When you think of Alfred Hitchcock, what titles come to mind? “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “Psycho,” and “The Birds” are among the director’s best-known dark films. This British-born director made his mark in Hollywood starting in 1940 with intriguing films which earned him the title of master of suspense. However, many of the films he made before the mid-1950s have been largely forgotten.
While his better-known films tend to be more violent, Hitchcock’s earlier works are better examples of his masterful techniques to build suspense. Gory movies about psychotic stabbings and monstrous avian attacks lack the subtlety and implication which the word suspense conveys. A true suspense film focuses more on mystery and mounting tension than onscreen violence, leaving the true crime to take place in the viewer’s mind.
