Alfred Hitchcock directed some absolutely incredible thrillers over his Hollywood career. And two of his very best, which are among the greatest films ever made, are on TV this weekend. It’s simply outrageous to think that the Master of Suspense never won an Oscar.
North By Northwest (1959)
When Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay, he intended it to be “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.” A spy thriller of mistaken identity, Cary Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, an innocent man pursued across the US by agents of a mysterious organisation. The classic movie, widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, was nominated for three Academy Awards. It also saw Hitchcock honoured with the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastián Film Festival. During filming, Grant was confused by the script’s plot and complained to Hitchcock. The director was amused by Grant’s frustration and felt it only added to his character’s bewilderment. The movie famously concluded with the main characters hanging off Mount Rushmore.
Vertigo (1958)
Considered one of the greatest films of all time, Hitchcock’s magnum opus topped Citizen Kane as the best ever in a 2012 Sight and Sound poll. Vertigo is a psychological thriller starring James Stewart as a former San Francisco police detective who is recently retired. He left the force after an incident on the job which caused him to develop vertigo. But now he’s been hired as a private investigator to report on the strange behaviour of a man’s wife played by Kim Novak. The 1958 film is particularly iconic because it was the first movie to use the dolly zoom, which is an in-camera effect that distorts and undermines regular visual perception. In Vertigo, the dolly zoom is used to convey Stewart’s character’s acrophobia, the extreme fear of heights. The Hitchcock shot would later be used by Steven Spielberg for the iconic Get Out Of The Water scene in Jaws.
North by Northwest is on BBC Two this Saturday afternoon at 2:15pm followed by Vertigo at 4:25pm and both will be streaming on BBC iPlayer for a limited time afterwards.
