- Alfred Hitchcock entered film industry at an early age and ascended rapidly
- He directed a superb series of 10 silent films showcasing his prodigious talents
- They were loved by the public and critics alike but forgotten after talkies arrived
- Barely survived: the Master of Suspense’s early works suffered neglect for decades
- Unseen, unloved and mostly kept in poor conditions, his second was lost completely
- But after a years-long multi-million pound effort, most have been beautifully restored
- The Hitchcock 9 + 1: in 2024, Blackmail received a second restoration in 4k by Silver Salt
- That was only half the battle: even now many are still missing their newly composed scores
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
2012 UK poster
Contents
Early career
Young Alfred, mid-1920s
With hindsight, Alfred Hitchcock’s status as supreme master of the thriller genre looks predestined. With talents so perfectly attuned to the creation of suspense, to “putting the audience through it”, what other kind of movie could he have made? But at the outset of his career nobody – including Hitchcock himself – found it so obvious. It was not until he joined Gaumont-British in 1933, and embarked on the great run of thrillers that began with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), that the die was cast. Of the sixteen features he directed before that, only three or four can be classified as thrillers [sic]. The rest were romances, melodramas, comedies, filmed plays – and even something verging on a musical.
Hitchcock joined Islington Studios, at that time run by Famous-Players-Lasky (later to become Paramount), in 1919 as a designer of title cards. When FPL cut their losses and retreated back to Hollywood the studio was taken over by a new outfit, Balcon-Freedman- Saville; the versatile Hitchcock, rapidly diversifying into screenwriting and set design, stayed on as assistant to the company’s star director, Graham Cutts. Cutts became jealous of his talented sidekick and demanded he should be sacked, but instead Michael Balcon, the studio head, gave Hitchcock a film of his own to direct.
Hitchcock directed five films for Gainsborough, as the company was now known. Only The Lodger was a thriller; the other four (if accounts of The Mountain Eagle, now lost, can be trusted) were all melodramas, and the last of them, Easy Virtue, was adapted from a play by Noël Coward.
In 1927 Hitchcock was lured away to British International Pictures; he stayed there for five years, and was assigned an even more mixed batch of films. There were rustic comedies (The Farmer’s Wife), prestigious West End hits (Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, John Galsworthy’s The Skin Game), social satires. (The Ring, Champagne, Rich and Strange), and the adaptation of a then well-regarded novel, Hall Caine’s The Manxman. Some thrillers were in the mix too: Blackmail, the first British talkie; Murder!, another adapted. stage play, and really more of a whodunit; and the rubbishy [sic] Number Seventeen, which Hitchcock openly sent up.
Many of these films indicated clearly enough what were not Hitchcock’s strong suits. He could do little with the staginess of Galsworthy and O’Casey, or the solemnities of Hall Caine. Melodrama he handled better; there are some sharp, telling moments even in his very first film, The Pleasure Garden. Predictably, The Lodger and Blackmail found him in his element. Less expected is Hitchcock’s evident aptitude for social satire: incipient in The Ring, but fully developed in Rich and Strange, a sharp, beady-eyed tale with hints of moral desolation that recall Evelyn Waugh.
Rich and Strange, a film ahead of its time, nonetheless proved a critical and commercial disaster, perhaps convincing Hitchcock that this was not what the public expected of him. After leaving BIP he directed one film, Waltzes from Vienna, an inane pseudo-musical [sic] about the Strauss family. From this low ebb he was once again rescued by Michael Balcon, now head of production at Gaumont-British, who launched him on the run of thrillers that made his name as the ‘Master of Suspense’. The die was cast. – Philip Kemp/BFI/Criterion, UK BFI Lodger and Ring VHSs (1999)
Hitchcock’s Transition from London to Hollywood – Kristin Hunt
Restorations
UK poster, 2010
Sadly, like most silent films, the 10 Alfred Hitchcock directed from 1925–1929 have been subjected to much abuse and loss of footage since their original release, with one, The Mountain Eagle, completely lost. However, the rest were recently restored: In 2012, the British Film Institute concluded a three-year drive to produce comprehensive new restorations of Hitch’s nine extant silent features, which they dubbed ‘The Hitchcock 9’. The Lodger was photochemically restored during the 1990s, so came with a head start rather than beginning from scratch, as with the rest. Overall, this was the largest and most costly such project the archive had ever undertaken and allowed the films to shine more clearly and completely than ever.
Note that Blackmail received a second, fully-4k restoration in 2024 by Silver Salt in London, based on the BFI’s raw 4k scan of the original negative used for their restoration, which was carried out in 2k. Incidentally, apart from his one missing short, there are no major issues with the latest transfers of Hitch’s British talkies. They’re all in complete, as-originally-released condition via their licensed releases, and all but Secret Agent have had recent digital restorations or remasters, so now look and sound incredible.
Trailer #2 | Why the Hitchcock 9 Matters – Joel Gunz
Despite the BFI spearheading his silents’ high profile restoration, the rate of labels willing to take a punt on releasing them has been disappointingly slow. Of course, the worldwide abundance of bootlegs, especially of Hitch’s British films, has played the biggest part in killing demand for licensed editions, especially in this age of declining physical media sales. Only a few of the silents have appeared so far and though there are ongoing efforts behind the scenes to make them publicly available, unfortunately nothing concrete has been arranged yet.
Do keep checking back though, as I’ll be posting updates as and when appropriate. What I can say is if and when there is an announcement about any restored release, do spread the word and support it all you can. The release of any subsequent silents very much depends on the success of the next one. And fans not buying those bootlegs. We all need to spread awareness of these points, otherwise it’s quite possible the restored Hitchcock 9 will never be available on any form of home video in their entirety.
3.3.2019 update: The Pleasure Garden is definitely coming, but its release will require some additional financial investment to make it happen – see how you can help here.
2013 Il Cinema Ritrovato discussion
Modern scores
Most of the restorations received new, specially commissioned scores as no evidence of the originals survive. For the overwhelming majority of 1920s screenings they’d have had local improvised accompaniment anyway. The 2012 composers and musicians were a mixture of old hands at scoring silents and those new to the game, with the results ranging from period-appropriate to very modern and various points in between.
The scores were initially procured on the basis that they would be performed at the films’ re-premières and beyond, and be recorded for DCP, TV and home video. However, in the event most were only played live once; most often local musicians played for the films when they toured internationally, especially in the US. Worse still, most of the promised studio recordings never materialised either, conclusively dumping the restorations in limbo for over a decade.
But at least that meant the BFI’s exclusive rights over the scores all expired by 2022 and they’ve wholly reverted to the composers, so the way is clear for them to finally be released. The cost of recording a score is expensive and been too much for most of the interested but budget-conscious, independent home video licensees to commit, given their expected return on investment. But that can be overcome; contact me if you’re a licensee and want to know more.
- The Pleasure Garden – Daniel Patrick Cohen chamber ensemble; unrecorded, unreleased… for now!
- The Lodger – Nitin Sawhney orchestral/pop: UK, France and Brazil releases
- US: 2017 – Neil Brand orchestral
- Downhill – Shlomo a capella/beatbox (unrecorded, unreleased) and John Sweeney piano: UK and France releases
- Spain: 2013 Javiér Pérez de Azpeitia piano
- US: 2017 Brand piano
The most notable exception was Nitin Sawney’s orchestral score recording for The Lodger, with his band and the LSO, released by sadly now defunct Network in the UK. But costly though it was, it proved controversial due to his inclusion of a couple of specially-written pop songs. For this and several other reasons, Network lost money on the project and were only willing to release more restorations if they came with scores included; this left us at an impasse with The Pleasure Garden and its beautiful but unrecorded orchestral score. Criterion in the US, unwilling to license Sawney’s score, later commissioned new orchestral and solo piano scores for The Lodger and Downhill respectively from Neil Brand.
- Easy Virtue – Stephen Horne piano: unrecorded, unreleased but watch this space!
- The Ring – Soweto Kinch jazz: recorded but unreleased
- US: 2019 Meg Morley piano
- UK, Germany and France: 2024 Antonio Coppola piano
- The Farmer’s Wife – Brand piano: 2017 recording UK, Germany and France
- US: 2019 – Jon Mirsalis piano
This rundown of the BFI-commissioned, 2012 scores is followed by those that have actually been included on home video thus far. For more details and pre-restoration scores, see the individual film entries.
- Champagne – Mira Calix electronic: unrecorded, unreleased
- US: 2019 Ben Model piano
- UK, Germany and France: 2024 Neil Brand piano
- The Manxman – Stephen Horne chamber ensemble: unrecorded, unreleased
- US: 2019 Andrew Earle Simpson piano
- UK, Germany and France: Simpson piano, 2023 Horne orchestral and 2024 Coppola piano
- Blackmail – Brand orchestral: unrecorded, unreleased
- US: 2019 Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra chamber ensemble
- UK, Germany and France: 2024 Moritz Eggert orchestral
A final note to any licencees or labels intending to release Hitch’s silents: strongly consider including all their restorations, including both those for Blackmail, and all available scores above. Then round up the multitude of extras scattered across various international releases and, most importantly, include the previous preserved versions with their own unique scores. The latter in particular can be added for minimal cost and that way you can make any release truly definitive. I have all the contacts and information you need, much of which is detailed throughout the films’ individual articles, so get in touch!
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This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
