0:00:02 > 0:00:05# When I'm not playing solitaire
0:00:05 > 0:00:09# I take a book down from the shelf
0:00:09 > 0:00:14# And what with programs on the air
0:00:14 > 0:00:17# I keep pretty much to myself
0:00:17 > 0:00:21# Missed the Saturday dance
0:00:21 > 0:00:26# Heard they crowded the floor
0:00:26 > 0:00:30# Couldn't bear it without you
0:00:30 > 0:00:35# Don't get around much any more. #
0:00:37 > 0:00:39MAN: 'This is the scene of the crime,
0:00:39 > 0:00:44'a crime of passion filmed in a way you have never seen before
0:00:44 > 0:00:49'and as no-one else would attempt but the screen's master of suspense,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53'the director who shocked the world with Psycho.'
0:00:53 > 0:00:58Good evening. It's a rare man whose past does not return to haunt him.
0:00:58 > 0:01:04My past is about to catch up with me on this very show. If you are interested in watching,
0:01:04 > 0:01:11you will be treated to a macabre succession of murders, mysteries and crimes of passion.
0:01:11 > 0:01:17Alfred Hitchcock is probably the most famous director in film history.
0:01:17 > 0:01:23He made his name and his fortune from scaring millions out of their wits.
0:01:23 > 0:01:30But his films were more than just entertainment - he put his own deepest fears on the silver screen.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33This process of frightening
0:01:33 > 0:01:36is done by means of a given medium,
0:01:36 > 0:01:39the medium of pure cinema.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43He changed film-makers' ways of looking at things.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48There's the assembly of pieces of film to create fright.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50You can't imitate Hitchcock.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54There's a uniqueness to his style.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00His wonderful ability to create complex characters
0:02:00 > 0:02:07and put them under pressure that builds and builds till you think their soul is gonna snap.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11LOUD SQUAWKING They're coming! They're coming!
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Mr Hitchcock, why do you always make mystery films?
0:02:24 > 0:02:30Well, life is a big mystery, isn't it? It always has been.
0:02:31 > 0:02:36Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born near London in 1899.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41His background had a lot to do with the kind of person Hitchcock became.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45The important thing about Alfred Hitchcock is
0:02:45 > 0:02:50that he was in every way a marginal person
0:02:50 > 0:02:54in the Victorian-Edwardian society. His father was a grocer.
0:02:54 > 0:03:01Now, today there's no shame at all in being "in trade", as they used to say.
0:03:01 > 0:03:07But at that time, if your father was a grocer, you were on the margins of polite society.
0:03:07 > 0:03:14He had this very strict Roman Catholic upbringing, rather strict father, brought up by Jesuits.
0:03:14 > 0:03:19In addition to that, he was an unattractive, fat, little boy
0:03:19 > 0:03:24who had an extremely overprotective mother.
0:03:24 > 0:03:31I suppose it must have all started when I was in my mother's arms, at the age of six months,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35and she said to me, "Boo!"
0:03:35 > 0:03:40Now, you put all of these things together, plus a vivid imagination,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43and all of the elements of genius,
0:03:43 > 0:03:51and you have a person who is geared to being an outsider. And he was an outsider for his whole life.
0:03:51 > 0:03:57Can you remember any specific instance when you were frightened as a child?
0:03:57 > 0:04:02Well, I have a vague recollection of being scared by a policeman.
0:04:02 > 0:04:09When I was probably about four or five years of age, being sent with a note to the local police station.
0:04:09 > 0:04:16He handed this note to the desk sergeant, who read it and locked him up in a cell for five minutes,
0:04:16 > 0:04:21then let him out and said, "That's what we do to naughty little boys."
0:04:21 > 0:04:26This was obviously what his father had asked the sergeant to do.
0:04:26 > 0:04:32I don't even know what it was for. I was probably unjustly incarcerated at the time.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38And I think that was something that he carried through his whole life
0:04:38 > 0:04:41in his relationship to authority.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45The psychiatrist will always tell you,
0:04:45 > 0:04:50if you have a fear that comes from something in your childhood,
0:04:50 > 0:04:54the moment you can go back to it and release it, all is well.
0:04:54 > 0:04:59It doesn't apply to me. I'm still scared of policemen.
0:04:59 > 0:05:05Hitch still had this feeling about authority that it wasn't to be trusted completely.
0:05:07 > 0:05:12He was somebody who watched and thought. He was not an active boy,
0:05:12 > 0:05:17an almost precociously sedentary person,
0:05:17 > 0:05:22who was starting to prepare himself to live his life vicariously.
0:05:22 > 0:05:30The movies provided excitement and escape for an overweight loner with a boring clerical job.
0:05:30 > 0:05:36I was originally in an engineering firm, in the advertising department.
0:05:36 > 0:05:43And I was what was technically called a layer man, designing the ads.
0:05:43 > 0:05:50I'm an advertising man. I've got a secretary, mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders dependent upon me.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53I was a very keen movie-goer
0:05:53 > 0:06:00and I heard that an American company were coming to London to open a studio,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04so I applied for the job of designing their titles,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07because those were the silent days.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09My father met my mother...
0:06:09 > 0:06:13He had gone to the London School of Engineering.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16He was a draft artist.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22Somebody had said to him, "Why don't you go over to the studios and see if you can get a job?"
0:06:22 > 0:06:27So he went with this big portfolio of pictures,
0:06:27 > 0:06:34because it was silent movies, so he went to get a job of drawing in titles,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38like "And the sun set", and he would draw the sun setting.
0:06:38 > 0:06:44He went over there and my mother said she saw this young man come in with this big portfolio.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49But she didn't speak to him, because he didn't have a job,
0:06:49 > 0:06:55and in those days, a gentleman didn't talk to a lady, especially if she had a better job than he did.
0:06:55 > 0:07:00Always the master of suspense, Hitchcock decided to bide his time
0:07:00 > 0:07:04and threw himself into the world of film-making.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07MAN: Hitchcock was a self-made man,
0:07:07 > 0:07:14taught himself by reading technical newspapers for the trade
0:07:14 > 0:07:18and then had to work his way up the ladder
0:07:18 > 0:07:23and achieve the power as well as the know-how,
0:07:23 > 0:07:28to make the films that he was going to go on to make.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31He met the right kinds of people.
0:07:31 > 0:07:38One was Michael Balcon, who took over the studio where he was already working,
0:07:38 > 0:07:43an English producer who was business-like and professional
0:07:43 > 0:07:47and who recognised Hitchcock as a potential film-maker.
0:07:47 > 0:07:54Michael Balcon sent Hitchcock to Germany to learn his craft at the most advanced studios in the world.
0:07:54 > 0:08:00There he learned so much about technique, trick effects and the economy of film-making.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05He simply amassed a level of experience unknown to today's people,
0:08:05 > 0:08:11who, after appearing as an actor in one or two pictures, say,
0:08:11 > 0:08:16"I want to direct my next picture. Give me a good cameraman."
0:08:16 > 0:08:19Well, Hitch KNEW all that.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21Darling, fancy seeing you!
0:08:23 > 0:08:30But the introduction of talking pictures sent tremors through the film industry.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35It must have been a bit of a shock to you when talkies came.
0:08:35 > 0:08:43Well, the only thing wrong with the silent picture was that mouths opened and no sound came out.
0:08:43 > 0:08:48It's a bit like that asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs -
0:08:48 > 0:08:53a huge disaster, but a stimulus to new growth and new evolution.
0:08:53 > 0:09:01The coming of synchronised sound was a kind of disaster which wiped out such a lot about silent cinema.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04Unfortunately, when talk came in,
0:09:04 > 0:09:09the vulgarians - the money-changers of the industry -
0:09:09 > 0:09:14immediately commenced to cash in by photographing stage plays,
0:09:14 > 0:09:19so that took the whole thing away from cinema completely.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24It's like a lot of films one sees today, not that I see very many,
0:09:24 > 0:09:31but to me they're "photographs of people talking" and bear no relation to the art of the cinema.
0:09:31 > 0:09:38Hitchcock, although he never became fully reconciled to synchronised-sound cinema,
0:09:38 > 0:09:43in that he always expressed regret for the passing of silent cinema,
0:09:43 > 0:09:49because it was, in his words, the purest form of cinema, if you can't beat them you have to join them.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52- How do I look?- Well...
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Wait a minute. It isn't quite right.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00Embracing the new technology, Hitchcock made Blackmail.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05Originally a silent movie, it became Britain's first talkie.
0:10:12 > 0:10:20Now the hottest director in town, Hitchcock married his sweetheart Alma, who became his secret weapon.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23She had been a film editor,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27she was raised in the business.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32I think she was certainly a right-hand person to him.
0:10:32 > 0:10:39I think that she wrote his scripts, commented on them, looked at his pictures, gave suggestions.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44He would find a story, bring it home, have her read it.
0:10:44 > 0:10:50If SHE thought it'd make a picture, he would go ahead. If she said no, he didn't even touch it.
0:10:50 > 0:10:56She had an unerring judgment. He went along with her judgment, and that was from the very beginning.
0:10:56 > 0:11:03Over the next five years, Hitchcock made a series of hit films, culminating in The 39 Steps,
0:11:03 > 0:11:11a spy thriller about an ordinary man embroiled in a deadly wartime plot.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15Stop him!
0:11:15 > 0:11:21I have the honour in presenting to you one of the most remarkable men in the world - Mr Memory.
0:11:21 > 0:11:23What are the 39 steps?
0:11:23 > 0:11:25SHOT RINGS OUT
0:11:25 > 0:11:33The 39 Steps, I love. I think it's a wonderful film. The Lady Vanishes, I love. I can watch that ANY time.
0:11:33 > 0:11:40Set on board a train, the film gave the audience a roller-coaster ride it had never experienced before.
0:11:40 > 0:11:46The plot revolved around an innocent young woman who meets a mysterious stranger.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49For heaven's sake, stop this train!
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Leave me alone! Leave me alone!
0:11:54 > 0:12:01I don't think he missed the fact there weren't the special effects available that you've got now.
0:12:01 > 0:12:07I can't imagine Hitchcock now wanting to make films stuffed with special effects
0:12:07 > 0:12:13and state-of-the-art technology. That's not the kind of film he made.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17He made films about people.
0:12:17 > 0:12:23'See The Lady Vanishes, sit in breathless anticipation, gripped by its overwhelming excitement,
0:12:23 > 0:12:30'and you'll know why it is hailed as the unmatched classic of breath-taking suspense,
0:12:30 > 0:12:37'and why Hitchcock stands unrivalled as the incomparable master of thrills.'
0:12:37 > 0:12:42The English lady, where is she? There has been no English lady here.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44What?
0:12:44 > 0:12:47There has been no English lady here.
0:12:47 > 0:12:55Hitchcock is a fascinating test case, in that you can see him learning his craft
0:12:55 > 0:12:58but also learning more and more...
0:12:59 > 0:13:03..about WHAT the movies were.
0:13:03 > 0:13:08- When you make a film are you setting out to frighten men or women?- Women,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12because 80% of the audience in the cinema are women.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Because, you see,
0:13:15 > 0:13:20even if the house is 50-50, half men, half women,
0:13:20 > 0:13:25a good percentage of the men have...
0:13:25 > 0:13:31has said to his girl, being on the make of course, "What do you want to see, dear?"
0:13:31 > 0:13:34So that's where her influence comes, as well.
0:13:35 > 0:13:40His work in England was awfully good at that point,
0:13:40 > 0:13:44that was the era of The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes.
0:13:44 > 0:13:49He was surely one of the best film-makers in the world.
0:13:49 > 0:13:55The problem for him was he was getting larger than the English cinema was at that time.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58It would have been unthinkable
0:13:58 > 0:14:03that someone with that vision would not have been working in Hollywood.
0:14:03 > 0:14:10That probably didn't make him popular with other people in the English cinema at the time.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12It's an international problem.
0:14:12 > 0:14:19There's certain things that America just does bigger, if not better, than anywhere else.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23And at that time, Hitch wanted the biggest and this is where he came.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31David O Selznick, fresh from producing Gone With The Wind,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36recognised Hitchcock's potential and lured him to Hollywood.
0:14:36 > 0:14:43When he came to the United States, Hitchcock had moved way up into a new class of film-making.
0:14:43 > 0:14:49However, he found himself in a subordinate position working for David Selznick,
0:14:49 > 0:14:53who didn't always understand or agree with what he wanted.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58When Hitchcock came here, he was butting heads with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.
0:14:58 > 0:15:05And certainly the authority that he was trying to avoid all of his life,
0:15:05 > 0:15:09he was now head to head with it in Hollywood.
0:15:09 > 0:15:13- Why, it's Max De Winter! - How do you do?
0:15:13 > 0:15:18Hitchcock's first Hollywood film, Rebecca, was very much a British movie,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21but it had an American producer.
0:15:21 > 0:15:27The experience of making Rebecca wasn't much fun for Hitch. Hitchcock knew exactly what he wanted.
0:15:27 > 0:15:33But Selznick was the old-fashioned producer who saw himself as the author of the film
0:15:33 > 0:15:36and he wanted total and complete control.
0:15:36 > 0:15:42The film tells the story of a man who tries to replace his dead wife with a new woman.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45I knew you were comparing me with Rebecca.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49They did not see eye to eye on very much.
0:15:49 > 0:15:55Hitch made it work. He knew that he had to make it work, if he was to survive one picture in Hollywood.
0:15:55 > 0:16:02'What is the mystery of Rebecca? What dread secret is hidden within the silent walls of Manderley?'
0:16:02 > 0:16:06Not only this room, but all the rooms in the house.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08You can almost hear it now.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?
0:16:13 > 0:16:19You could sum up the complexities of the relationship between Hitchcock and Selznick with Rebecca,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22the first film they did together.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27It gave Hitchcock the best imaginable launch for a director's career in America -
0:16:27 > 0:16:30Best Picture award with his first film.
0:16:30 > 0:16:37'David O Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock bring you the prize-winner that made motion picture history,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40'winner of the Academy Award...'
0:16:40 > 0:16:47In Rebecca, Hitchcock displayed a technical expertise never before seen in Hollywood.
0:16:47 > 0:16:53Hitchcock believed that films were the assembly of small bits of film
0:16:53 > 0:16:55to create an emotion and a mood.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01He believed in shooting films to get just the little bits.
0:17:01 > 0:17:09Selznick was absolutely unaccustomed to that, horrified at it and realised, of course,
0:17:09 > 0:17:15that Hitchcock was shooting so that you could only edit the film one way - HIS way.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22I know EVERY shot and every...angle...
0:17:22 > 0:17:24by heart.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29So I become, in a sense, when I'm shooting the picture...
0:17:29 > 0:17:36I very rarely look at the script, because I've now, by this time, learned the dialogue myself.
0:17:36 > 0:17:42I rarely look at the script and I'm perhaps the equivalent, though maybe not so good as,
0:17:42 > 0:17:48a conductor conducting an orchestra without a score.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54What's specific to Hitchcock is
0:17:54 > 0:17:58he never shot a master through, and...
0:17:58 > 0:18:03and we never played the scene through or even read it through.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08It was little pieces where camera was continually moved.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17What he ultimately gave the editor were pieces to join.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21There was no extra stuff shot.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26- I- could have edited that scene because there was nothing to edit.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32An editor wanted to work with Hitchcock.
0:18:32 > 0:18:37He said, "Sir, I would like to be in your editing department
0:18:37 > 0:18:39"because that's my forte."
0:18:39 > 0:18:45And he said, "Well, you've got a good background, you can be my editor."
0:18:45 > 0:18:53A few days later, the first rushes come through. It's the editor's responsibility to set it up.
0:18:53 > 0:19:00At the end of each take there was a t-ch! and he thought, "Something is the matter with the camera."
0:19:00 > 0:19:05So he called up the labs and said, "There's this funny thing here."
0:19:05 > 0:19:09They said, "That's where Hitchcock wants you to cut the film."
0:19:13 > 0:19:19The fact that he had seen the film in advance in his mind is very important,
0:19:19 > 0:19:27because it meant that the making of it was often for him slightly boring.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39The break, the understanding of Americana,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42comes with Shadow Of A Doubt, made in 1942.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46Hitch had been in America for almost four years.
0:19:47 > 0:19:52And this is the first really American picture by Hitchcock.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05The environment of Shadow Of A Doubt was the idyllic community,
0:20:05 > 0:20:09and into this wonderful community
0:20:09 > 0:20:16of very happy people comes this evil influence, Uncle Charlie.
0:20:16 > 0:20:21Oh, let me go, Uncle Charlie! Let me go!
0:20:23 > 0:20:27America was nearing the end of its war with Hitler,
0:20:27 > 0:20:35and the darkness that creeps into that idyllic small town that he so wonderfully created up there,
0:20:35 > 0:20:44is also the darkness that was entering the American experience through World War II.
0:20:44 > 0:20:51Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses you'd find swine?
0:20:51 > 0:20:55With Hitchcock, you stayed with this kind of reality
0:20:55 > 0:21:00so that he could play his fairy tales against it,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04which made it more... as he once said,
0:21:04 > 0:21:09"You know, if you bring somebody into a kitchen
0:21:09 > 0:21:15"and they jump up on the kitchen table and scream, that's shocking."
0:21:16 > 0:21:20"But if the kitchen looks like Dr Caligari's cabinet,
0:21:21 > 0:21:25"you expect somebody to jump up on the table and scream."
0:21:25 > 0:21:27And I think that was true.
0:21:27 > 0:21:32He played everything against reality.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34I don't want you to touch my mother.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37So, go away, I'm warning you.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39Go away or I'll kill you myself.
0:21:39 > 0:21:46'Is there one rule which is indispensable to a director who wants to frighten an audience?'
0:21:46 > 0:21:51I think he should understand the psychology of audiences.
0:21:51 > 0:21:58He should also know that audiences love to enjoy the very thing that they have built in,
0:21:58 > 0:22:03and that's fear that all started when the mother said, "Boo!"
0:22:03 > 0:22:07But for some inexplicable reason they like to... How shall I say?
0:22:07 > 0:22:12..put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like.
0:22:12 > 0:22:19That's why they go for rides on switchbacks and scream and scream and then get off giggling.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23He was called the Master of Suspense.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29He was really a master of these phobias.
0:22:29 > 0:22:34He was frightened of success, frightened of failure,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38frightened of...being hit by a car, frightened of illness.
0:22:38 > 0:22:40Frightened.
0:22:40 > 0:22:42Almost everything - heights,
0:22:42 > 0:22:48wide open spaces, claustrophobic spaces, all of these things -
0:22:48 > 0:22:54but the difference between HIS fears and other people's fears, HE could put it on film.
0:22:54 > 0:23:00In the film Spellbound, Hitchcock explores the world of a man who has lost his memory
0:23:00 > 0:23:04and suspects that he has committed a terrible crime.
0:23:04 > 0:23:12'Why, when he held his sweetheart in his arms, did he gaze in fear at the dark lines of her robe?'
0:23:12 > 0:23:18Hitchcock's insight into fear gave him a string of hits, made with Hollywood's brightest stars.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23Throughout the '40s, he was so successful in entertaining people,
0:23:23 > 0:23:30in creating films like Spellbound, first of three pictures with Ingrid Bergman.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34- I take it this is your first honeymoon?- Yes.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37I mean, it would be, if it were.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47I think that from the days of his working with Ingrid Bergman
0:23:47 > 0:23:52he was in the habit of falling in love with his leading ladies.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57Hitchcock loved having beautiful women under his control.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01I think he fantasised...
0:24:01 > 0:24:06sexual relations and even marital relations with them.
0:24:06 > 0:24:12Once again, Hitchcock's most secret desires were plain for all the world to see.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16I think it was during the making of Notorious,
0:24:16 > 0:24:20great film, great towering achievement -
0:24:20 > 0:24:25Bergman at her best, Cary Grant at his best and Hitch at his best -
0:24:25 > 0:24:28and he said of Bergman,
0:24:28 > 0:24:34he said, "She threw herself across my bed. She wept. She wept."
0:24:34 > 0:24:38It was astonishing. I didn't know what to say.
0:24:38 > 0:24:46What you have to remember when you watch, for example, the famous kissing scene in Notorious,
0:24:46 > 0:24:50is that it has three characters, and Hitchcock said this to Truffaut.
0:24:50 > 0:24:56There's Cary Grant, there's Ingrid Bergman, probably Hitchcock's favourite actress,
0:24:56 > 0:25:02and Hitchcock, who's watching all of this and filming it from the off-space,
0:25:02 > 0:25:07and that's where we will join him as members of the audience.
0:25:07 > 0:25:15Grant was a kind of surrogate, if you will, for the man Hitchcock would have liked to be.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21I'm sorry to intrude on this tender scene.
0:25:21 > 0:25:27I...I knew her before you did, Doctor. I wasn't as lucky as you.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32He was off in a reverie, he just was gone, thinking about Ingrid Bergman.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35I guess he was in love with her.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Ingrid Bergman cut quite a swathe in her youth, you know, she was...
0:25:40 > 0:25:44Any number of internationally famous love affairs.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48She was often close to her directors, and why not Hitch?
0:25:48 > 0:25:52What is it, dear? What's wrong with you?
0:25:52 > 0:25:55They're poisoning me.
0:26:00 > 0:26:07With the success of Notorious, Hitchcock became one of Hollywood's most bankable directors.
0:26:08 > 0:26:13He ended up with a very good contract at Warner Brothers.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18And the first film made under that contract, beginning 1950,
0:26:18 > 0:26:23also marked the beginning of the greatest period of his career.
0:26:23 > 0:26:30In fact, he said to everybody on the set, the first day of shooting on Strangers On A Train,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34that his career was beginning today, nothing he had done before counted.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59Two fellas meet, like you and I, no connection between them.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04Each one has somebody that he'd like to get rid of,
0:27:04 > 0:27:07so they swap murders.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09'Fantastic, isn't it?
0:27:09 > 0:27:15'You didn't know when Bruno proposed this pact that he was serious, dead serious.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19'You had made the mistake of speaking to a stranger on a train
0:27:19 > 0:27:25'and now wherever you go, you find yourself dominated by his evil presence.'
0:27:25 > 0:27:30Well, everybody knows what happened next - he made some of the best movies ever made.
0:27:30 > 0:27:38Strangers On A Train in a sense really was a new beginning, because he was running his own show.
0:27:38 > 0:27:44And he made other good films for Warner Brothers, but the real beginning is Paramount,
0:27:44 > 0:27:51because as soon as he went over to Paramount to make Rear Window, he found the ideal working situation
0:27:51 > 0:27:56and he proceeded to make an unbroken series of nine masterpieces.
0:27:56 > 0:28:03'This is the apartment of a man named Jeffries, a news photographer whose beat used to be the world.
0:28:03 > 0:28:10'Now, his world has shrunk down to the size of this window. He's been watching the people across the way.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14'Nobody seems to pull their blinds during a hot spell like this.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19'He knows a lot about them by now. Too much, perhaps.'
0:28:19 > 0:28:23I think the whole notion of Rear Window,
0:28:23 > 0:28:29where you have another kind of surrogate film director, a man with a camera lens,
0:28:29 > 0:28:33broken leg, can't move, in his apartment,
0:28:33 > 0:28:38looking out at apartments that are actually movie screens,
0:28:38 > 0:28:44looking at lots of different screens, seeing lots of different stories going on
0:28:44 > 0:28:51and the way in which they come together. Just, em... just extraordinarily beautiful.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56'For instance, down there on the second floor, the woman pacing about.
0:28:56 > 0:29:02'He calls her Miss Lonely Hearts. So lonely that even death seems like a friend.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07'This is the travelling salesman and his invalid wife.
0:29:07 > 0:29:12'Out of their arguments and nagging comes a weird kind of love.
0:29:12 > 0:29:18'Miss Torso, the body beautiful - viewed from a safe distance!'
0:29:18 > 0:29:20Just a few of my neighbours.
0:29:20 > 0:29:28I watched them just to kill time, then I couldn't take my eyes off them, just as YOU won't be able to.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Alfred Hitchcock, you have said
0:29:31 > 0:29:35the secret of making a quality suspense motion picture
0:29:35 > 0:29:39is to put an average man in bizarre situations,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43to threaten the audience that "this could happen to you".
0:29:43 > 0:29:49- This seems an oversimplification, but is it what you still try to do? - Actually...
0:29:49 > 0:29:54the central figure, who is, shall we say...
0:29:54 > 0:29:57being attacked or on the run,
0:29:57 > 0:29:59if he's a familiar figure -
0:29:59 > 0:30:04average man - and also a familiar star,
0:30:04 > 0:30:08the...story values are increased accordingly.
0:30:08 > 0:30:13Everyone uses the label Master of Suspense for Hitchcock,
0:30:13 > 0:30:19and clearly that's inadequate to him because he wasn't just a maker of thrillers.
0:30:19 > 0:30:23And I think he got irritated with the term.
0:30:23 > 0:30:29And yet, it does represent something quite profound about Hitchcock.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Hitch had a wonderful definition of suspense.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37He defined it as a contrast to shock.
0:30:37 > 0:30:44The story he told was that a group of men are sitting round a table having a board meeting
0:30:44 > 0:30:49and in the midst of the meeting a bomb explodes.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53And the audience will get five seconds of shock.
0:30:53 > 0:30:59But if we tell them five minutes ahead of time a bomb will go off...
0:30:59 > 0:31:04And we cut away to underneath a cabinet...
0:31:04 > 0:31:10and we see a clock strapped to several sticks of dynamite and the hands are ticking...
0:31:10 > 0:31:14Then we get five minutes of suspense.
0:31:14 > 0:31:21We didn't have suspense before, because the audience were in ignorance.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25'Vertigo, a feeling of dizziness, a swimming in the head,
0:31:25 > 0:31:31'figuratively a state in which all things seem to be engulfed in a whirlpool of terror,
0:31:31 > 0:31:37'as created by Alfred Hitchcock in the story that gives new meaning to the word suspense.'
0:31:45 > 0:31:47I don't wanna die.
0:31:47 > 0:31:52In Vertigo, James Stewart doesn't know the identity of the woman,
0:31:52 > 0:31:57so for a long time we're in suspense about whether he will find out
0:31:57 > 0:32:00and what he will do when he does find out.
0:32:00 > 0:32:06'What strange attraction brought these two together in spite of the dark forces that tore them apart?'
0:32:08 > 0:32:14The passage in Vertigo early on, in which, in this beautiful city, San Francisco,
0:32:14 > 0:32:21James Stewart follows the Kim Novak character, it's nearly silent cinema.
0:32:21 > 0:32:27I think that that is an absolute model of visual storytelling,
0:32:27 > 0:32:31steadily building suspense,
0:32:31 > 0:32:37and making us more and more fascinated with the Novak figure,
0:32:37 > 0:32:42as the Stewart character is becoming fascinated with her.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46I think that is just sublime film-making.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09In stark contrast to his on-screen alter-egos,
0:33:09 > 0:33:14Hitchcock's private life was apparently happy and contented.
0:33:14 > 0:33:19To rest from work they actually did very little.
0:33:19 > 0:33:21He read a lot.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24I was very close to my mother
0:33:24 > 0:33:30and we would go out together and do various things, go to the movies a lot.
0:33:32 > 0:33:37I have a friend who managed a cinema here in Los Angeles
0:33:37 > 0:33:41and said they used to come in and watch movies together all the time.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46They were real film buffs. They loved what they did.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51And she created a secure haven for him.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58It seems they had a very tranquil and very well-adjusted family life,
0:33:58 > 0:34:06an orthodox bourgeois family life centred on the kitchen and centred on the day's work.
0:34:06 > 0:34:11I would go over and visit my father on the set, my mother would take me over.
0:34:11 > 0:34:17It was just a normal thing for me, because that's where my father worked.
0:34:17 > 0:34:23Other children would go to visit their fathers in the office, I would go on the set.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Your new film is called Psycho. Can you tell me something about it?
0:34:31 > 0:34:36Well, Psycho is my first attempt at a shocker.
0:34:36 > 0:34:42In other words, it has in its content certain episodes which do shock.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46In some sense, it could be called a horror film,
0:34:46 > 0:34:52but the horror only comes to you after you've seen it, when you get home.
0:35:03 > 0:35:08When I first saw Psycho, I was kind of disappointed.
0:35:08 > 0:35:14"Well, it's a film with three great moments and nothing much else."
0:35:14 > 0:35:19I saw it again six months later, and I realised I'd missed an awful lot.
0:35:19 > 0:35:26The three great moments had so overwhelmed my memory of the film that I'd forgotten all the subtlety.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28It's a wonderful movie, Psycho.
0:35:28 > 0:35:36The content as such was, I felt, rather amusing and it was... it was a big joke, you know?
0:35:36 > 0:35:41And I was horrified to find that some people took it seriously.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45It was intended to cause people to scream,
0:35:45 > 0:35:49but no more than the screaming on the switchback railway.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55He preferred his English films, because Americans didn't understand his sense of humour
0:35:55 > 0:36:01and he was not often allowed to do here what he had done in England.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05I think that Psycho was the perfect counter-example of that,
0:36:05 > 0:36:11because I think it is him through and through with no compromises.
0:36:11 > 0:36:16He made it for a very low budget over everybody else's dead body.
0:36:16 > 0:36:22It was the film he wanted to see, and it turned out that the world wanted to see it too.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30He loved to do trailers, handmade trailers.
0:36:30 > 0:36:38There's a very funny one for Psycho, where he sort of gives you a brief conducted tour of the motel.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Good afternoon.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46Here we have a quiet little motel.
0:36:46 > 0:36:52And in this house, the most dire, horrible events took place.
0:36:52 > 0:36:57It's difficult to describe the way the...twisting of the...the...
0:36:57 > 0:36:59Well, I... It's...
0:36:59 > 0:37:04Well, the murderer, you see, crept in here very slowly.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09Of course, the shower was on. There was no sound.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11And...
0:37:27 > 0:37:30When Psycho opened,
0:37:30 > 0:37:36all over the world, there were life-sized cardboard cut-out figures of Hitchcock
0:37:36 > 0:37:42in the lobbies of theatres saying, "You can't come in after it's started," which...
0:37:42 > 0:37:44Unheard of discipline.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48And that was strictly enforced.
0:37:48 > 0:37:53As you will have seen, murder seems to be the prominent theme.
0:37:53 > 0:37:59As I do not approve of the current wave of violence that we see on our screens,
0:37:59 > 0:38:04I have always felt that murder should be treated delicately.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06And, with the help of television,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11murder should be brought into the home, where it rightly belongs.
0:38:11 > 0:38:17In 1955, his television series - Alfred Hitchcock Presents - began in America.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22It became one of the most popular television series ever made.
0:38:22 > 0:38:28Very popular TV show in which he appeared at the beginning and the end of the show,
0:38:28 > 0:38:34in often very funny introductions and end comments.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36Good evening.
0:38:36 > 0:38:43Of late, I have grown weary of being a sex symbol and have decided to return to television.
0:38:43 > 0:38:50I remind you that, before I posed for that famous photograph in the centrefold of THAT magazine,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54I was known as a man of mystery and suspense.
0:38:54 > 0:39:00To re-establish my reputation as a man of intrigue, join me as I bring you this story.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04Notice that I do so while fully clothed.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09We know from his TV show that he was very good at making fun of himself.
0:39:09 > 0:39:14In fact, I've heard it said that only someone of Irish descent
0:39:14 > 0:39:22could be so successful throughout his career at sending up the idea of the pompous Englishman.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24It's all a matter of one's attitude.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28As you know, this is part of a series.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32I have three other towels just like it.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35It made HIM...
0:39:35 > 0:39:37a figure.
0:39:37 > 0:39:44The point I wish to prove is that you will be caught up in the frightening mood of this tale
0:39:44 > 0:39:49despite its introduction by such a jovial, cheerful person as myself.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53He actually didn't become really, you know...
0:39:53 > 0:39:58that well known until after the television series.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00Then he couldn't go anywhere.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03Loosen your girdle
0:40:03 > 0:40:08and flee with me to the marvellous, magic world of commercials.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12Who knows? We may also see a story.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14Everyone recognised him.
0:40:14 > 0:40:22Now, of course, all along he had had this little trick of a tiny appearance in his own films.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27'Don't forget this man. He has plenty to do with the terrifying mystery
0:40:27 > 0:40:31'that causes this glamorous woman to risk her life and reputation.'
0:40:31 > 0:40:37And, of course, it made him... it made him an internationally known figure.
0:40:37 > 0:40:43And that's a part of why Hitchcock is so well known, that we know what he looked like.
0:40:43 > 0:40:49A lot of people couldn't tell you what John Ford looked like, what Howard Hawkes looked like.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51We know what Hitchcock looked like.
0:40:51 > 0:40:57Your television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents... I know you didn't direct all those films,
0:40:57 > 0:41:04but is the technique that you adopt there basically the same as you use for the cinema or quite different?
0:41:04 > 0:41:06No.
0:41:06 > 0:41:13The economics alone...demand completely different handling... of the medium.
0:41:13 > 0:41:18In other words, television on film is a much...
0:41:18 > 0:41:20um...shall we say...
0:41:20 > 0:41:24faster operation than the feature film?
0:41:24 > 0:41:30In the feature film, we get about a minute and a half cut film a day.
0:41:30 > 0:41:37In television we get nine minutes. Just totally different thing altogether.
0:41:37 > 0:41:43Whilst producing his TV series, Hitchcock made the film North By Northwest
0:41:43 > 0:41:49in which Cary Grant plays a man who is mistaken for a secret agent and then pursued across America.
0:41:55 > 0:41:57I'm an advertising man.
0:41:57 > 0:42:04I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders dependent upon me.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting slightly killed.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11It was interesting because I was curious how, you know...
0:42:11 > 0:42:16I didn't read for it, and I was cast in this role.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19It's a scene where I get punched.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23Just before the take, Hitchcock says to the assistant...
0:42:23 > 0:42:29AS HITCHCOCK: "Tell me, does Landau work tomorrow and the next day?"
0:42:29 > 0:42:35And the assistant director said, "Why, Mr Hitchcock? Why?"
0:42:35 > 0:42:40And he said, "Because in this take I'd like James to really hit him.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44"I'd like his jaw to come apart.
0:42:44 > 0:42:50"There's no way to manufacture that excepting with a real blow."
0:42:53 > 0:42:59You have to put it, though, in the context of a film set where practical jokes are not uncommon.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03His did, by all reports, reach a level of cruelty
0:43:03 > 0:43:08that does make you wonder what was going on in his mind.
0:43:08 > 0:43:15Handcuffing an actor to something and then feeding him laxatives and then going away, that's grotesque.
0:43:15 > 0:43:22You once told me that actors were cattle to be shoved about. I wonder if you'd care to enlarge on that?
0:43:22 > 0:43:27- You mean, you want to make them larger cattle than they are?- No, no.
0:43:27 > 0:43:32Well, I don't... That's really a joke. But...
0:43:32 > 0:43:34they're children, you know.
0:43:34 > 0:43:41And...invariably the problem one always has with actors is coping with their ego.
0:43:41 > 0:43:46But they have to have the ego and they have to be ultra-sensitive,
0:43:46 > 0:43:51otherwise they wouldn't be able to do what is asked of them.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57I think he was probably an easy man to work for so long as you knew what you were doing and did it.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01But I don't think he'd be a man who'd suffer fools gladly.
0:44:01 > 0:44:09I don't think anybody who was gonna shirk the job lasted the whole length of a Hitchcock shoot,
0:44:09 > 0:44:13because... Yeah, he probably would be a tough man to work for.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17The only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.
0:44:17 > 0:44:23You appear in your own films, Mr Hitchcock. Have you ever been tempted to become an actor?
0:44:23 > 0:44:25Nothing so low as that.
0:44:25 > 0:44:30He did pick on one actor quite a bit and one wondered why.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35But he was the powerful Hitchcock and let everyone know it on the set,
0:44:35 > 0:44:40and he demanded the ultimate, anything... He demanded SO much from actors.
0:44:40 > 0:44:47If one had had a big part, I don't know how I'd have reacted at that age. I think I'd have folded -
0:44:47 > 0:44:50the great man shouting at me!
0:44:50 > 0:44:56It's the difficulty of stars, they want to be writers today, you know, they want to be producers.
0:44:56 > 0:45:03They won't stick, like any decent cobbler would, to their last, you know.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06He WAS intimidating, but...
0:45:06 > 0:45:09you weren't afraid of him.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12I never saw...
0:45:12 > 0:45:14Hitch really...
0:45:15 > 0:45:20..doing that much with actors. Again, it was trust.
0:45:20 > 0:45:25MARTIN LANDAU: I used to feel left out. In the auction gallery scene,
0:45:25 > 0:45:30Cary Grant, James Mason, Eva Marie and I are all in this.
0:45:30 > 0:45:36He whispered something to every one of the actors but me. I felt left out.
0:45:36 > 0:45:41Coming from the theatre, you know, the director tells you something.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45I walked over to him and I said, "Is there anything you wanna tell me?"
0:45:45 > 0:45:50He said, "Martin, I'll only tell you if I don't like what you're doing."
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Sometimes one gets a little...
0:45:52 > 0:45:57gets into little difficulties with the American people,
0:45:57 > 0:46:03they want everything spelled out, you know, exactly
0:46:03 > 0:46:05and they worry about content.
0:46:05 > 0:46:10I don't care about content. The film can be about anything you like,
0:46:10 > 0:46:17so long as I'm making that audience react in a certain way to whatever I put on the screen.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20Hitch was nominated for director
0:46:20 > 0:46:25FIVE times during his Hollywood career. He NEVER won.
0:46:25 > 0:46:30It does show how far, in his great days,
0:46:30 > 0:46:35Hollywood thought of him as just an entertainer.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38This seems impossible. Why didn't he win?
0:46:38 > 0:46:43He was simply too entertaining and too successful.
0:46:43 > 0:46:49The power of cinema in its purest form is so vast because it can go over the whole world.
0:46:49 > 0:46:56On a given night, a film can play in Tokyo, West Berlin, London, New York,
0:46:56 > 0:47:03and the same audience is responding emotionally to the same things.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08Despite all his successes, Hitchcock was still deeply insecure
0:47:08 > 0:47:11and re-invented himself on the silver screen.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15Directors often live out their fantasies on film.
0:47:15 > 0:47:20Hitchcock's inner life had a great deal of erotic turmoil in it.
0:47:20 > 0:47:25I don't see how one could disagree with that or see it differently.
0:47:25 > 0:47:30The women were beautiful, elusive and untouchable
0:47:30 > 0:47:36until some wonderful fellow came along and then that all changed.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40That wonderful fellow was usually Cary Grant.
0:47:41 > 0:47:46It was Hitchcock's personal burden not to look anything like Cary Grant.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50'..Cary romanced by the kind of blonde that gets into a man's blood.'
0:47:50 > 0:47:56He seems to have used Cary Grant as his wish-fulfilment alter-ego
0:47:56 > 0:48:00and James Stewart as his more realistic alter-ego.
0:48:00 > 0:48:05I watched them to kill time, then I couldn't take my eyes of them.
0:48:05 > 0:48:11After all, James Stewart has a broken leg in Rear Window and has vertigo in Vertigo.
0:48:14 > 0:48:17So he's sort of crippled in both,
0:48:17 > 0:48:22he has an enforced sedentary life in both, like Hitchcock's sedentary life,
0:48:22 > 0:48:25whereas Cary Grant is a charmer.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30- How do I know you aren't a murderer? - You don't.
0:48:30 > 0:48:36I think he was in love, in a way, with his leading ladies, and he probably lusted after them.
0:48:36 > 0:48:41He was infatuated with, you know, lots of women.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45There is, I think you'd agree, Mr Hitchcock, a Hitchcock woman -
0:48:45 > 0:48:53very tall, cool, iceberg outside and dampened-down fires within. But why is she always blonde?
0:48:53 > 0:48:58I think that's traditional. I think that dates back to Mary Pickford.
0:48:58 > 0:49:04If you remember, tradition of the cinema is that the hero was always a dark man
0:49:04 > 0:49:06and the heroine was always a blonde.
0:49:06 > 0:49:12I think it's the...simplification of identification really.
0:49:12 > 0:49:18There's no question that his leading ladies of recent years were all blonde ladies,
0:49:18 > 0:49:21even, you know...
0:49:21 > 0:49:25I mean, Kim Novak, in Vertigo.
0:49:27 > 0:49:31Grace Kelly. Grace was the ideal Hitchcock cool blonde.
0:49:31 > 0:49:36Hitch loved the disparity between appearance and reality.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41The cool, composed English blonde was a...
0:49:42 > 0:49:47..jumble of passions in Hitchcock's fantasy life.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52They're coming! They're coming!
0:49:53 > 0:49:59But in his next film, The Birds, Hitchcock's fantasies spilled over into reality -
0:49:59 > 0:50:02with starlet Tippi Hedren.
0:50:02 > 0:50:07He saw her on a commercial, I think it was a cigarette commercial, and he sent for her.
0:50:07 > 0:50:10This woman came in...
0:50:10 > 0:50:13and I saw that she was blonde.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17And...she was...had been a model.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22And she walked away from us and I said, "She's got the job."
0:50:24 > 0:50:29Cos she was the kind of person he would...he would be amenable to.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34Signed her to a seven-year contract before they even met.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37He set up all the mechanisms for it.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41And here was going to be his ultimate fantasy blonde.
0:50:41 > 0:50:46Then it became a kind of training process.
0:50:46 > 0:50:52- If I do what you tell me, will you love me?- Yes.
0:50:52 > 0:50:59An unfortunate thing happened however. He tried not just to guide her, but to possess her.
0:51:00 > 0:51:05So...to control whom she saw in her private time...
0:51:06 > 0:51:09..whom she was dating,
0:51:09 > 0:51:11what she wore away from the set.
0:51:11 > 0:51:16She wanted to go off to some charity event for a couple of days
0:51:16 > 0:51:22and she figured that it wouldn't make a great deal of difference to the filming schedule,
0:51:22 > 0:51:27and I don't think it would have. But Hitchcock wouldn't let her go.
0:51:27 > 0:51:35He said that if she went to this charity event, she would get out of the character.
0:51:35 > 0:51:42And this young woman, who was willing to do everything for the picture, drew a line.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54The way I describe the final indiscretion,
0:51:54 > 0:51:57the moment that destroyed everything,
0:51:57 > 0:52:02is that he made an overt sexual proposition to her.
0:52:02 > 0:52:08Many other actresses would go along with such a thing for the sake of their career.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Hollywood is well known for such instances.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16It was not in Tippi Hedren's character to do this.
0:52:16 > 0:52:22I mean, this was his frustration, that it was...
0:52:23 > 0:52:25..impossible.
0:52:25 > 0:52:32He HAD to choose a woman who could remain on a pedestal and deny him.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35It's psychology 101.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39Also he was very much in love with Alma.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43So this was... this was another part of his life,
0:52:43 > 0:52:47and one that I think all of us understood
0:52:47 > 0:52:50and to some degree respected,
0:52:50 > 0:52:53because of our understanding...
0:52:56 > 0:52:59..that life isn't always very simple.
0:52:59 > 0:53:05Once begun on this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.
0:53:06 > 0:53:13Already rejected by Tippi, Hitchcock also found himself out of touch with cinema audiences.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16He was well into his 60s then
0:53:16 > 0:53:22and he'd had nearly 40 years as a director, and that's a pretty good, long time.
0:53:22 > 0:53:29It's not surprising if he was getting tired at a time when many directors have retired
0:53:29 > 0:53:33and was feeling his age. His health was declining.
0:53:33 > 0:53:40And a younger generation was taking over in Hollywood and new directors coming through,
0:53:40 > 0:53:43and was he keeping up with the times?
0:53:43 > 0:53:49It's hard for me to look at myself and say I'm losing my edge.
0:53:49 > 0:53:55Why...I...I know that I couldn't do what these young art directors are doing today.
0:53:56 > 0:54:00He didn't seem to find it easy to find subjects
0:54:00 > 0:54:07and he didn't have Cary Grant and James Stewart working with him any more.
0:54:07 > 0:54:12It was odd, because his mind was still working.
0:54:12 > 0:54:16There was a kind of lag that occurred, and...
0:54:18 > 0:54:22..but he would sit there and come up with ideas.
0:54:22 > 0:54:27He did have one fine film left in him - Frenzy.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32It had an elegiac quality about it.
0:54:32 > 0:54:38I think one of the reasons he wanted to shoot that movie - he said this -
0:54:38 > 0:54:44was he wanted to shoot Covent Garden before the whole thing was gone.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48His father was a greengrocer, he knew that world.
0:54:48 > 0:54:52He wanted his cameras there to record it before it was gone.
0:54:55 > 0:55:01But after finishing Frenzy, Hitchcock's career and health went into decline.
0:55:04 > 0:55:10One has to acknowledge with sadness, one has to assess but not judge,
0:55:10 > 0:55:17the fact that Alfred Hitchcock's last years were not happy. They were not happy at all.
0:55:18 > 0:55:20He was never more friendless.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26To soothe his loneliness and his bitterness...
0:55:27 > 0:55:30..his fear of being forgotten
0:55:30 > 0:55:35and his dismay over his indiscretion in the Tippi Hedren episode,
0:55:35 > 0:55:39he became a tragically indulgent drinker.
0:55:39 > 0:55:45He was depressed. He was 78 and he was wearing out. He had awful arthritis in his knees.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50And he kept Cognac in the loo in his office,
0:55:50 > 0:55:55and he'd go there and knock back a few during the day.
0:55:56 > 0:56:02He was less and less able to function as he had always functioned.
0:56:02 > 0:56:06And we could see it closing down. And this was...
0:56:06 > 0:56:13There was a great sadness among those of us who worked with him, who still maintained his office.
0:56:15 > 0:56:22So it just kind of gradually faded away. It was too bad, but inevitable.
0:56:23 > 0:56:28Alfred Hitchcock's life was spinning out his fantasies.
0:56:28 > 0:56:33And when he could no longer do that physically, he died.
0:56:33 > 0:56:40On April 28th 1980, Alfred Hitchcock died of liver failure. He was 80 years old.
0:56:41 > 0:56:46Alfred Hitchcock was neither an angel nor a demon.
0:56:46 > 0:56:53The naive people who claim that he was a simple, sweet, shy, loving, generous, quiet man
0:56:53 > 0:57:01have a great burden of proof that this is the man who could give us Strangers On A Train, Psycho,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05not to mention a host of others - that's naive.
0:57:05 > 0:57:12And the people that say he was a monster are equally naive. He had a wide sadistic streak
0:57:12 > 0:57:19that was always at war with the most gentle, childish plea for love and acceptance.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22The little fat boy was ALWAYS that.
0:57:23 > 0:57:29Part of his strategy in his public image seems to have been to be unknowable.
0:57:29 > 0:57:35I think the answer is - we know him through his films.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37He was a storyteller.
0:57:37 > 0:57:43And...I don't think storytellers ever really die.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48You do see yourself as a kind of switchback railway operator?
0:57:48 > 0:57:50Well, I'm possibly in some respects
0:57:50 > 0:57:54the man who says, in constructing it,
0:57:54 > 0:57:58"How steep can we make the first dip?"
0:57:58 > 0:58:01and, "This'll make them scream."
0:58:01 > 0:58:04If you make the dip too deep,
0:58:04 > 0:58:11the screams will continue as the whole car goes over the edge and destroys everyone.
0:58:11 > 0:58:19You mustn't go too far, because you want them to get off the switchback railway giggling with pleasure.
0:58:31 > 0:58:35Subtitles by Audrey Flynn BBC Broadcast - 2003
0:58:35 > 0:58:38E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk