 and received two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay.

Stage fright

The costumes for the ribbon were created by the famous fashion designer Christian Dior.

There was a murder in the house of the famous actress Charlotte Inwood - her husband was the victim. Her admirer Jonathan Cooper, suspected of committing this crime, asked his friend Eva Gill for help. Eva, secretly in love with him, decides to help him, and at the same time bring Charlotte to clean water.

The main female roles in the film were played at that time by some of the most popular actresses in Hollywood - Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich, which gave Hitchcock a lot of trouble, since the divas did not get along very well with each other.

The costumes for the ribbon were created by the famous fashion designer Christian Dior.

Window to the courtyard

According to the plot of the film, a professional photojournalist, chained to a wheelchair because of a broken leg, out of boredom, begins to watch the neighbors, whose windows overlook the courtyard. Suddenly, observations lead him to believe that one of the neighbors killed his wife.

This tape is considered by many critics to be one of the best detective stories in the history of cinema. It was starred by James Stewart and Grace Kelly.

"In case of murder, dial" M"

Tony Wendis is a playboy and a typical gigolo. He easily spends the money of a rich wife, but as soon as Wendis finds out that his wife has a new hobby in the form of the writer Mark Holliday, he decides to commit a crime. And not at all from boundless love, not from revenge and not from the desire to possess it alone - but from despair and fear of being left without money. He finds a performer, comes up with an alibi, but does not take into account one thing - female logic.

Alfred Hitchcock's muse, Grace Kelly, played the role of Wendis' wife.

Alfred Hitchcock's muse, Grace Kelly, played the role of Wendis' wife.

It is interesting that in order to take a close-up of the telephone disk with the letter "M" and the finger dialing the number, it was necessary to use enlarged copies of all objects - it was technically impossible to make such close-ups of small objects at that time.

North by Northwest

Advertising agent Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) finds himself embroiled in a spy plot when he is accidentally mistaken for the fictitious, fictional special agent George Kaplan. Trying to survive and justify himself, Roger gets deeper and deeper into spy games.

Otis L. Guernsey gave the idea for the film to Alfred Hitchcock, telling him a real story that happened during the Second World War: the British invented a mythical agent and led the Germans by the nose, who spent a lot of effort looking for a "spy."

Psycho

This film, without exaggeration, can be called the most significant in the career of Alfred Hitchcock. The picture has become truly iconic.

The tape is a free-form adaptation of the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. Hitchcock anonymously bought the rights to the production, and then also tried to buy all copies of the book so that as few people as possible knew the clue to the story.

According to the plot, a girl, dissatisfied with an affair with a divorced man, who only pays attention to her by visits, steals a large sum of money at work and in a hurry flees the city. At the motel where she is staying overnight, she has to face its mysterious young owner.

Birds

Another adaptation of the novel by Daphne Du Maurier.

Birds on the set were used not only real, but also mechanical.

The main character Melanie Daniels (played by Tippy Hedren) - beautiful and wealthy - meets lawyer Mitch Brenner and goes to visit him on Bodega Bay, where his family lives - his mother-widow, little sister Katie and ex-fiancee Annie. Soon after arriving, Melanie and the rest of the heroes witness an inexplicable bird attack on people.

Birds - the most important characters of the film - were used on the set not only real, but also mechanical, which was a truly revolutionary technique for the cinema of that time.

Also, the picture completely lacks musical accompaniment, with the exception of sounds created on mixtrautonium (one of the first electronic musical instruments), and children's singing at school.