British Hitchcock
11 Episodes
Before he took Hollywood by storm, Alfred Hitchcock was already renowned as a master stylist and storyteller in his native Britain, where he was perhaps the leading director of the late silent and early sound eras. Strongly influenced by German Expressionism, Hitchcock’s silent films are triumphs of visual invention, pushing the medium to new expressive heights in works like THE LODGER, his atmospheric take on the Jack the Ripper tale. With the coming of sound, Hitchcock kicked off a run of early masterpieces including the train-set mystery THE LADY VANISHES and the underrated nail-biter SABOTAGE. Foreshadowing many of the themes and tropes he would rework obsessively throughout his American career, Hitchcock’s British films display the keen psychological insight, dazzling stylistic innovation, dark wit, and virtuoso set-pieces that would earn him the moniker “the Master of Suspense.”
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01:18Episode 1
British Hitchcock Teaser
Episode 1
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1:30:22Episode 2
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Episode 2
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1927 • United Kingdom
Starring Ivor Novello, June TrippWith his third feature film, THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG, Alfred Hitchcock took a major step toward greatness and made what he would come to consider his true directorial debut. This haunting sile...
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Downhill
Episode 3
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1927 • United Kingdom
Starring Ivor Novello, Ben Webster, Norman McKinnelThat’s the direction things go for boarding-school student and star rugby player Roddy Berwick (celebrated songwriter and matinee idol Ivor Novello) when he falls from golden boy to public di...
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Blackmail
Episode 4
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1929 • United Kindgom
Starring Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John LongdenAlfred Hitchcock’s—and Britain’s—first talkie finds the director using sound technology as inventively as he used the camera. Anny Ondra (prototype for the many Hitchcock blondes to come) play...
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Murder!
Episode 5
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1930 • United Kingdom
Starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Phyllis KonstamOne of Alfred Hitchcock’s signature obsessions—the “wrong man” motif he would return to time and again—receives one of its earliest treatments in this innovative whodunit. After a you...
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1:23:15Episode 6
Rich and Strange
Episode 6
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1931 • United Kingdom
Starring Henry Kendall, Joan BarryTaking its all-too-appropriate title from “The Tempest,” this fascinatingly offbeat satiric drama concerns a stuck-in-a-rut young couple who, upon coming into a generous inheritance, immediately use the mo...
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1:16:04Episode 7
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Episode 7
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1934 • United Kingdom
Starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, Edna BestAn ordinary British couple vacationing in Switzerland suddenly find themselves embroiled in a case of international intrigue when their daughter is kidnapped by spies plotting a political assassina...
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1:27:06Episode 8
The 39 Steps
Episode 8
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1935 • United Kingdom
Starring Robert Donat, Madeline Carroll, Lucie MannheimA heart-racing spy story by Alfred Hitchcock, THE 39 STEPS follows Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) as he stumbles upon a conspiracy that thrusts him into a hectic chase across the Scottish ...
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Sabotage
Episode 9
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1936 • United Kingdom
Starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, John LoderThis loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel “The Secret Agent” is one of the high-water marks of Alfred Hitchcock’s early British period. Sylvia Sidney is the unsuspecting wife of a London c...
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1:23:32Episode 10
Young and Innocent
Episode 10
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1937 • United Kingdom
Starring Derrick De Marney, Nova Pilbeam, Percy MarmontAlfred Hitchcock’s delightfully entertaining, often overlooked tale of a wrongly accused man follows a young writer (Derrick De Marney) who, when he becomes the prime suspect in the murde...
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1:36:21Episode 11
The Lady Vanishes
Episode 11
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1938 • United Kingdom
Starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul LukasIn Alfred Hitchcock’s most quick-witted and devilish comic thriller, the beautiful Margaret Lockwood, traveling across Europe by train, meets a charming spinster (Dame May Whitty), who t...