1 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:11,240 Good evening. 2 00:00:11,240 --> 00:00:15,000 Tonight's programme is about Alfred Hitchcock's British films. 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,040 The first films of his career. 4 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:20,960 Before he became the master of suspense, he made all kinds of 5 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,560 movies, learning his profession and honing his technique. 6 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:26,720 His later, much loved American pictures, 7 00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:33,360 are full of visual sequences which owe a huge debt to his early days as a silent film director. 8 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,840 Alfred Hitchcock was born in 1899 in Leytonstone. 9 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:52,200 He died in 1980. 10 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:58,360 In between, he became the most famous film director in the history of the motion picture. 11 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:03,320 But why put up with a mediocre impersonation, when we have the great man himself. 12 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:11,040 Mr Hitchcock, would you say that your films were more or less sensational than real life? 13 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:13,760 Life is more sensational. 14 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:19,760 I would say that, how does one describe drama? 15 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:24,440 Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. 16 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:39,680 Alfred Hitchcock is a very well documented film maker but his 17 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:43,160 British period before he went to Hollywood is often overlooked. 18 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:46,880 He made 23 films here before going to America. 19 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:48,920 But let's not run ahead of ourselves. 20 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:53,880 When Alfred was six years old, the family 21 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,560 moved to Limehouse in the East End of London, just a stone's throw from 22 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:00,880 where Jack the Ripper carried out a series of brutal killings 23 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:02,920 only 11 years before Alfred was born. 24 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:06,440 His parents were Catholic - that's Alfred Hitchcock's not Jack the Ripper's - 25 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:10,760 and being a Catholic in those days was a minority religion in Protestant England. 26 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:14,080 I was brought up in a Catholic household and sometimes it does 27 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,520 lead to the feeling of being a bit of an outsider. 28 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:34,400 A schoolboy contemporary of the young Alfred, Ambrose King, 29 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:39,320 described the young Hitchcock as, "a big boy who sat in the corner. 30 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:43,000 "He said little and was not easily engaged in conversation. 31 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,600 "He stank of fish." 32 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:50,400 Perhaps there is a whiff of autobiography about this on-screen cameo in Blackmail. 33 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:53,040 Here, Alfred is being bothered by a child. 34 00:02:54,560 --> 00:03:00,440 Another incident in Alfred Hitchcock's childhood has attained legendry status. 35 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:02,600 The story that he relied on, 36 00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:07,200 as the all-purpose explanation of his interest in crime 37 00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:12,520 and his fear of figures of authority and so on was that once, his father, 38 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:18,320 who seems to have been quite firm and intimidating in himself, I think, 39 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:23,880 and once Hitch had done something he didn't approve of, and so 40 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:29,520 he wrote a little note and sent him down to the police station, 41 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:34,320 where the sergeant was a mate of his. 42 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:38,720 The note apparently said, "Can you put him in a cell for five minutes?" 43 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:45,440 Then, when he was released, the policeman said, "That's what happens to naughty boys." 44 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:05,600 Alfred Hitchcock's fear of the police would have 45 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,920 made an identity parade an absolute nightmare for him. 46 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,240 If you think Alfred Hitchcock's head on a penguin 47 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,200 makes him look like a Jesuit priest then there's a good reason for this. 48 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:31,800 He was educated by Jesuits. 49 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:37,880 Mr Hitchcock, what influence would you say your Jesuit training had on your film-making? 50 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:41,480 'I think it taught me some aspects of fear. 51 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:48,040 'I think the Jesuits are pretty, I hate to use the word hard-boiled educators but, 52 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,960 'as far as I can remember, I was pretty scared when I was there.' 53 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:57,400 This is a ferula. 54 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:03,280 Like Alfred Hitchcock, I too went to a Jesuit school, so I'm more than familiar with this. 55 00:05:03,280 --> 00:05:06,920 The cruel psychological aspects of the ferula was that you were allowed 56 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:12,520 to choose your own time of your punishment, be it mid-morning, lunchtime or after school. 57 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:15,280 So you'd try and find out which teacher was administering 58 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:17,600 the punishment at those particular times. 59 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:22,080 I was once ordered six of these, three on each hand for forgetting my maths homework. 60 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:27,160 I left it at home, having worked all night on it and forgot to bring it in with me the next day. 61 00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:31,240 Despite this small but deep trauma, 62 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:36,200 I offer a fair and balanced view of the world of the Jesuit. 63 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:39,640 MUSIC: "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff 64 00:06:06,280 --> 00:06:11,200 Alfred escaped the miseries of school with regular trips to the theatre. 65 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,720 CHARLESTON MUSIC PLAYS 66 00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:31,680 In 1914, three momentous events occurred in Alfred Hitchcock's life. 67 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:35,040 Firstly, the First World War started, then Alfred left school 68 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:39,040 and joined the engineering firm Henley's, and then his father died. 69 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,560 There is no connection between these three events. 70 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:46,120 At Henley's, the young Alfred came into his own, he'd been a bit of a loner as a boy but 71 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:50,760 at the engineering firm, he joined in all the social events and, in fact, 72 00:06:50,760 --> 00:06:55,560 here's a rare glimpse of a young Alfred, enjoying a river trip on this very river. 73 00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:59,400 This photograph was taken in 1919. 74 00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:04,000 His boss later said of Alfred, that he was a natural humorist and clown. 75 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,320 He had a sparkling wit, but it was not only the 76 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:10,000 things he said but the spontaneous and the unexpected things he did. 77 00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:25,680 Mr Hitchcock, were you a keen moviegoer at this time? 78 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:32,880 I was a very keen moviegoer, and I heard that an American company were coming 79 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:36,800 to London to open a studio, so I applied for the job of 80 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:41,560 designing their titles because those were the silent days. 81 00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:46,760 And, er, titles were an important part of the picture. 82 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:53,120 He went to get a job of drawing the titles, like in the sunset, 83 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:56,000 and he would draw the sun setting and so on and so forth. 84 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:01,760 He went over there and my mother said she saw this young man come in with his big portfolio. 85 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:06,800 But she didn't speak to him because he didn't have a job, 86 00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:13,760 and in those days, a gentleman didn't talk to a lady, especially if she had a better job than he did. 87 00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:16,120 So, that's where they met - in the studio. 88 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:21,240 Alma Reville, born a day after Alfred - in the same year, 89 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:26,360 had entered the film business in 1915 at the age of 16. 90 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:32,680 Alma was already a bit further up the rungs of the film ladder. 91 00:08:32,680 --> 00:08:34,880 She was a film editor. 92 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:38,800 In those days, they called it a script girl. 93 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:43,160 But, what the script girl did was not only record what was shot 94 00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:47,640 but also put the films physically together. 95 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:52,920 Alfred swiftly progressed from title card designer to art director. 96 00:08:54,400 --> 00:09:01,920 Michael Balcon, a man fresh to film production, opened up a studio called Gainsborough in 1923. 97 00:09:01,920 --> 00:09:04,720 He was so impressed by the young Alfred Hitchcock, he made him 98 00:09:04,720 --> 00:09:08,880 assistant director on Gainsborough's first film, Woman To Woman. 99 00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:12,160 Finally promoted to a position of some power, Alfred Hitchcock 100 00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:15,960 surprised a colleague with the offer of editing the film. 101 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,880 The colleague's name was Alma Reville. 102 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:22,200 She also worked as a screenwriter. 103 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:26,480 Her knowledge and experience in film proved invaluable to Alfred. 104 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:31,280 He quickly learnt to rely on her judgement and expertise. 105 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:39,760 In 1924, Michael Balcon had signed a deal with UFA, the prestigious German film company. 106 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:45,560 Alfred was sent to Berlin with the director, Graham Cutts, to film The Blackguard. 107 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:54,280 In many respect, German silent cinema was far in advance of Hollywood. 108 00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:59,640 There was greater experimentation with lighting, and also expressionistic sets. 109 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:06,480 'I have acquired a strong German influence by working 110 00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:11,120 'at the UFA studios, Berlin, in their heyday. 111 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:13,680 'Tremendous technical achievements. 112 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:15,480 'They were doing Janning's...' 113 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:21,080 They were working on Janning's Last Laugh while I was there. 114 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:26,960 The director of The Last Laugh, FW Murnau, was a keen advocate of the moving camera. 115 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,600 This wasn't easy at a time when cameras were so heavy. 116 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:32,720 Here he puts a camera in a lift. 117 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:39,360 Murnau once said that what you saw on the set did not matter - 118 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:42,000 what counted was what you saw on the screen. 119 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:47,040 These cars in the background are miniatures, designed to create a 120 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:50,520 false perspective of a massive street scene. 121 00:10:58,920 --> 00:11:03,880 Before the invention of the zoom lens, there was only one way to get this shot. 122 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:07,400 The move back from the street musician was actually achieved by 123 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:11,720 mounting the camera on a purpose-built cable car. 124 00:11:11,720 --> 00:11:16,360 Alfred Hitchcock would be influenced by the visual inventiveness of 125 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:20,480 German silent cinema throughout the rest of his career. 126 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:23,440 Having returned from Berlin, relations between Hitchcock and 127 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:26,920 his director, Graham Cutts, became very strained. 128 00:11:28,560 --> 00:11:32,880 Mr Hitchcock, perhaps another reason for the tension was that you were 129 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:35,840 working as an Assistant Director and Art Director. 130 00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:39,200 Did you break into Graham Cutts's territory? 131 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:45,280 Oh, I not only broke into his territory, I gave him his shots and where they should be taken. 132 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:49,120 I built the set in such a way he couldn't take it from any other angle. 133 00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:54,440 Hitchcock designed this stairway to heaven set for The Blackguard. 134 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:58,440 Balcon had recently brokered a deal with a Munich-based firm called Emelka, 135 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:03,960 and Hitchcock got the job of directing their first co-production, The Pleasure Garden. 136 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:17,040 This was the first of ten silent films that Alfred Hitchcock would direct. 137 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:21,520 Immediately it shows two of his enduring themes - 138 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:26,480 voyeurism... 139 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:30,000 and a love of theatre. 140 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,600 Alma Reville was hired as assistant director and editor. 141 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:35,920 She was also an invaluable support. 142 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:41,040 After every take, Alfred would turn to her and say, "Was it all right?" 143 00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:48,120 My mother and father had a marvellous relationship because they worked together as well. 144 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:53,800 He never - even to the end - he never made a move without her. 145 00:12:53,800 --> 00:13:00,000 He would...find a story, bring it home, have her read it. 146 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,880 If she thought it would make a picture, he'd go ahead. 147 00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:07,040 If she said, "No, it won't," he didn't even touch it. 148 00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:09,040 She had an unerring judgement. 149 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:13,680 He went right along with her judgement and that was from the very beginning. 150 00:13:13,680 --> 00:13:17,240 The Pleasure Garden opened to rave reviews. 151 00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:22,000 The Daily Express headline described him as the young man with a master mind. 152 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:25,080 The film also benefited from a screen play by the hugely 153 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:27,480 experienced writer, Eliot Stannard, 154 00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:31,160 who would co-write the majority of Hitch's silent films. 155 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:36,120 Hitchcock's second film, The Mountain Eagle, is now lost. 156 00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:41,800 But his third film, The Lodger, was a huge success. 157 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:51,840 The Lodger was based on a very popular novel by Mrs Belloc-Lowndes. 158 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:56,960 Hitch was a big fan of the book, which was about the true life horror of Jack The Ripper. 159 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:04,120 Ivor Novello plays a mysterious stranger, whose odd behaviour throws suspicion upon him. 160 00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:15,560 'That's the visual interpretation of the missing sound of those days.' 161 00:14:15,560 --> 00:14:20,920 In other words, a man is pacing a room up and down. Today, 162 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:25,440 we'd do it by sound and you will see the chandelier shaking. 163 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:31,840 The substitute for that was a visual impression of the room above 164 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:35,120 and you saw the soles of his shoes 165 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:39,080 and the full length of his body and the ceiling of the room beyond 166 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:41,120 as he paced up and down. 167 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:45,560 I did it by having a floor made of one inch thick glass. 168 00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:50,800 Shots inspired by German expressionism severely 169 00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:55,640 worried the money men, who thought the film was too arty. 170 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:13,120 'When I had finished The Lodger, the director I had been working for,' 171 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:16,240 was looking at the rushes and reported to the producer. 172 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:18,640 He said, "I don't know what the devil he's shooting. 173 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:20,520 "I don't understand a word of it." 174 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:26,880 And finally, came an afternoon when the big shot was coming down 175 00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:31,400 to verify his menial's verdict on the picture 176 00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:39,080 and I remember my wife and I walked out of the studio, um, and went for two hours. 177 00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:40,960 We found ourselves at Tower Bridge. 178 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:43,480 I said, "It must be over by now. Let's go back." 179 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:48,600 Hoping, of course, this is the most suspenseful moment I've ever had, 180 00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:53,280 to go back and find smiling faces, it's all right, he likes it. 181 00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,920 But not a bit of it. He confirmed it and they put the film on the shelf. 182 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:00,920 It stayed on the shelf for about two or three months. 183 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:04,040 They said, "Well we have in investment in this. 184 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,720 "We'll take a look at it again and then finally agreed to show it." 185 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:12,320 Then it was acquired as the greatest British film made for that period. 186 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:17,640 So, there you see the fine line between failure and success. 187 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:23,040 Although the film was successful, there is a problem with the title role. 188 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:27,320 Ivor Novello is no one's idea of a vicious, serial killer. 189 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:40,560 In The Lodger, with his back to the camera, Hitchcock makes the first of his cameo appearances. 190 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:43,800 Alma herself makes a brief appearance too. 191 00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:46,200 Her first and last in a Hitchcock film. 192 00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:55,080 On December 2nd 1926, Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville 193 00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:58,640 celebrated a Roman Catholic wedding at Brompton Oratory. 194 00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:02,720 They honeymooned in Paris, Lake Como and St Moritz. 195 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:07,320 They would visit the same places virtually every Christmas for the rest of their lives. 196 00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:13,000 Alfred's next film was another Ivor Novello vehicle called Downhill. 197 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:17,400 If Hitch was worried about the 34-year-old Novello playing a teenager, 198 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,080 he must have had kittens at the sight of the supporting cast. 199 00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:32,680 The opening of Hitch's 1927 film, The Ring, is a marvellous montage 200 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:39,160 of fairground images which creates a very modern sense of movement and atmosphere. 201 00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:45,720 Montage was a Russian theory of film making that was very much admired by Hitchcock. 202 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:50,680 Montage means the assembly of pieces of film, 203 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:57,520 which moved in rapid succession before the eye to create an idea. 204 00:17:57,520 --> 00:18:03,640 Here is an extreme example of Russian montage from the film, Man with a Movie Camera. 205 00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:12,200 Secondly, montage could also be used to illustrate the passing of time. 206 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:17,200 As the boxer climbs up the bill, notice how the seasons change. 207 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:28,320 Now, the third way is the assembly of film to create a different idea. 208 00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:30,040 Have a close-up. 209 00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,880 Never show what he sees. Let's assume 210 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:38,000 he saw a woman holding a baby in her arms. 211 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,320 Now we cut back - 212 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,360 to his reaction to what he sees. 213 00:18:43,360 --> 00:18:45,280 He smiles. 214 00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:47,440 What is he as a character? 215 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:49,600 He's a kindly man. 216 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:51,600 He's sympathetic. 217 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:54,920 Now, let's take the middle piece of film away - 218 00:18:54,920 --> 00:19:00,120 the woman with the child - but leave his two pieces of film as they were. 219 00:19:00,120 --> 00:19:02,240 Now we'll put in... 220 00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:06,640 a piece of film of a girl in a bikini. 221 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,400 He looks. 222 00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:12,160 The girl in a bikini. 223 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:13,960 He smiles. 224 00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:15,480 What is he now? 225 00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:17,240 A dirty old man. 226 00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:20,160 He's no longer the benign gentleman 227 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,720 who loves babies. 228 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:25,480 That's what film can do for you. 229 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,880 For The Ring, Alfred Hitchcock teamed up with cameraman Jack Cox 230 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,560 who specialised in all kinds of trick photography. 231 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,640 Here we see what a drunk sees. 232 00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:05,880 In his 1928 film Champagne, Alfred Hitchcock experimented 233 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:09,920 with a camera lens placed in a giant champagne glass. 234 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:22,440 At the end of filming, Alfred had a genuine cause for celebration. 235 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,120 Patricia Alma Hitchcock was born. 236 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:32,880 Across the Atlantic, Hollywood was also giving birth...to talkies. 237 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:36,800 The huge success of Warner Brothers' film The Jazz Singer, which featured 238 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:43,840 Al Jolson singing and ad-libbing some dialogue, spelt death to the silent film. 239 00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:46,960 Did the coming of sound bother you in any way? 240 00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:53,760 No, it didn't bother me at all. I just...just took to it like a... 241 00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:56,440 I won't say a duck takes to the water. 242 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:00,600 I will say as a duck takes to a quack. 243 00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:09,800 Alfred Hitchcock was in the middle of making Blackmail, he faced a major dilemma with his female star. 244 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:15,840 Anny Ondra spoke with a thick Czechoslovakian accent, mainly because she was Czechoslovakian. 245 00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:19,840 Hitchcock arranged a voice test at the studio to see how her voice recorded. 246 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,920 Now, Miss Ondra, 247 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:32,320 you asked me to let you hear your voice on the talking picture. 248 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,560 Hitch, you mustn't do that. Why not? 249 00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,200 Because I can speak well. 250 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,160 Do you realise the squad van will be here any moment? 251 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,520 No, really? My God, I'm terribly frightened. 252 00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:47,760 Why, have you been a bad woman or something? Not just bad, but... 253 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:49,560 But you've slept with men. 254 00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:51,240 Oh, no! 255 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,560 You have not? Come here, stand in your place, 256 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,120 otherwise it will not come out right, as the girl said to the soldier. 257 00:21:57,120 --> 00:21:58,640 That's enough! 258 00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:05,640 This brief glimpse illustrates the studio atmosphere that was common during a Hitchcock picture. 259 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:13,920 Blackmail began as a silent film, but Hitchcock was clearly ahead of the game. 260 00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:18,280 He'd already planned to put talking sequences into Blackmail. 261 00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:23,920 The main problem concerned the fact that I had a Czech film star, 262 00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:27,240 playing the part of an English girl. 263 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,560 And there the problem cropped up. 264 00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:37,480 How do we get around the problem of Miss Ondra speaking with a heavy foreign accent? 265 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:43,600 In those days, we couldn't substitute voices with the ease which we do today. 266 00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:49,600 So I had a young actress, Joan Barry, sitting on the side with her own microphone, 267 00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:54,720 while Miss Ondra, on the set playing her scene, just mouthed her words. 268 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,760 So the girl on the side had to follow her very closely. 269 00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:00,800 You and your Scotland Yard. 270 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,040 If it weren't for Edgar Wallace, nobody'd have ever have heard of it. 271 00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,120 Funny, aren't you? 272 00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:10,240 Anyway, what's the hurry? We're only going to the pictures. 273 00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:11,760 We've got all evening. 274 00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,960 Oh, I don't think I want to go to the pictures. 275 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:18,760 Why not? 276 00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:20,840 I've seen everything worth seeing. 277 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:23,240 This is a very difficult thing to pull off. 278 00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,680 WOMAN'S VOICE: For example, here I am miming to somebody else's voice. 279 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:28,880 The effect can be surprisingly convincing. 280 00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,160 PHONE RINGS Oh, hello, Jo. 281 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:33,800 No! 282 00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:36,680 No! She didn't! 283 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:38,240 I can't talk now. 284 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,440 I'll be home around eight or sooner if this idiot gets it right. 285 00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,080 Yeah, yeah...love you. 286 00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:55,600 Although sound was inevitable, Hitch was not about to abandon the visual style he had so carefully honed. 287 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,480 Blackmail stages a climax in a landmark location, 288 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,320 in this case the British Museum. 289 00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,120 This was soon to become a Hitchcock trademark. 290 00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:23,480 If we think of the Royal Albert Hall and The Man Who Knew Too Much, 291 00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,520 the London Palladium and The Thirty-Nine Steps, 292 00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:31,920 North By Northwest and Mount Rushmore, and the fruit and veg market in Covent Garden in Frenzy. 293 00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,320 DRAMATIC MUSIC 294 00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:54,800 Blackmail was based on the stage play of the same name by Charles Bennett. 295 00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,120 But Alfred Hitchcock felt the third act was weak. 296 00:24:58,120 --> 00:25:02,240 It was the young Michael Powell, himself a few years away from becoming a noted 297 00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:08,800 film director in his own right, who came up with the idea of staging the final chase in this very room. 298 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,640 MUSIC SPEEDS UP 299 00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,440 I say, it's not me you want, it's him. 300 00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,120 Ask him! By his own... 301 00:26:01,120 --> 00:26:03,240 GLASS SMASHES 302 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,360 Blackmail was a huge hit. 303 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:13,440 Its combination of visuals and dialogue made it Britain's first successful sound film. 304 00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,200 With the advent of sound, the camera suddenly stopped moving. 305 00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,000 It now had to be placed in a soundproof booth so that 306 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,680 the noise of the camera wouldn't be picked up by the new microphones. 307 00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:30,720 And also, the lights had to be changed. 308 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,360 The old lights in silent days made a humming noise. 309 00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:36,760 The new lights were much hotter, so you can imagine the working 310 00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,560 conditions for a cameraman inside one of these booths. 311 00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,360 It was probably akin to... 312 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,720 And when you add the difficulty of recording live music... 313 00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,360 VIOLIN SCREECHES 314 00:26:49,360 --> 00:26:52,560 Let's hope he didn't bring a piano. 315 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,520 What were the working conditions like in those booths? Awful. 316 00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,960 They were full of earwigs, and people 317 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:04,320 used to break wind for fun. 318 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:10,440 God! And laugh when they got out, and cheer, and you'd be dead. 319 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,280 They were pretty awful, really. 320 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:18,120 And you'd shoot 14,000 feet of film in one day. I mean, 321 00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:21,320 it was only tuppence ha'penny a foot. 322 00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:27,080 But... And there were a lot of mistakes with sound. 323 00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,680 Awful lot. So there were a lot of retakes. 324 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:33,160 When you say mistakes, were people bumping into microphones and 325 00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:35,880 generally not used to sound equipment being there? 326 00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,000 And shadows. 327 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:39,520 Shadows of lights and microphones. 328 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,880 Which they hadn't had to worry about before? 329 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,560 Never had to worry about. 330 00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:49,360 Can you give us an example of the difficulties of working with early sound? 331 00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:54,640 Um, I had a scene in the following film after Blackmail, which was 332 00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:58,760 Juno And The Paycock, with the Irish Players. 333 00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:02,960 And the family had come into the room. 334 00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,640 They brought a phonograph, and they were playing a record, If You're Irish, Come Into The Parlour. 335 00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:10,680 And then there was a choir. 336 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:12,200 They stopped the records. 337 00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:17,200 The dialogue indicates there's a funeral procession going by, 338 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,200 and singing these Catholic hymns. 339 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:27,000 And it was a close-up of the son, the guilty son, who had betrayed his friend. 340 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,160 For God's sakes, shut that row. 341 00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,160 < What's wrong with you? 342 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:33,720 Listen. 343 00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:38,360 Now, they couldn't find a record of If You're Irish, Come Into The Parlour, 344 00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:43,520 so in one corner of this tiny studio, we had an orchestra with no bass, 345 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:45,320 to get the tinny effect. 346 00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:52,800 The prop man sang the song by holding his nose to get, again, the thin voice. 347 00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:57,720 The rest of the characters played their dialogue. 348 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,760 Then in another corner of the studio was a choir, 349 00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,480 for singing in the procession. 350 00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,040 And there was more room taken up by the effects 351 00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:12,080 than there was by the camera and the individual being photographed. 352 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,240 A very young John Laurie here at the beginning of his film career. 353 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,160 HYMNAL SINGING IN BACKGROUND 354 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:28,040 In the 1930 picture Murder, Alfred Hitchcock employs a theatre technique new to film. 355 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:33,440 Here, he records Herbert Marshall's internal monologue, an ingenious use of sound. 356 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,480 'Save her soul. 357 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,480 'Save her. 358 00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,320 'If I'd stood up longer, I might have worn them down... 359 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,200 'Why couldn't they see the girl as I did? 360 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,360 'The rest of the fellows on the journey...' 361 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,520 Unusually for Hitchcock, who was a master of the special effect, 362 00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,400 there is one disastrous moment in the film. 363 00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:04,560 He wants to show a character walking through a deep plush carpet, but instead we get this. 364 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,040 Watching Murder is sometimes murder. 365 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:16,200 The slow pacing typical of very early talkies makes for difficult viewing. 366 00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,840 Watch how long it takes this actor to leave the room. 367 00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:31,520 The two actors by the door have very little to do and lots of time to do it in. 368 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:43,080 Murder is unique, because it is Alfred Hitchcock's only whodunnit. 369 00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,040 I've never made a whodunnit since. 370 00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:47,880 Very simple reason. 371 00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,760 The whodunnit contains no emotion. 372 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,640 The audience are wondering. 373 00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:58,040 They're not emoting, they're not apprehensive for anyone. 374 00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:03,000 When the film is finished and the revelation comes, 375 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:08,120 you get two or three minutes of "Ah, I told you so" 376 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,120 or "I thought so" or "Fancy that". 377 00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,960 Another problem for the early talkies was the rather... 378 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:20,880 IN STAGE ACCENT: measured and artificial sounding delivery of many stage-trained actors. 379 00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:30,520 In The Skin Game, Jill Esmond, the first Mrs Laurence Olivier, is very difficult to listen to. 380 00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,280 And notice the non-moving camera. 381 00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:37,320 Mr Hornblower ought never to have found that up in the woods. 382 00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,040 That's rather dog in the manger-ish. 383 00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,920 Like so many early sound films adapted from stage plays, 384 00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:48,040 The Skin Game is overburdened with long, static dialogue scenes. 385 00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:53,200 But in the auction room scene, Hitch remains true to the idea of the moving camera. 386 00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,200 AUCTIONEER: Now then, now then. What shall I say? 387 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,120 Think of all the possibilities. 388 00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,080 What shall I say? 2,000. 389 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:04,360 That won't hurt you, Mr Spicer. Why, it's worth that to overlook the duke. 390 00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:07,360 For 2,000. For 2,000. 391 00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:12,600 2,500, thank you, sir. 2,500. 392 00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,240 Come, come. Mr Sandy, don't scratch your head over it. 393 00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,960 3,000. 3,000. 394 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,120 For this desirable property, you'd think it wasn't desirable! 395 00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,120 Come, a little spirit, gentlemen, a little spirit! 396 00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,680 3,500. 397 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,520 Hitchcock's film Number Seventeen was based on a stage play from the mid-1920s. 398 00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:35,800 The star from the original production, an eccentric 399 00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,760 character actor called Leon M Lion, does appear in the film version. 400 00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,600 He plays a Cockney type that no longer really exists. 401 00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,920 Quite sure you don't know anything about that? 402 00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,040 What, me? Gawn! 403 00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:56,880 Number Seventeen is a bizarre film, and at times Hitchcock 404 00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,200 is clearly having great fun at the expense of the original play. 405 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,200 In this film, fist fighting goes on for ever. 406 00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,720 The most effective part of the film is the final chase. 407 00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:26,640 These shots of a model bus and train are made with far greater care than the rest of the film put together. 408 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,320 When you saw Number Seventeen again recently, 409 00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,120 what did you think of the film? I thought it was magic. 410 00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,000 We had these eight miles of track. 411 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:58,560 And I remember, my last shot, I was tied off, ankle to ankle. 412 00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:00,840 So my top was a camera. 413 00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:02,680 And we were going a bit too fast. 414 00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,240 We weren't slowing down. I thought, "Where's the next low bridge? 415 00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,880 "Cos I'm on the top here, and I'm tied off". 416 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:14,720 So I shouted down below to the kids, my assistants. 417 00:34:14,720 --> 00:34:17,320 I said "Will you pull the...cord?" 418 00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:19,840 I said "I don't know where we're going". 419 00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,560 And Jack Cox was on the footbrake. 420 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:26,880 So he went and pulled the cord, and the train stopped. 421 00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,760 And he stopped about... 422 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,320 300 yards from a low bridge which would have cut me in half. Wow. 423 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:54,520 Waltzes From Vienna is just about the worst film that Alfred Hitchcock ever made. 424 00:34:54,520 --> 00:35:01,880 HITCHCOCK: At this period of time, my reputation wasn't very good. 425 00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:05,560 A film about The Blue Danube starring popular musical actress 426 00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:10,200 Jessie Matthews was unlikely to bring out the best in Hitchcock. 427 00:35:11,720 --> 00:35:16,040 But by 1934, what was the best of Alfred Hitchcock? 428 00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:21,600 Blackmail, his first big hit of the sound era, had been nearly five years before in 1929. 429 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,840 And since then, he'd made a series of talking pictures which were 430 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,800 more or less adaptations of popular stage plays of the day. 431 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,880 His cinematic art had barely developed at all, if we discount 432 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,120 the marvellous chase sequence at the end of Number Seventeen. 433 00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,880 And with his film in 1934 Waltzes From Vienna, it could be argued that 434 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,760 his cinematic technique was going backwards. 435 00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,640 Alfred Hitchcock's career was in crisis. 436 00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:52,080 But then the Hitchcocks began a new collaboration with the writer Charles Bennett. 437 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,680 The resulting screenplay, The Man Who Knew Too Much, also benefited 438 00:35:55,680 --> 00:36:01,440 from discussions with other like-minded professionals at the Hitchcocks' flat in Cromwell Road. 439 00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,600 The master of suspense was born. 440 00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:08,480 DANCE MUSIC PLAYS 441 00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,040 Peter Lorre, star of Fritz Lang's controversial film about a 442 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:33,800 child killer, M, was imaginatively cast as the villain of the piece. 443 00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,800 The early Germanic and Russian influences are integrated into one 444 00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:49,320 coherent style, and the Hitchcock movie as we know it has arrived. 445 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:54,320 SINGING 446 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,720 An assassination is about to take place in The Albert Hall. 447 00:36:57,720 --> 00:37:01,880 This climactic scene is played without dialogue. 448 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:06,320 HITCHCOCK: When you choose a location, 449 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,640 it must not be a background. 450 00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:13,960 The goings-on in that location must be involved in the story. 451 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:18,920 For example, in the assassination which is about to take place, 452 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,760 when the cymbals crash, that's the time for the shot to go off. 453 00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:35,360 SHE SCREAMS 454 00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:43,040 GUNSHOT 455 00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,440 Sounds as if it went off all right. 456 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,120 I hope so, for all our sakes. 457 00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,560 The leaps and bounds that separated The Man Who Knew Too Much from its 458 00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:58,040 immediate predecessors was carried on with the release of The 39 Steps. 459 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,920 Charles Bennett, Alfred and Alma fashioned an incredible screenplay. 460 00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,200 Richard Hannay is on the run from both the police and foreign spies. 461 00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:11,640 She was killed by a foreign agent who was interested too. 462 00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:14,440 She tell you what the foreign agent looked like? There wasn't time. 463 00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,480 There was one thing. Part of his little finger was missing. Which one? 464 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,000 This one, I think. 465 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,720 Sure it wasn't this one? 466 00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:27,640 As well as dramatically improving his screenplays, Hitchcock also paid 467 00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,720 meticulous attention to how each shot would look. 468 00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:36,160 These drawings by Hitchcock show how closely the set designer followed his instructions. 469 00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:42,080 Here! Why did you pull the communication cords? To stop the train, you old fool! 470 00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,640 It's against all the regulations to stop the train on the bridge. But a man jumped out... 471 00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:48,720 The film is one long pursuit. 472 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:52,120 Action sequences take place in iconic locations. 473 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,480 Jumping off a train on the Forth Bridge. 474 00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:59,640 Solving the mystery of the 39 Steps at the London Palladium. 475 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:09,000 And the cast is superb. Even small roles are impeccably handled. 476 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,560 The milkman is played by Frederick Piper... 477 00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:13,960 It's quite true. They're spies, foreigners. 478 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,200 They've murdered a woman in my flat, and now they're waiting for me. 479 00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,960 Oh, come off it. Funny jokes at 5 o'clock in the morning. All right. 480 00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,680 I'll tell you the truth... 481 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,600 You married? Yes, but don't rub it in. 482 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:31,160 On the first day of filming, Hitch handcuffed the two stars, Madeleine Carroll 483 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,880 and Robert Donat, together, and then pretended to lose the key. 484 00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,160 This was a practical joke enabling his actors to experience the 485 00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:40,840 difficulty of being handcuffed to a near stranger. 486 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:45,360 I can't stand it. I'm telling them the whole story. You want to hang me for a murder I never committed? 487 00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,960 As long as they hang you, I don't care if you committed it. 488 00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,280 Let me go! Do you think I'll spend the night with you in this room? 489 00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,200 What else can you do? KNOCK AT DOOR 490 00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,240 Can I come in, sir? 491 00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:58,440 Come in. 492 00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,880 Oh, we were just getting warm before the fire. 493 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,280 I can see that. I thought maybe you'd like this in your bed. 494 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,360 Thank you. She'd like a hot water bottle, wouldn't you, my sweet? 495 00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,560 (Say "Yes, darling".) Yes, darling. 496 00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,240 This man is to be questioned by the sheriff principal... 497 00:40:16,240 --> 00:40:20,680 At one point, there is a lovely camera effect that you hardly notice. 498 00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,000 This scene is shot in the studio, showing passengers 499 00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,360 inside a supposedly moving car with back projection. 500 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:33,840 Hitch then uses the black canvas of the car to cut to an exterior shot of the Scottish Highlands. 501 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,240 Do London ladies look beautiful? 502 00:40:48,240 --> 00:40:51,560 They do, but they wouldn't if you were beside them. 503 00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:54,880 You ought not to say that. What ought he not to say? 504 00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,520 Richard Hannay seeks refuge in an isolated cottage. 505 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:03,960 The wife is played by Peggy Ashcroft, the husband by John Laurie. 506 00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:08,960 I was just saying to your wife that I prefer living in the town than the country. 507 00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:10,720 God made the country. 508 00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,920 Is the supper ready, woman? 509 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:19,760 Mind if I look at your papers? 510 00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,440 No, I don't mind. Thank you. 511 00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,960 Hitch develops the scene in purely visual terms. 512 00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:40,400 You didn't tell me your name. 513 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,320 Oh, Hammond. 514 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,280 Well, Mr Hammond, if you'll pit doon that paper, I'll say a blessing. 515 00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:47,800 Yes, of course. 516 00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:57,400 Sanctify these bounteous mercies to us miserable sinners. 517 00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:03,840 Oh, Lord, make us truly thankful for them and for all thy manifold blessings, 518 00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,640 and continually turn our hearts from wickedness, 519 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,080 and from worldly things, 520 00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:13,960 unto thee. 521 00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:18,360 Amen. 522 00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:26,840 Repeating the success of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock stages 523 00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:32,280 another tense finale in a well known London landmark, the Palladium. 524 00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,000 You Richard Hannay? There's something you ought to know. 525 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,680 Come along quietly. But look... 526 00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:41,440 Look here, old man, you don't want to cause trouble and spoil people's entertainment... 527 00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:43,160 SHOUTS: What are the 39 Steps? 528 00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,000 Come on, answer up! What are the 39 Steps? 529 00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:54,960 The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the Foreign Office of... 530 00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,760 GUNSHOT, SCREAMS 531 00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:21,880 In his next picture, Secret Agent, Hitch was reunited with the actor Peter Lorre, 532 00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:26,440 who since they'd last worked together, had developed an addiction to morphine. 533 00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,760 Can you spot it in his acting? 534 00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,120 Ooh! This is terrible! 535 00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:36,560 This is too much! Really, too much! 536 00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:39,920 For you, beautiful woman. And what for me? What for me? 537 00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,720 Nothing! Nobody, nothing! No, this... 538 00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:46,440 Caramba! 539 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:51,280 The actor is not doing a very good job. 540 00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:57,080 And Hitchcock is said to have turned to the unit and said 541 00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:02,640 "I bought him in the shop, put him on the floor, wound him up, and he doesn't go". 542 00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:04,360 PAUL MERTON LAUGHS 543 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:08,160 Peter Lorre, like Alfred Hitchcock was a great practical joker. 544 00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,880 During the course of the filming, he sent the director 50 canaries. 545 00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,600 Unfortunately, relationships soured between them, 546 00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,080 and at one point Alfred threw a cup of coffee over Peter Lorre. 547 00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:27,120 On other, happier, occasions Hitch was rather fond of the practical joke. 548 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:31,720 He would throw his cup and saucer into the air to signify the end of the tea break. 549 00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:47,480 In Sabotage, Hitchcock made a dreadful mistake that would haunt him for decades. 550 00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,320 A boy is carrying a bomb on a bus, but doesn't know it. 551 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,080 Neither does the puppy. 552 00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:11,840 HITCHCOCK: I once committed a grave error in having a bomb, 553 00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,480 from which I extracted a great deal of suspense. 554 00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,160 And I had the thing go off, which I should never have done, 555 00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:26,440 because they needed the relief from their suspense. 556 00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:31,600 Clock going, the time for the bomb to go off at such and such a time. 557 00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:36,960 And I drew this thing out and attenuated the whole business. 558 00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,360 Then somebody should have said "Oh, my goodness, there's a bomb!" 559 00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:43,240 Pick up, throw it out of the window, bang! 560 00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:45,720 But everybody's relieved. 561 00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:47,480 But I made the mistake. 562 00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,080 I let the bomb go off and kill someone. 563 00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:53,240 Bad technique. 564 00:45:54,760 --> 00:46:00,160 Despite this rare error, there are many flourishes that are typical of the former silent film director. 565 00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,960 When Sylvia Sidney realises her husband is responsible for the bomb 566 00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,200 that killed her brother, no dialogue is needed. 567 00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,040 SHE SCREAMS Don't... 568 00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:27,360 Actress Sylvia Sidney was originally disturbed by the lack of dialogue in this crucial scene. 569 00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:31,840 However, when she saw the completed sequence, she said, with great admiration, 570 00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,640 "Hollywood must hear of this". 571 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,640 Hitch was indeed keen on a move to Hollywood. 572 00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,600 He wanted his films to be seen on the world stage. 573 00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,000 His next picture, Young And Innocent, 574 00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,960 was full of imaginative and confident use of the moving camera. 575 00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:54,520 We ought to order tea if we're going to stay here long. 576 00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:56,080 I'd sooner have beer. 577 00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:02,080 HITCHCOCK: In this situation, you have a young girl with a hobo, a tramp, you see. 578 00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,760 And he's the only man who could identify this murderer. 579 00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,200 And all they know is that he has Saint Vitus' dance in the eyes. 580 00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:11,120 Haven't you seen anyone with a twitch yet? 581 00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:15,000 HITCHCOCK: Then the old boy said "This is idiotic. 582 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:19,480 "Big room like this, trying to find a man who has twitching eyes". 583 00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:26,920 At that moment, I take the camera high up into the lobby of the hotel 584 00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,800 and do the longest dolly shot through the lobby, 585 00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:34,600 through the ballroom, through the dancers... 586 00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:39,920 # I'm right here to tell you, sister No-one can like the drummer man 587 00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:44,760 # Every man who plays in the band is wonderful too... 588 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,360 # I've got to give credit 589 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,800 # Where credit is due 590 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,320 # But when it comes to make that music hot 591 00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,560 # Make you give it all it's got 592 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,440 # I'm right here to tell you, mister... # 593 00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:01,880 HITCHCOCK: ..Through a minstrel black-faced band, 594 00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:05,920 right through the band to the drummer, to his head 595 00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:07,960 and right to his eyes... 596 00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:32,240 This is another variation of letting the audience in on something. 597 00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:38,440 Hitchcock's following picture is among his best remembered, 598 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:43,520 The Lady Vanishes, although he had very little to do with the excellent screenplay, 599 00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:47,440 which was written by the celebrated team, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. 600 00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:57,720 Hitch was reunited with the cameraman Jack Cox, as these trick shots indicate. 601 00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,440 The film director Roy Ward Baker worked on The Lady Vanishes, 602 00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:08,360 and remembers observing Hitchcock on the set. 603 00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,560 His method of work was so... 604 00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:16,360 carefully...worked out 605 00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:19,360 that everybody was well-informed. 606 00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:23,960 This was one of his great gifts which I took to heart. 607 00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:27,200 When you're giving instructions to people, which a director is doing 608 00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:32,120 all the time, then you must know what you want, which is the first step. 609 00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,160 A lot of them don't! 610 00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:40,960 They say "I wonder what we should do here?", and that sort of thing. 611 00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,440 That wouldn't do for the likes of Mr Hitchcock. 612 00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,400 But he wasn't overbearing or in any way rude. 613 00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,560 He was always very courteous, in fact, and scrupulous. 614 00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:58,160 The Lady Vanishes was filmed in a tiny studio, but it feels far bigger. 615 00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:03,360 Hitch achieved this effect with back-projection and beautifully constructed model shots. 616 00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,560 The other trick thing that he got up to, 617 00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:12,320 was over a glass of wine. 618 00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,440 There's a scene in the restaurant, 619 00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:19,320 and he wanted to get a shot 620 00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:23,880 with the glass of wine very strong in the foreground. 621 00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:29,760 But there was some problem in those days of carrying focus between the two, 622 00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,200 with a blurred glass... 623 00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:34,200 Or a blurred actress. 624 00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:40,680 So anyway, he thought up the idea that the problem was the size of the glass, 625 00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,240 which was a normal wine glass. 626 00:51:43,240 --> 00:51:47,880 He thought, "If we make one which is twice the size..." Which he did. 627 00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:55,720 Somebody rang up and got some glass manufactured as a duplicate, except twice the size. 628 00:51:55,720 --> 00:51:58,160 And he stood that in the foreground, 629 00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,960 and then it gave him the dramatic impact that he wanted. 630 00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:09,280 The Lady Vanishes enhanced his reputation in America. 631 00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,240 It wasn't long before the Hitchcock family moved to the states. 632 00:52:12,240 --> 00:52:18,160 Everything he had learnt as a British filmmaker was to help him conquer Hollywood. 633 00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:22,120 Here at the banquet for the 1940 Academy Awards, 634 00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:27,040 Alfred Hitchcock deliberately places his head in front of Joan Fontaine, 635 00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,240 making Alma roar with laughter. 636 00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:35,240 Throughout his Hollywood years, Hitch would remain loyal to the 637 00:52:35,240 --> 00:52:39,000 visual image always taking precedence over dialogue. 638 00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:08,040 HE SCREAMS 639 00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,960 In 1971, towards the end of his career, 640 00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:20,600 Alfred Hitchcock returned to London to make one last British picture. 641 00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,560 Alfred Hitchcock by this time was in his early seventies, 642 00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,640 and he relished the chance of coming back to make another film in London. 643 00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:31,160 Frenzy begins with the discovery of a dead body beside the Thames, 644 00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:36,040 just as The Lodger had begun nearly 50 years before. 645 00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:39,360 What's that round her neck? 646 00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:41,040 She's been strangled. 647 00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:42,640 Looks like a tie. 648 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:44,200 Yes, it's a tie, all right. 649 00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:46,560 Another necktie murder. 650 00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:51,520 Frenzy was shot here in Covent Garden. 651 00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:54,360 Then, it was London's premier fruit and vegetable market. 652 00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,320 Entirely appropriate for Alfred Hitchcock to make a film here. 653 00:53:57,320 --> 00:53:59,560 After all, his father had been a greengrocer. 654 00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:04,240 The building behind me, the one with the dark brick, that's where the murderer lived. 655 00:54:04,240 --> 00:54:06,360 Some terrible things happened in there. 656 00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:19,120 To create tension in one scene with actress Anna Massey, Hitchcock completely kills the sound... 657 00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:24,720 SILENCE 658 00:54:24,720 --> 00:54:27,120 Got a place to stay? 659 00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,240 Oh, it's you, Bob. Yeah. 660 00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:34,200 I think the scene where you first come out of the pub, and of course, 661 00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:37,600 unbeknown, you're following Barry Foster to your doom 662 00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:40,560 and you go up the stairs and through the door... It's chilling. 663 00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:47,680 I don't know if you know, Babs, but you're my type of woman. 664 00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:52,640 I just love the beauty of the camera then coming away from the door, 665 00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:57,360 because we've seen the horrendous scene earlier, so we don't need to see any more horrors. 666 00:54:57,360 --> 00:54:58,880 No. 667 00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:22,120 At the entrance to the street, Hitch employs an elaborate camera trick. 668 00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:31,960 Could you explain how it was done? 669 00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,160 We had the man in the... 670 00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:39,440 carrying a potato sack in Covent Garden in situ. 671 00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:46,440 And we had him brought back to the studio where the staircase was rebuilt. 672 00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:48,520 And he decided to put this scene in. 673 00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,240 It was not scripted in the original script. 674 00:55:51,240 --> 00:55:52,800 And it took a whole day to do. 675 00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:57,400 And it comes back, right down onto the pavement, where you have 676 00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:02,760 the man with the potato sack in the studio, and you also have him in Covent Garden. 677 00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:04,280 He did the cut there. 678 00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:18,040 Because Alfred Hitchcock specialised in films filled with suspense, 679 00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:20,920 he has sometimes been portrayed as a sadistic man 680 00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:24,320 who had a strange obsession with the darker side of life. 681 00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,960 Like all of us, he was light and shade, but he always believed that 682 00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:31,560 film-making should be fun, and he was a very funny man. 683 00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:35,840 Shall we invite some questions from the audience? 684 00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:38,080 Yes, let's do that. 685 00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:40,760 Um...take the first one down there, sir? 686 00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:46,920 Mr Hitchcock, in your latter career, you've concentrated more on thrillers. 687 00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,920 Do you hanker to make other types of film? 688 00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,760 Well, no, it's not for me. It's... 689 00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:55,760 it's the public, you see. 690 00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:59,200 If I made, for example, a musical... 691 00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:03,040 LAUGHTER ..the public would wonder 692 00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:07,200 "When will the moment come when one..." LAUGHTER 693 00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:11,200 "when one of the chorus girls will drop dead?" 694 00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:19,400 In the trailer for Frenzy, Hitchcock is characteristically macabre. 695 00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:23,840 Here, what's wrong? 696 00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:30,200 Look, she's wearing my tie. 697 00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:49,440 How do you like my tie? 698 00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:52,280 How do you like it? 699 00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:56,560 My God! The tie! 700 00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:58,440 SHE SCREAMS 701 00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,920 Mr Hitchcock, as we are coming to the end of our 702 00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:08,840 documentary, would you care to make a random vowel sound? 703 00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:10,240 Boo. 704 00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:14,680 Mr Hitchcock, thank you for taking part in this documentary. It's been an absolute pleasure. 705 00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:16,280 Delighted. 706 00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:26,680 Alfred Hitchcock used these vast, expansive areas to create a large...let me do it again. 707 00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,120 In the British Museum, Alfred Hitchcock used these vast, 708 00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,440 rich locations to create a huge, dramatic backdrop, 709 00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:41,480 but how did he manage to light the huge rooms at night? Well, he didn't. 710 00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:47,000 He used exactly the same technique for the Albert Hall sequences in The Ring, 711 00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:49,040 and The Man Who Knew Too Much. 712 00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:54,400 GROANING 713 00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:56,440 That was beautifully put. 714 00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:59,600 In fact, after hearing that, there's nothing more I wish to add.