BFI (2012) - A Hitch in time: changing Hitchcock favourites
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- article: A Hitch in time: changing Hitchcock favourites
- author(s): Geoff Andrew
- publisher: British Film Institute (14/Aug/2012)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Foreign Correspondent (1940), Geoff Andrew, Ingrid Bergman, MacGuffin, Madeleine Carroll, Peggy Ashcroft, Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954), Rebecca (1940), Robert Donat, Sabotage (1936), Saboteur (1942), Sam Wigley, The 39 Steps (1935), The Birds (1963), The Genius of Hitchcock (BFI), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Vertigo (1958)
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A Hitch in time: changing Hitchcock favourites
After first discovering the work of Alfred Hitchcock on television in his teens, Geoff Andrew, Head of Programming at BFI Southbank, describes how films like Psycho and The Birds jostled for pole position in his affections before he switched allegiance to a Hitchcock favourite from an earlier era.
Like many cinephiles, I feel that there have been certain landmark experiences in my moviegoing life. I can’t say for sure which film was my first – it may have been Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1958), though I’ve a terrible suspicion it may have been a Pat Boone musical called State Fair (1962). But I remember the first film that made me feel I was almost grown-up (55 Days in Peking, 1963), my first ‘X’ film (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967), the first film I saw as part of a date (Midnight Cowboy, 1969), and the film that changed my thinking about cinema and made me want to devote my working life to the movies (Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, 1972, seen right in the middle of the front row of the Cambridge Arts Cinema during the film’s opening run).
But my first conscious encounter with a director came through television: it was a BBC season devoted to Alfred Hitchcock. I must have been in my early teens at the time, and having heard my older cousins go on about him after they’d been to see Psycho (1960), I wanted to find out what the fuss was about, so I insisted I be allowed to stay up late every Friday evening for the duration of the season. Happily, since there was no school to worry about on Saturdays, my parents gave their consent.
I was already familiar with Hitch as a TV celebrity, of course – his chinlessness and distinctive way of speaking reminded me of my uncle’s father – but until the season I had no idea what he, or indeed any other ...
