Spotlight on Hitchcock

FOX Classics will again showcase Alfred Hitchcock movies next month, with critic Graeme Blundell introducing 6 classic suspense movies.

“These are classic movies loaded with indelible images and darkly humorous dialogue, all designed to delight, entertain, and shock moviegoers. And they still do,” said Blundell.

“The corpulent, droll master of suspense certainly knew how to entertain. In a characteristically incisive remark, Mr Hitchcock once summed up his approach to moviemaking: ‘Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake’.”

Sunday August 6
8.35pm EST – Vertigo (1958)
Stars James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. A San Francisco detective suffering from vertigo investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Monday August 7
8.35pm EST – Marnie (1964)
Stars Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Martin Gabel, Diane Baker and Louise Latham. A compulsive liar and thief winds up marrying the very man she attempts to rob.

Tuesday August 8
8.35pm EST – Dial M for Murder (1954)
Stars Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams and Anthony Dawson. An ex-tennis pro carries out a plot to murder his wife. When things go wrong, he improvises a brilliant plan B.

Wednesday August 9
8.35pm EST – Strangers on a Train (1951)
Stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll and Patricia Hitchcock. A psychotic socialite confronts a pro tennis star with a theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder – a theory that he plans to implement.

Thursday August 10
8.35pm EST – Frenzy (1972)
Stars Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anna Massey and Billie Whitelaw. A serial murderer is strangling women with a necktie. The London police have a suspect, but he is the wrong man.

Friday August 11
8.35pm EST – The Birds (1963)
Stars Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright.
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attach people.

Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, and died on April 29, 1980. He directed his first films in the 1920s and from the start set his focus on matters of suspense, psychology and surprise twists. He moved from England to America in 1939 to continue his career as a prolific film and television director and producer. Hitchcock was never to win the Academy Award for Best Director, although he was nominated five times and his first Hollywood feature Rebecca was awarded Best Picture in 1940. He received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1967. He was awarded the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1979 and made a Knight of the British Empire just months before his death.