ALFRED The Complete Works for
Television, Two
French Rarities,
and Nine Sensational
Almost always overlooked in retrospectives of Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial work are the many films Hitchcock directed for television in the seven years from 1955 to 1962, in the midst of what is almost certainly the greatest creative peak of his filmmaking career. Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie, not to mention The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much (remake), and The Wrong Man — these are among the 11 Hitchcock theatrical features released in the decade between 1954 and 1964. But Hitchcock’s prodigious output during this period also includes, remarkably, no less than 20 half-hour or one-hour dramas for television, 17 of them made for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, his popular weekly anthology series (which ran for seven seasons), and one for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, its successor (which ran for three seasons). In fact, much of Hitchcock’s great fame and carefully cultivated public persona — his status, even now, as perhaps the film director best known and most recognizable to the general public — stems from his weekly appearances on these television programs: each episode, whether directed by Hitchcock or not (and the vast majority were directed by others), featured droll, dryly sardonic introductions (and epilogues) by Hitchcock himself. And, of course, the distinctive music used as a theme in both series, Charles-François Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” would become forever associated in the public mind with Hitchcock and his gallows sense of humour.
“Hitchcock was the first great movie director who knew what to do with television: he used it to make himself rich and famous.” CARYN JAMES, NEW YORK TIMES
Pacific Cinémathèque’s summer Hitchcock season, “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock,” offers an alternative look at the Master of Suspense’s work by shining a rare spotlight on all 20 of the films Hitchcock directed for TV: the 18 episodes made for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, as well as the single episodes he directed for Suspicion and Ford Startime, two other weekly anthology series. In addition, our program includes Aventure Malgache and Bon Voyage, the two “lost” half-hour films that Hitchcock, a resident of Hollywood since 1939, returned to England to direct for the Allied war effort in 1944. Commissioned by the British Ministry of Information for screening in newly-liberated parts of France, these two works, both in French, were unseen in the English-speaking world until 1993. Anchoring the entire exhibition will be nine of the director’s greatest and most thrilling achievements: The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie.
"Television
has brought
murder back into the home,
where it belongs.” ALFRED HITCHCOCK
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