I had no idea there was anything like this out there. But here we are - and the year could not be any later than 1930, maybe as early as 1929 - and here’s young Alfred Hitchcock, certainly no more than 30 in this clip, hectoring one of his leading actresses (Anny Ondra of Blackmail) into submission with humorous sexual innuendo, just like his nasty-minded biographers accuse him of doing.
Eternal gratitude to David Cairns of Shadowplay for discovering this clip.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Young Alfred
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6 comments:
Whoa, that is really cool!
Trauffaut talks about this in his hitchcock interview book! Hilarious!
Wow! What a great find!
Coincidentally, this past weekend the BBC broadcast a new documentary about Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood films as well as repeating the two-part "Reputations" doc.
Both of them included this clip.
I love how "clear-ly" everyone talks in early sound stuff, the pressure was on to be understood above the hiss and noise of the camera, etc. Hithcock seems to be making fun of the whole idea with his pronunciation. You can see it in the early talkies in Hollywood too, some actors get really stuck in it... pro..noun..cing... each syllable, while the newcomer ultra-fast talkers like Babs Stanwyck run roughshod over them
This is featured in Brownlow's Cinema Europe which is well worth checking out.
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