Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899–1980) was an English movie director. This “master of suspense” is one of the most recognizable film directors in the history of cinema. He made 53 films, 20 of which are regarded as masterpieces; his movies were, in his heyday, considered supreme pieces of cinematic technique.
Acclaimed in Britain for movies such as The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935,) Hitchcock relocated to Hollywood in 1939. Among his later works, noteworthy for their suspense and their technical ingenuity, are the psychological thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951,) Psycho (1960,) and The Birds (1963.)
Many of Hitchcock’s spy-thriller movies were influenced by the techniques of the silent era, and by German expressionism. His characteristic style of creating suspense contributed the adjective “Hitchcockian” to the English dictionary.
Hitchcock made a trademark fleeting appearance in 39 of his 52 surviving major films, giving audiences the further excitement of trying to distinguish him on the screen.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alfred Hitchcock
I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humour. As I see it, this is a typically English form of humour. It’s a piece with such jokes as the one about the man who was being led to the gallows to be hanged. He looked at the trap door in the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, ‘I say, is that thing safe?’
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Humor
Seeing a murder on television can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Advertising
A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.
—Alfred Hitchcock
I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Acting, Actors
The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.
—Alfred Hitchcock
In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Audiences, Crime
I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: One liners, Audiences
Television has brought back murder into the home—where it belongs.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Television
If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Audiences
The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book—it makes a very poor doorstop.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Authors & Writing
Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Television
I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Control, Police
For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.
—Alfred Hitchcock
There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Anticipation, One liners, Fear
Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it.
—Alfred Hitchcock
I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Audiences
These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity the sound achieved by the pig.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Music
Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.
—Alfred Hitchcock
There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Winning, Winners
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Television
Drama is like life with the dull bits cut out.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Luck is everything. … My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I’m fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn’t make a good suspense film.
—Alfred Hitchcock
Topics: Fortune, Luck
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Clint Eastwood American Film Director
Steven Spielberg American Film Director
Stanley Kubrick American Film Director
Sylvester Stallone American Actor
Roman Polanski French Film Director
Akira Kurosawa Japanese Film Director
Federico Fellini Italian Filmmaker
Jean-luc Godard French-born Swiss Film Director
Cary Grant British-American Film Actor
W. H. Auden British-born American Poet