12 Interesting Facts About The Famous Director Alfred Hitchcock

Often referred to as “The Master of Suspense,” Alfred Hitchcock, with a career spanning for half a century, is renowned as England’s best director.

1. When he received Irvin Thalberg Memorial Award at the Oscars in 1967 he just said “Thank You”, shortest speech ever in the history of Oscars.
2. He was turned down by almost all the major motion picture studios because they thought he wouldn’t be able to direct Hollywood style movie. Ironically his first Hollywood movie “Rebecca” in 1940 won him Best Picture Oscar Award.
3. The final scenes of the movie “Foreign Correspondent” in 1940 was hurriedly set in a London radio station because Hitchcock got the news that Germans were going to bomb at any time. The shooting completed on July 5, 1940 and the bombings by Germans started on July 10, 1940.
4. His daughter Patricia Hitchcock had appeared in three of his movies namely, “Stage Fright” in 1950, “Strangers on a Train” in 1951 and “Psycho” in 1960.
5. He completed the movie “The Paradine Case” in record 92 days. The completed film ran for almost 3 hours and it was a box office failure.
6. His habit during any movie set after having a tea, was to toss the cup and saucer over his shoulder to fall anywhere and break, irrespective of where he was seated.
7. He was completely against casting the lead stars Gregory Peck, Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan in the movie “The Paradine Case” as he thought they were not suitable for the role. Producer Selznick asserted his power and made him use them.
8. He liked the idea of bringing menace to a small town and that is why “Shadow of the Doubt” directed by him in 1943 is his favorite movie.
9. “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” in 1940 was the only screwball comedy made by Hitchcock. Carole Lombard talked him into directing the movie.
10. Producer Selznick was not happy with Hitchcock’s directing methods on the sets of “Rebecca”. He asked his wife to look at some of the footage, questioning his own judgment of hiring Hitchcock. However she assured him that the movie was excellent.
11. He found it very difficult to work on the sets of “Rebecca” because the cast and crew consisted of large number of British personal and United Kingdom had entered the World War II few days before the shoot began.
12. Hitchcock made a cameo appearance in his movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” halfway into it. He was made to do many retakes by Lombard who directed the cameo.