User Reviews

I Am Alfred Hitchcock is a wonderfully produced and edited documentary on the iconic director - but it does have one distressing omission.

Not once during its 84-minute running time do we hear the name: Bernard Herrmann - the talented composer who created the score's for Hitchcock's most successful films - notably Psycho.

The doc does feature content on Hitch's collaboration with his wife and Joan Harrison and rightly covers their contributions to his films, particularly the female characters.

However, there is nothing on the legendary and sometimes stormy relationship between Hitchcock and Hermmann - whose rich music heightened great films such as Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and the remake of the Man Who Knew Too Much. Before Spielberg and Williams it was the most famous director-composer tandem in Hollywood -- not including a mention of Hermmann is strange omission.

Questions about Hitchcock's films and life will be answered in this good documentary. Some of his films were undisputed masterpieces and theirpast or immediate impact and future influence on filmmakers were and will be enormous and cannot be underestimated.

The documentary offers a review of his British career and how it was initially dismissed by critics. Hitch directed films with exquisite taste and intelligence, carrying out impeccable control of each scene and maneuvering emotions, infusing delicious wit and plenty of tension. Hitch's early British period when he directed silent films such as the successful ¨The lodger¨ (1926) , ¨The ring¨(1927) , ¨Easy virtue¨ (1927) , ¨The Manxman¨(29) ; being ¨Blackmail¨(29) made as a silent , this was reworked to become a talkie . Following sound movies and early talkies as ¨June and the Paycock¨(30) , ¨Skin Game¨(31) , ¨Rich and strange¨(32) , ¨Number 17¨(32) , ¨The man who knew too much¨(34) , ¨The 39 steps¨ (35) , ¨The secret agent¨(36) , ¨Blackmail¨(36) , ¨The lady vanishes¨(38) . After ¨39 Steps¨ and ¨Jamaica Inn¨, Hitch was encouraged to go to America and quickly filmed his first work in Hollywood hired by the great producer David O'Selznick to shoot ¨Rebecca¨ and after ¨Suspicion¨, ¨Notorious¨ and ¨Spellbound¨. Because Hitch felt controlled by O'Selznick, he founded his own company Trasatlantic along with Sidney Bernstein with which he produced ¨Rope¨ and the flop ¨Under Capricorn¨.

Recounting his close relationship with his beloved wife Alma Reville who collaborated extensively with him, and his close daughter Patricia Hitchock, as well as with blonde screenwriter Joan Harrison, which may be due to Alfred's long reputation as a blonde woman lover, beginning with Madeleine Carroll, and following Ingrid Bergman , Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Melanie Griffith, among others.

I Am Alfred Hitchcock (2021) pays tribute to Hitch's films with scenes from Easy Virtue, Rebecca, Suspicion, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat, The Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Man who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, The Birds, Topaz, Torn Curtain, Frenzy and even the only non-thriller directed by Hitch: Mr. And Mrs. Smith. And of course, "Psycho" was not only Hitchcock's most successful film, it was a phenomenon in itself and the highlight of the film is, of course, the shower scene with 78 shots and 52 cuts that changed cinema forever. There's an unprecedented look at the iconic shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), a tribute to the film of the master's best-known thriller, along with Bernard Herrmann's iconic music. Showing in detail the shower scene, the "man behind the curtain" and the on-screen murder that profoundly changed the course of world cinema. It is the shock par excellence that created a true subgenre about psychopaths and that continues to this day. The shower image is one of the most studied, copied and analyzed sequences in the history of cinema and has obtained a notoriety that surpasses the film itself.

The film also explores his relationship with his actresses, Grace Kelly, with whom he became very angry when she found out that she was going to marry Rainier of Monaco, with Kim Novak from Vertigo, and he apparently behaved terribly with some, with special mention for Vera Miles, whom he fired for getting pregnant, and Tippi Hedren who according to some sources was actually attacked by the birds in "Birds", because the Maestro considered it that way to give more verisimilitude to the scenes.

The documentary also describes his television career with the series "Alfred Hitchck Presents" in which he played a friendly and ironic presenter. Narrating some of his last films such as ¨Frenzy¨, for which he returned to his London, filming in London's Covent Garden where he lived as a child and met some locals, as well as the unsuccessful "The Plot" which did not It was as he expected.

Directors, writers, actors give their opinion on this great master, such as Ben Mankiewicz, Eli Roth, Janet Leigh (nominated for an Oscar for Psycho, which was the only one in her long career), John Landis, and Alexandre O. Philippe who made the famous Documentary 78/52, dissecting the best scenes, showing their meaning and significance in this nice tribute to Hitch. And adding with excerpts from Hitch-Truffaut's famous interview.

Although Hitch was nominated for an Oscar 5 times, he never won the Academy Award for Best Director, however he finally won the honorary Oscar and was lovingly honored by the American Film Institute with the attendance of the greatest Hollywood stars of the past and present.