5 Britain’s Great Director

Chapter 4 Britain's Great Director In an important scene from Blackmail, a young girl joins her family for breakfast. Then a neighbor arrives to gossip about a terrible murder that happened the night before. The girl is the killer, but no one suspects this. As the neighbor chatters on, her voice becomes more and more distorted except when she repeats the word KNIFE. That single word is repeated over and over, loud and clear. This creative use of sound forced the audience

to feel what the girl was feeling. They understood her horror and shame at what she had done. Once again Alfred Hitchcock was demonstrating new and exciting ways of making movies. He used sound as creatively as he had used camera angles and visual details in his previous films. Blackmail was a hit. Hitch's home life was happy. Patricia was bright and funny. Alma, whom he called "Madam," was his best friend and favorite professional partner. He trusted her opinion above anyone else's. Alma also helped write many of his scripts. In 1934, Michael Balcon again found a perfect script for the great director. The Man Who Knew Too Much was the story of a couple on vacation whose child is kidnapped when they're mistaken for spies. It was a huge hit in England. Hitch followed it with other exciting movies: The 39 Steps, Secret Agent—the story of a British spy—and Sabotage, in which a young wife comes to realize her husband is a terrorist. All these films portray characters who have been

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wrongly accused and who are in danger. Hitchcock loved to make audiences wonder what was going to happen next and who the real villain was. Pat Hitchcock was also getting interested in her famous father's work. By the time she was eight, she wanted to be an actress. At her boarding school she was cast in the school play. Another film director, Alexander Korda, actually offered her a movie contract as a joke on her father, who was his rival. Although she was away

at boarding school in Sussex, Pat saw her parents a lot. On weekends they visited the school or brought her home to Shamley Green. Pat loved listening to her father's jokes and impressions of the actors he worked with. And young Pat was Hitch's favorite audience. By this time, Hitchcock's movies were big hits both at home in England and in the United States. But Hitch had never been to America. In 1937, he, Alma, and Pat arrived in New York City.

He was already famous for his hit movies, and the press in New York couldn't get enough of the larger-than-life Hitchcock. In person he was very funny and very large. One night he went to the 21 Club and ate three steak dinners and three ice cream sundaes in one sitting. The press reported every bite.