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Alfred Hitchcock was behind some of the most iconic and impactful films in cinema history. The chilling music from the infamous shower scene in Psycho is so distinctive that even those who have never watched the movie recognize it. Off-camera, Hitchcock’s personality was as captivating as the characters he portrayed in his films.
10. Pairing His Actors With Handcuffs
Hitchcock referred to the production of The 39 Steps as 'a lot of fun,' though it's unlikely the lead actors, Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, shared the same sentiment. During one scene, their characters were required to be handcuffed together. While filming this particular moment, Hitchcock mischievously pretended to have lost the key to the handcuffs.
The two had only just met, and they were locked together for hours until Hitchcock finally revealed that he had been holding onto the key all along. Some accounts claim the prank was quite harsh, while others suggest it ended rather swiftly. Regardless, Alfred certainly had his laugh.
9. Experimenting with Props on His Actors
Aspiring filmmakers often wonder how a legendary master of horror, like Hitchcock, identifies what truly terrifies audiences. Hitchcock understood the importance of testing his props, and who better to serve as test subjects than the actors themselves?
The chilling climax of Psycho reveals the decayed body of Mrs. Bates, fully dressed and eerily seated in a rocking chair. It's a spine-tingling moment that would have fallen flat had the prop not been terrifying enough.
Determined to perfect the most crucial scene, Hitchcock subjected the corpse prop to multiple revisions. Each version was placed in the dressing room of lead actress Janet Leigh. The intensity of her screams—genuine terror—helped Hitchcock decide which version of the corpse would provoke the most fear from the audience.
8. His Father Had Him Committed
Father figures are largely absent from Alfred Hitchcock’s body of work. Other authoritative characters, when they do appear, are often untrustworthy. These recurring themes can be traced back to a single traumatic event from Hitchcock’s childhood, when his father had him locked up in jail.
At the age of five, Alfred was sent to the local police station with a note from his father. The note stated that Alfred had been particularly naughty, prompting the officer to lock him in a cell. The officer ominously declared, “This is what we do to naughty boys,” a chilling statement for a young child that would stay with Hitchcock, fueling his later work.
Although Alfred wasn’t kept in the cell for long, the experience left a lasting impression on his mind—and consequently, on the themes of his films.
7. Compelling A Prop Man To Humiliate Himself
One of Hitchcock’s most infamous pranks, and arguably his cruelest, was played on one of his prop men. This particular prank might have been influenced by his own brief stint in jail as a child.
Hitchcock and the prop man struck a bet. If the man could stay chained to his camera for the entire night, Hitchcock would reward him with a week’s pay. Believing that being chained for one night couldn’t be worse than a day on set, the prop man agreed. Had he known what Hitchcock had in mind, he might have refused, even for an entire month's salary.
Before leaving, Hitchcock offered his prop man a glass of brandy, which the man eagerly accepted. What he didn’t know was that Hitchcock had spiked the drink with a laxative.
We can only hope that Hitchcock followed through on his promise and paid the man after the unpleasant conclusion to the bet.
6. Unresolved Mommy Issues
Norman Bates, the infamous character from Psycho, is the quintessential example of a person with unresolved mommy issues. His distorted relationship with his mother might have mirrored Hitchcock’s own troubled childhood with his mom.
While Alfred Hitchcock’s father dealt out strict jailhouse discipline, it was his mother who made sure he was constantly held accountable. For years, young Alfred was forced to stand at the foot of his mother's bed and recite what he referred to as his “evening confessions.” From her bed, Mrs. Hitchcock would listen and then lecture her son on his perceived wrongdoings.
Hitchcock could recall these moments in great detail, even well into his later years.
5. Strapping Live Birds To An Actress For Days
The Birds is a chilling Hitchcock masterpiece where an unexplained wave of aggressive birds attacks a small town. Toward the end of the film, the protagonist (played by Tippi Hedren) faces a terrifying assault by these bloodthirsty birds in an attic.
For this particular scene, Hitchcock made the bold choice to use real birds rather than mechanical ones. He kept this decision a secret from Hedren, who only discovered the reality once she arrived on set.
For five grueling days, Hedren had live birds strapped to her by rubber bands, with the creatures pecking and scratching her. Some even attacked her eyes. The stagehands joined in, further tormenting her by throwing live birds at her.
The ordeal finally came to an end when a physician intervened and halted the filming to allow Tippi to recover. Hitchcock, however, was furious, insisting that the scene had to continue. The stunned doctor responded, asking Hitchcock, “What are you trying to do, kill her?”
4. His Suppressed Holocaust Documentary
Few things could disturb Alfred Hitchcock, but one event that truly unsettled him was the Holocaust. When he assembled a documentary about concentration camps in the 1940s, the footage was so disturbing that he avoided the studio for an entire week after viewing it.
Hitchcock had dispatched his cameramen to 11 concentration camps to collect footage for the documentary. However, the editing process took much longer than expected, and by the time the film was completed, the political landscape had shifted. Hitchcock was informed that the film would impede Germany’s post-war recovery. Despite his protests, the reels were archived at the Imperial War Museum.
In 1980, the film was rediscovered. The Museum restored the reels in 2014, following Hitchcock’s original intentions. The documentary that had terrified the legendary horror director was scheduled to be shown in 2015.
3. His Wife Was Just as Significant as He Was
Alfred Hitchcock might have seemed like a mad genius, but behind the scenes, there was a more tender side to him. His wife, Alma, was his unwavering partner throughout his career. In fact, some refer to her as his muse. She earned credits on 19 of his films. Following her death, renowned film critic Charle Champlin remarked, 'The Hitchcock touch has four hands. And two of them are Alma’s.'
Alma's influence was even seen in what would become one of Hitchcock's most iconic scenes. When crafting the infamous shower sequence in Psycho, Hitchcock initially rejected the idea of music, insisting on nothing but screams. Alma persuaded him to include the score, cementing the moment in cinematic history. She also had a sharp eye for detail. She caught Janet Leigh inadvertently swallowing during a scene where she was supposed to be lifeless, sparing Hitchcock from a major blunder.
Hitchcock deeply valued Alma's opinion, fearing it because of the immense respect he had for her, making her the powerful woman behind the legendary man that was Alfred Hitchcock.
2. His Extraordinary Oscar Record
It's easy to assume this story is about the collection of Oscars Hitchcock accumulated throughout his directing career. But, despite being a monumental figure in filmmaking history, Alfred Hitchcock never won a single best director Academy Award.
He was nominated five times, yet five times was left empty-handed. Films like Rebecca, Spellbound, and Rear Window were all overlooked for their direction, failing to earn him the top prize.
The Academy did eventually make amends by awarding Hitchcock a lifetime achievement honor. True to form, he did the unexpected. Instead of giving a long, reflective speech after walking out to the fanfare of the ceremony's music, all he said was a simple 'thank you.' As the music played, he added, 'very much indeed.' Five words—nothing more, nothing less.
1. FBI Nuclear Investigation
A MacGuffin is an object that seems inconsequential in its own right, yet drives the narrative forward because it's pursued by the characters. This could take the form of diamonds, like in Family Plot, or vague government secrets, as in North By Northwest. For Notorious, Hitchcock chose a wine bottle filled with uranium as the story’s MacGuffin.
This was in 1944, long before the bombing of Hiroshima, and nuclear experiments were still being carried out under tight secrecy. Through a mix of speculation, rumors, and a bit of luck, Hitchcock deduced that uranium was a key ingredient in the making of an atomic bomb. Some producers were skeptical, thinking it would be a ridiculous concept for a film.
Hitchcock once met with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Millikan to inquire about the size of an atomic bomb. Millikan was taken aback, questioning if Hitchcock was trying to get them both arrested. He reassured the director that an atomic bomb was scientifically impossible at the time.
Later, Hitchcock discovered that this conversation led the FBI to monitor him for three months.
