2. His Life
Born in London on August 13, 1899,
Alfred Hitchcock worked for a short
time in engineering before entering
the film industry in 1920. He left for
Hollywood in 1939, where his first
American film, Rebecca, won an
Academy Award for best picture.
Hitchcock created more than 50 films,
including the classics Rear Window, The
39 Steps and Psycho. Nicknamed the
"Master of Suspense," Hitchcock
received the AFI's Life Achievement
Award in 1979. He died in 1980.
3. His Hits
• Alfred Hitchcock produced and directed many hits
in his time. His most famous was undoubtedly
‘psycho’ however, ‘the birds’ and ‘the 39 steps’ are
close in the running.
• psycho was somewhat controversial due to the
scary and apparently risqué shower scene. Upon
the release the film was slated for apparently
showing some of the woman breast in the shower.
FUN FACT:
Psycho was the first American
film to feature a flushing toilet.
4.
5. how psycho fits with your
regular thriller conventions
• Throughout the duration of the film psycho there is a
tense and dramatic strings score. Whilst Hitchcock initially
intended the music score to be more jazz styled the film
ended up only using strings.
• There is a major plot twist in psycho, another common
thriller convention, where you believe it is the mother
killing everybody when it is the son who is pretending to
be his mother all along.
• The stolen money is a key piece of iconography as it is
used throughout the whole film but it is also a red herring
as in the grand scheme of the plot the money is pretty
irrelevant.
