But as a major talent in a new industry with plenty of opportunity, he rose quickly. His first important film, "The Lodger" was released in 1926. In it, an attractive blonde is murdered, and the new lodger in a nearby apartment falls under heavy suspicion. He is, in fact, innocent of the crime.
Hitchcock's films tend to feature innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or even understanding; a common theme of his movies is that these characters are guilty, but only of minor, unrelated failings.
He also enjoys making voyeurs of his "respectable" audience, further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
Hitchcock was a lonely, imaginative, obese child, a Catholic boy who used to give his mother the day's confession every night. His films are full of difficult or troubling mother figures. He was in his mid-20's, and a professional film director, before he'd ever drunk alcohol or been on a date with a girl.
His heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem at first to be proper but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal, perhaps criminal way. As noted, the famous victim in "The Lodger" is a blonde. In "The 39 Steps" Hitchcock put his glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, in handcuffs. In "Marnie" he made glamorous blonde Tippie Hedren a kleptomaniac. In "To Catch a Thief," glamorous blonde Grace Kelly was a cat burglar. And, most notoriously, in "Psycho," he made blonde Janet Leigh steal $40,000 and get murdered by a young man who thought he was his own mother.
Hitchcock's most personal films are probably "Notorious" and "Vertigo." In both films, he uses a total mastery of the film medium to make almost confessional films about the obsessions and neuroses of men who manipulate women.
Hitchcock also had trouble giving proper credit to the screenwriters, actors and actresses who did so much to make his visions come to life on the screen. His two favorite actors were Cary Grant, and James Stewart, each of whom acted in four of his films. Cary Grant represented Hitchcock as he would have liked to be: slim, handsome and debonair. Stewart represented for Hitchcock the everyman he hoped to reach in the audience.
Some see misogyny in Hitchcock's films; but if it's there, it's strongly undercut by a sense of humor, and an admiring sense of the strength and grace of women.
With 8-10 great films, and many others of enduring value, Alfred Hitchcock is one of the giants of cinema history.
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