Contents
Preface to the Revised Edition 11
Introduction 13
1: Childhood • Behind prison bars • "Came
the dawn" • Michael Balcon • Woman to
Woman • Number Thirteen • Introducing
the future Mrs. Hitchcock • A melodramatic
shooting: The Pleasure Garden • The
Mountain Eagle 25
2: The first true Hitchcock: The Lodger• Creating
a purely visual form • The glass floor
• Handcuffs and sex • Why Hitchcock appear
in his films • Downhill • Easy Virtue
• The Ring and One-Round Jack • The
Farmer's lWife • The Griffith influence •
Champagne • The last silent movie: The
Manxman. 43
3: Hitchcock's first sound film: Blackmail •
The Shuftan process• Juno and the Paycock
• Why Hitchcock will never film
Crime and Punishment • What is suspense?
• Murder • Tlte Skin Gmne • Rich
and Strange • Two innocents in Paris •
Number SeYenteen • Cats, cats everywhere
• Waltzes from Vienna • The lowest ebb
and the comeback . 63
4. The Man Who Knew 'Too Much • When
Churchill was chief of police • M • From
"The One Note 1-fan" to the deadly cymbals
• Clarification and simplification • The
Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan's influence
• Understatement • An old, bawdy story
• Mr. Memory • Slice of life and slice of Cake 89
5. The Secret Agent• You don't always need
a happy ending • What do they have in
Switzerland?• Sabotage• The child and the
bomb • An example of suspense• The Lady
Vanishes • The plausible • A wire from
David 0. Selznick • The last British film:
Jamaica Inn• Some concl11sions about the
British period . 105
6: Rebecca: A Cinderella-like story • ''I've
never received an Oscar" • Foreign Correspondent•
Gary Cooper's mistake• In Holland,
windmills and rain • The bloodstained
tulip • What's a ~1acGuffin? •
Flashback to The Thirty-nine Steps •
Mr. and Mrs. Smith • "All actors are
cattle" • Suspicion • The luminous glass of milk 127
7. Sabotage versus Saboteur• A mass of ideas
Clutters up a picture• Shadow of (l Doubt•
Tribute to Thornton Wilder • "The Merry
Widow" • An idealistic killer • Lifeboat •
A microcosm of war • Like a pack of dogs
• Return to London • Modest war contribution:
Bon Voyage and A venture Malgache . 145
8: Return to America • Spellbound • Collaboration With Salvador Dali • Notoriom •
"The Song of the Flame"• The uranium
MacCuffin • Under surveillance by the FBI • A film about the cinema • The Paradine
Case • Can Gregory Peck play a British lawyer? • An intricate shot • Horny hands, like the devil! 163
9: Rope; From 7:30 to 9: 15 in one shot
Clouds of spun glass • Colors and shadows
• Walls that fade away· Films must be cut
• How to make noises rise from the street •
Under Capricorn • Infantilism and other
errors in judgment • Run for cover! • "Ingrid,
it's only a movie!"• Stage Fright• The
flashback that lied • The better the villain,
the better the picture 179
10: Spectacular comeback via Strangers on a
Train• A monopoly on the suspense genre
• The little man who crawled • A bitchv
wife • I Confess • A "barbaric sophisticate;.
• The sanctity of confession • Experience
alone is not enough • Fear of the police •
Story of a menage a trois 193
11: Dial M for Murder• Filming in 3-D • The
theater confines the action • Rear Window
• The Kuleshov experiment • We arc all
voyeurs • Death of a small dog • The size
of the image has a dramatic purpose • The
surprise kiss versus the suspense kiss • The
Patrick Mahon case and the Dr. Crippen
case• To Catch a Thief• Sex on the screen
• The Trouble with Harry • The humor of
understatement• '/'he I\.Jcm Who Knew Too
Much • A knife in the back • The clash of cymbals 209
12: The Wrong Man • Absolute authenticity •
Vertigo • The usual alternatives: suspense
or surprise • Necrophilia• Kim Novak on
the set • Two projects that were never
filmed• A political suspense movie• North
by Northwest • The importance of photographic
documentation • Dealing with
time and space • The practice of the
absurd • The body that came from nowhere , 235
13: Ideas in the middle of the night• The longest
kiss in screen history • A case of pure
exhibitionism• Never waste space• Screen
imagery is make-believe • Ps}'cho • Janet
Leigh's brassi~re. • Reel herrings• Directing
the audience• How Arbogast was killed• A
shower stabbing • Stuffed birds • Hmv to
get mass emotions• Psvcho: A film-maker's film . , 259
14: The Birds• The elderly ornithologist • The
gouged-out eyes • The girl in a gilded cage
• Improvisations • The size of the image •
The scene that was dropped • An emotional
truck • Electronic sounds • Practical jokes . 285
15: Mamie • A fetishist love • The Three Hostages,
Mar}' Rose, and RR.RR. • Tom Cmtain • The bus is the villain• The scene
in the factory • Every film is a brand-new
experience • The rising curve • The situation film versus the character film • "l only
read the London Times"• A strictly visual
mind • Hitchcock a Catholic film-maker? •
dream for the future: A film showing twenty-four hours in the life of a city 301
16: Hitchcock's final vcars • Grace Kcllv abandons
the cinema; More on The Birds, Marnie,
and Tom Curtain • Hitch misses the
stars • The "great flawed films" • A project
that was dropped• Topaz made to order for
the front office • Return to Loudon with
Frenzy• The pacemaker and Family Plot•
Hitchcock laden down with tributes and
honors • Love and espionage • The Short
Night• Hitchcock is ill, Sir Alfred is dead• The end . 323
The Films of Alfred Hitchcock 351
Sckctccl Bibliography 363
Index of Film Titles 364
Index of ~ames 365