Hitchcock Chronology: Victor Saville

March

18th - Producer Victor Saville departs from Southampton to New York. In the US, he hires Betty Compson to appear in two films for Balcon, Freedman & Saville — Woman to Woman and The White Shadow — both of which will be directed by Graham Cutts with Hitchcock the assistant director.

May

5th - Producer Victor Saville and actress Betty Compson arrive into Southampton aboard the Olympic.^[1] After arriving into London, Compson attends a lavish fancy dress party in her honour at the Savoy Hotel, prior to filming starting on Woman to Woman. According to Motion Picture News, "when Betty was called upon to make a speech she replied with commendable brevity (a virtue which should be acquired by several of our best film speakers) that she was in England to do her job, and meant to do it well."^[2]^[3]

August

Hitchcock travels to New York to meet Sidney Bernstein and Victor Saville and to discuss to the possibility of making a short film for the British Ministry of Information (MoI). Hitchcock would eventually direct Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, as well as contributing to Men of the Lightship and Target for Tonight. The three then return to Hollywood to try and persuade studio executives to allow MoI shorts to be shown prior to their main features in the theatres.^[4]^[5]

May

8th - Hitchcock's old friend Victor Saville, who had recently attended the director's AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, dies. Several sources regard Saville's death as a contributing factor to Hitchcock deciding to abandon any attempt to make The Short Night and to shut down his bungalow office at Universal.^[6]

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