“The Trailers” is Coming!
An advert publicising the trailer for The Birds from a June 1963 issue of Film Bulletin journal.
Posts filed under Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock says “Actors are Cattle!”
From the September 1941 issue of Hollywood Magazine Alfred Hitchcock says “Actors are Cattle!” A Hitchcock film always bears its own peculiar trademark—one brief scene in which the famous director himself appears. Top left, he eavesdrops momentarily in “Rebecca”. Hitchcock resorts to drastic means to obtain realism. For the scene at right in “Foreign Correspondent” he kept Joel McCrea in water for 30 minutes, and he handcuffed Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat together for hours… (read more)
Revisiting “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934) cameo
Way back in 2007, I did some DVD screen grabs of a possible Hitchcock cameo in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Even with the best quality DVD transfer available, it wasn’t particularly conclusive. Anyway, I’ve just gone back and taken a new set of grabs using the Criterion Bluray transfer. See what you think (I’ve boosted the contrast to make them easier to view)… …the figure then crosses the road and is in… (read more)
Hitchin’ in the Rain
Before Grace Kelly, there was Gene Kelly! By 1940, the dancer was a hot property on Broadway, taking the lead role in Rogers & Hart’s musical “Pal Joey“. Hollywood wanted a piece of the action and it was producer David O. Selznick who eventually persuaded Kelly to sign a contract. With Kelly due into Hollywood in October 1941, Selznick began thinking about what the dancer’s first picture should be. In August 1941, Variety reported that… (read more)
Alfred Hitchcock Says…
From the first issue of The Cine-Technician (May 1935), a lead article by Hitchcock… Alfred Hitchcock Says “Acquire a Real Knowledge of Cinema Technique” Any young technician entering films to-day should take a parallel from the instruction given to sailors learning the art of navigation. Just as the best of the present-day candidates for the Mercantile Marine have to pass through a sailing course as an elementary part of their training, so the young man… (read more)
Alfred Hitchcock on Music in Films (Cinema Quarterly, 1933)
Reproduced from the Winter 1933-34 issue of Cinema Quarterly. ALFRED HITCHCOCK on MUSIC IN FILMS In an Interview with STEPHEN WATTS When the British student of intelligent cinema turns to survey the creative side of film-making in his own country the names available for reference are pathetically few. Even ranging over the whole of the talkie’s short history he can probably produce a bare half-dozen, say (alphabetically for safety!) Asquith, Dupont, Grierson, Hitchcock, Korda, and… (read more)
Hitchcock and Orson Welles?!
A surprise from the newspaper archives! I knew Hitchcock was considering several potential projects for Transatlantic Pictures, but this one from the Yorkshire Evening Post (27/Mar/1948) was new to me… Alfred Hitchcock hopes to produce “King Lear” in England, with Orson Welles in the lead. “Hitch” leaves for England early next month to produce “Under Capricorn,” starring Ingrid Bergman. I can’t even begin to imagine how Hitch would have approached filming “King Lear” with Welles!… (read more)
The old master of mystery makes a new picture
Here’s another article from the archives, this time from the Dundee Courier (27/Jan/1953)…
Blackmail… Sound or Silent?
Following on from yesterday’s post, here’s another archive clipping about Blackmail (1929) from the Hull Daily Mail (11/Sep/1929)… SOUND v. SILENT FILM VOTE. BERLIN, Tuesday. The first showing in Berlin of the British International Pictures production, “Blackmail,” was used to test the feeling of the public here on the vocal film. The whole work was passed twice across the screen, once with and once without the voices, and the audience, consisting mainly of people connected… (read more)
First British Talkie a Triumphant Success
Another newspaper clipping from the archives! The Dundee Evening Telegraph (09/Aug/1929) proclaimed Blackmail to be a “triumphant success” and Hitchcock’s direction filled with “touches of sheer genius”…