On August 13th 1899, the wife of Leytonstone greengrocer William J. Hitchcock made a very special delivery. Not that there was anything remarkable about their second son Alfred at the time, but after a strict Catholic upbringing and learning his trade as a draftsman, the lad became fascinated by cameras... and turned out to be a genius.
It's fitting that Hitchcock and cinema were born at about the same time, since no filmmaker has ever come close to matching his contribution to movies in terms of influence, ingenuity and innovation.
Hitch was truly a director ahead of his time - and not just at the technical level (though you could count on one hand the number of modern movies that don't use at least one of Hitch's little tricks).
His background and innately dark sense of humour meant that Hitch was perpetually pushing boundaries. Shocking the audience came naturally; the fun part was upsetting the studio execs and film censors with thorny themes (Nazism, schizophrenia, rape, infanticide), suggestive content (does Janet Leigh really go nude in Psycho?) and innuendo (that Marnie is a bad, bad girl).
He also famously described actors as "cattle", yet still managed to bring out the best in the biggest stars, making unforgettable collaborations with the likes of Cary Grant and James Stewart, and coaxed genuinely brilliant performances from luminous but limited performers like Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren and Kim Novak.
But what he did best was scare the pants off the public. Or at least have them chewing their fingernails down to the wrist.
His ability to create menace out of thin air earned him the title 'Master of Suspense'. But despite never winning a directing Oscar (a mistake the Academy tried to rectify by fobbing him off with one of those poxy honorary thingies), he was quite simply 'The Master'.
Of course Hitch is no longer with us. But his legacy forever remains, and Sky Movies Classics is celebrating his 110th birthday on Thursday 13th August with a 24-hour Hitchcockian frenzy comprising a dozen of his most masterful works including the Sky Movies debut of Dial M For Murder.
So sit back and forget about relaxing as Hitch plunges you into choppy waters in an over-filled Lifeboat, turns Jimmy Stewart into a peeping Tom in Rear Window, twists your melon with the psychotically surreal Spellbound and introduces you to his fine feathered fiends...
7.30am Lifeboat
9.10am Shadow Of A Doubt
11am To Catch A Thief
12.50pm Rear Window
3.20pm Notorious
5.10pm Spellbound
7.10pm Dial M For Murder
9pm Marnie
11.10pm The Birds
1.10am Frenzy
3.10am Torn Curtain
5.20am Topaz
