Sir Hitchcock's Birthday

On August 13, 1899 (by the way, it was Friday) in Laytonstone, a suburb of London, in the Catholic family of grocer William Hitchcock and his wife Emma Jane Whelan, a third child was born, a boy named Alfred Joseph.

Alfred Hitchcock during an interview with CBC television, 1964

All of Alfred's education included 4 years of Jesuit college plus a year of attending lectures on navigation at the University of London.

Rear Window. 1954. Rating - 8,624. 270th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

Overweight often plays a negative role in the lives and destinies of many people. But in the case of Hitchcock, it is exactly the opposite: thanks to his excess weight, acquired already in his youth, young Hitchcock was released from military service, the time of which coincided with the First World War. Thanks to his good drawing skills, Alfred Hitchcock got a job at the age of 17 in the advertising department of the Henley Telegraph Company.

Vertigo. 1958. Rating - 8,555. 300th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

The distance from advertising to cinema is not very long. So Hitchcock, at the age of 21, gets a job as a title designer for the film company Famous Players-Lasky. A year later, he makes his first attempts to make a film, first a short one. At the age of 26, Alfred Hitchcock directed his first full-length, but still silent, film, "The Pleasure Garden".

North by Northwest. 1959. Rating - 8,552. 302nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In 1929, Alfred Hitchcock made the first full-length sound feature film "Blackmail" in his filmography and in British cinema in general.

Psycho. 1960. Rating - 8,400. 361st Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In 1939, in connection with the outbreak of World War II, Alfred Hitchcock with his wife Alma Reville and daughter Patricia moved to the United States. In 1955 he was granted American citizenship.

Dial M for Murder. 1954. Rating - 8,174. 498th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

For 55 years of his film career, Hitchcock has shot 55 full-length feature films, that is, an average of one film a year. For his contribution to cinema, he, a simple greengrocer's son, was knighted shortly before his death by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.

Rebecca. 1940. Rating - 8,173. 499th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

11 films out of 55, shot by Hitchcock, entered the Golden Thousand. Thanks to this indicator, Sir Alfred Hitchcock is included in the list of the 100 greatest filmmakers compiled by FilmGourmand, and is in 6th place on this list.

Rope. 1948. Rating - 7,995. 713th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In 1999, 19 years after the death of the great filmmaker, Roger Ebert wrote in an article dedicated to his memory: "Hitchcock ... remains not only the Master of Suspense but a grandmaster of the cinema, whose films are so distinctive that anyone familiar with his work can spot one after just a few shots."