10:43AM, May 13, 2009
Watch the whole of Sky Movies Classics’ Alfred Hitchcock season on Sky Anytime, all shown together for the first time on British television in HD…
The Master of Suspense is haunting Sky Movies this May (from Bank Holiday Monday 25th to Sunday 31st on Sky Movies Classics), but if you don’t want to be kept in, erm, suspense, you can catch the whole season first on Sky Anytime, all together for the first time in nerve-jangling HD.
CLICK HERE FOR FILMS SHOWING IN OUR SEASON
From the cool espionage of Notorious (1946) to the bloody shocks of Frenzy (1972), Alfred Hitchcock lived up to his nickname with tightly-controlled moments of supreme tension, executed with paramount, unsurpassed precision.
The infamous shower murder of Psycho (1960) lives on in the public consciousness (thanks in part to Bernard Herrmann’s slicing strings score), but the nausea inducing camera effects of Vertigo (1958), ingenuous use of point of view in Rear Window (1954) and the cutting edge psychedelic hallucinations of Spellbound (1945) all show off Hitchcock’s much-imitated technical bravura.
Hell, you could even say he actually invented the modern thriller.
Humble Beginnings
Born in 1899 in Leytonstone, East London, Hitchcock started life in films as a title card illustrator for Paramount in London during the Silent Era.
He moved from there to become an assistant director, stepping in for ailing director Hugh Croise on 1923’s Always Tell Your Wife. Hitchcock then went on to direct an impressive 23 films in England – including the first ever British “talkie” Blackmail in 1929 – before hopping over the pond to America to direct Rebecca (1940), which won the Best Picture Oscar® and launched a globe-conquering second phase to his career.
Shock & Awe
Raised a strict Catholic, Hitchcock’s films are heavily influenced by themes of vengeance and guilt, populated by cool, dangerous blonde femme fatales (the beautiful Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren in particular) and often plunging into the insanity of the mind in undisputed masterpieces Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960).
Constrained by censorship law of the ,30s’ ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, Hitchcock mastered the rigorous art of suggestion to sneak sex, violence and terror past the censors’ beady eyes, but perhaps his greatest cinematic invention was the “MacGuffin” – an object, thing or plot device that exists in the film purely to create Hitch’s signature suspense.
Marnie’s bright yellow purse, Psycho’s stolen money and Notorious’s bottle of radioactive diamonds all serve no other purpose than to send Hitch’s poor, beleaguered characters deeper into danger, block their progress and drive their sinister plot lines forward.
Cutting Edge
Hitchcock was simply a genius. No other filmmaker has pioneered the art of suspense or fostered a genre single-handedly in the way Hitchcock steered the thriller. The director had a gift for intelligent, energetic, ground breaking movies that always entertained (and usually terrified) in equal measure.
One of the finest auteurs that ever lived, film fans and students continue to watch and re-watch his incredible works, which still set the standards for the slew of imitators and wannabes released year in, year out all over the world.
Even his tongue in- cheek monologues from his popular Alfred Hitchcock Presents... TV series (which ran for a decade from 1955 to 1965) and his celebrated cameos in his own films created a public, immediately recognisable image that every filmmaker since tries to emulate.
Now, for the first time on British television, you can see the precise, meticulous shots and juicy – often slyly hidden – details of Hitchcock’s finest films in HD. Crisp and thrilling as their original release, for the first time in decades you experience the shocks, jumps and thrills as Hitchcock always intended. Television has finally matched Hitchcock’s exemplary standards.
And remember you can also choose from at least five movies every weekend on Sky Anytime, so go on and get Hitched.
Words: Richard Matthews
This article originally appeared in the Sky Movies Magazine, May '09.
