Hitchcock Chronology: 1934

Overview

Waltzes from Vienna is released to the British public.^[1]
15th - The Times reports the Hitchcock will direct Gordon Harker in the Road House. However, Gaumont British director Maurice Elvey will eventually direct the film.^[2]

5th - Waltzes from Vienna is reviewed by The Times which notes that Hitchcock has treated Jessie Matthews "as a not too important part of the film's design".^[3]

Script sessions for The Man Who Knew Too Much, are held at 153 Cromwell Road throughout April and May 1934. Contributing are Charles Bennett, Angus MacPhail, Ivor Montagu, Alma and Alfred^[4]

12th - Motion Picture Daily reports that actress Madeleine Carroll has left New York to return to England aboard the Empress of Britain where she'll resume working for Gaumont-British.^[5] The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette notes that her current film, I Was a Spy, is a huge success and that she will meet with studio head Michael Balcon to discuss future projects.^[6]

Principal photography commences on The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre and Nova Pilbeam.^[7]
25th - The Times reports that Alma Reville attended the wedding of Gaumont British screenwriter Bryan Edgar Wallace to Margaret Lane. Among the other guests are Michael Balcon and his wife.^[8]

22nd - Gaumont-British studio head Michael Balcon sets sail from Southampton to New York aboard the RMS Aquitania on a short publicity trip for the studio. With him are actor Jack Hulbert and new star, 14-year-old Nova Pilbeam, accompanied by mother. They return to England in mid-October.
Editing and scoring for The Man Who Knew Too Much is completed by late September.^[10]

27th - The Gloucester Citizen reports that Michael Balcon, freshly returned from America, stated that the reception of his company's films had far exceeded his expectations. "On the night I left New York three cinemas on Broadway were showing Gaumont British films, and both Mr. Jack Hulbert and Miss Nova Pilbeam, who accompanied me, were hailed as stars of the first rank."^[11]

Hitchcock and Charles Bennett spend the winter of 1934 working on the script for The 39 Steps.^[12]

10th - The Man Who Knew Too Much is reviewed by The Times who states that Hitchcock "has a rare gift for the macabre" and that "with the aid of a few shadows, a dozen stairs or so, and a sinister-looking figure, he manages to keep his audience in a suspended state of expectation."^[13]
13th - The Kinematograph Weekly reviews The Man Who Knew Too Much, saying that "This is glorious melodrama ... It is artless fiction, staged on a spectacular scale ... Alfred Hitchcock has obviously learnt by past experience that the real money lies only in mass appeal, and with this wise thought in mind he has given us a picture of first-class melodrama."^[14]
The Hitchcocks and Joan Harrison spend Christmas holidaying in St. Moritz.^[15]