Hyde Park, London

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in west London, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.

In 1978, John Russell Taylor recalled asking Hitchcock about his experiences during World War I:

It occurred to me that since he was 18 in 1917 he must have been eligible for military service in the First World War. Well, said Hitch, he had received a low grade in the medical, but he had joined a territorial group, and remembered going along from work with another lad for manoeuvres in Hyde Park, and the trouble he had to keep his puttees from falling round his ankles, and going afterwards to have poached eggs on toast (he who claims never to have eaten eggs in his life) at Marble Arch Cornerhouse.^[1]

Hitchcock also mentioned the park whilst reminiscing about his childhood:

Fear? It has influenced my life and my career. I remember when I was five or six. It was a Sunday evening, the only time my parents did not have to work. They put me to bed and went to Hyde Park for a stroll [...] They were sure I would be asleep until their return. But I woke up, called out, and no one answered. Nothing but night all around me. Shaking, I got up, wandered around the empty, dark house and, finally arriving in the kitchen, found a piece of cold meat which I ate while drying my tears."^[2]

Hitchcock's Films

No Bail for the Judge

Had the film not been abandoned, it would have featured a crucial scene in which Sir Edward Devlin escorts Elizabeth Proud (Audrey Hepburn) through Hyde Park at night before raping her.^[3]

Frenzy (1972)

The wide shots of Richard Blaney and Babs Milligan on the Hyde Park bench were filmed on 12th September 1971. The closer shots were filmed the following day in the gardens of Pinewood Studios.^[4]