American Film Studies

Alfred Hitchcock (b.1899) is responsible for some of the most influential films in cinema history. He directed over 50 feature films throughout his career (11 in the 1950s) as well as hosting and directing the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61). He peaked in the fifties, when he hit his own fifties. Instead of a mid-life crisis he had his most productive period ever and received the official title of the "Master of Suspense”. Just before this he had hit the buffers from 1947 to 1951 with one failure after another but turned things around when he went to Warner Brothers for Strangers on a Train (1951) and then, fortuitously, to Paramount for a golden run of hits from Rear Window (1954) to Psycho (1960). The French declared him an auteur—an artist. The fifties are his late, mature period and these are his most personal and revealing films. Vertigo (1958) was his autobiography.