Alfred Joseph Hitchcock: The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, or ‘The Master of Suspense’, was born in August 13, 1899, in Leytonstone, London, England. He was a British filmmaker and producer who, in his 50 year career, greatly contributed to filmmaking’s growth as an art. His brilliance was sometimes too bright: He was hated as well as loved, oversimplified as well as overanalyzed. Hitchcock was eccentric, challenging, creative, and impassioned.
Hitchcock started working as a title card designer for the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures. In 1920 he got a full time position at Islington Studios, designing the titles for silent movies. From there it took him 5 years to rise from title designer to film director, and by the end of 1930s he had become one of
However the production was stopped and he was unable to complete it. His first completed film as a director was ‘The Pleasure Garden’ (1925) which was a commercial flop. In 1926 Alfred Hitchcock made his breakthrough with his first thriller, ‘The Lodger’. This film was a perfect example of the classic Hitchcock plot: an innocent protagonist is falsely accused of a crime and becomes involved in a web of intrigue.
Hitchcock went on to make many films in the UK including ‘Blackmail’ (which was promoted as Britain’s first full-length talkie), ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘The Lady Vanishes’. ‘The 39 Steps’ was one of the first to introduce the concept of the “MacGuffin”, a plot device around which a whole story seems to revolve, but ultimately has nothing to do with the true meaning or ending of the story (In this case, a stolen set of design plans). In 1939 he moved to the United States, starting his career in
‘The Birds’ (1963) presented evil as an environmental fact of life. ‘Marnie’ (1964) was a psychoanalytical thriller which showed a violent, sexually marred childhood turning a woman into a thief. ‘Tom Curtain’ (1966) was a story against a cold war backdrop, which presented a fight-to-the-death scene between the main character and a Communist agent in the kitchen of a farm house. In it Hitchcock showed how momentous the act of killing really is. He said:
"Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table"
‘Family Plot’ (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It related the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler played by Barbara Harris, a deceitful spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern making a living from her phony powers. Near the end of his life, Hitchcock worked on the script for a projected spy thriller, ‘The Short Night’, but despite some preliminary work, the story was never filmed. This was mostly due to Hitchcock’s own failing health and his concerns for his wife’s health. The script was eventually published in a book on Hitchcock’s last years.
Hitchcock died in April 29, 1980 from kidney failure in his Bel Air, Los Angeles, California home. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker of all time, in 2007 Hitchcock was ranked #1 by film critics in The Telegraph's list of 21 greatest British directors, which