From The Editor – The Alfred Hitchcock Collection

Hi folks! Touching base from Fernby HQ today, to let you know of a major project we’re undertaking here at the site!

Commencing tomorrow, we’re going to start our ongoing series of reviews for the entire catalog of Alfred Hitchcock movies, beginning with his early silent films of the 20’s and 30’s, right through to his American output, concluding with 1976’s Family Plot. Hitchcock’s output was vast and varied, although he’s now best known for his thrilling crime films – Psycho, Vertigo, Rope, The 39 Steps and many more – but we’ll be taking the time to cover them all.

Hitchcock’s first “official” film was 1925’s The Pleasure Garden (which is as raunchy as it sounds!), although prior to that film’s release in Germany, two other films were shot (or almost completed) – his first, No 13, was unfinished (only a few shots had been completed before the budget disintegrated and the film was abandoned), and the second, The Mountain Eagle (1926), remains amongst the British Film Institute’s most sought after missing films. We’ve broken our project up into two distinct categories: Hitch’s British films, ie films he released in the UK before they went to America, and his Hollywood output, where his most commercially successful material originated. The British catalog consists of 24 films, while there are 28 official Hollywood movies.

Now, this project will take us a while, since we have to locate copies of each of the various films’ in the catalog (and the older ones are harder to locate here in Australia!), but eventually we’ll have covered off on all the great director’s works. Our aim is to remain as chronologically faithful as possible, however as time progresses this may prove difficult as we source each film from wherever we can. Thankfully, a large amount of Hitch’s early stuff is our on DVD and BluRay in collections available through Amazon and whatnot. Tomorrow, however, we kick things off with a bang, as we take a look at Hitchcock’s 1927 masterpiece, The Lodger: A Story Of The London Fog, his second “official” silent film, and perhaps one of his best. That’s tomorrow, right here. Wednesday next week we take a step back and look at his earliest silent film, The Pleasure Garden, released in Germany in 1925 (and only released in the UK in 1927, after The Lodger became a mammoth hit!). We’ll throw in a Hitchcock film review here and there over the months to come, so keep an eye out for them as we work through the list.

You can keep up to date with our work so far by clicking onto our Hitchcock portal page, in the sidebar to the right. Until then, keep reading our stuff!!!

Rodney T, EIC fernbyfilms.com

Who wrote this?

Rodney Twelftree

“Some people say I like films. Those people are wrong. I *love* films.” – Me. I said this.

Rodney has been writing about films for well over two decades, appreciates a good wine, the love of his wife and kids, and the affection of his dog and cats. He has a fondness of cheesy 90’s action and classic Hollywood, hates that physical media is disappearing, and wishes somebody would make a high-budget series of The Neverending Story.

See author's posts