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As a young girl, I was not allowed to watch the popular movies my friends were watching, probably because my mom was worried about the effects of crude humor, sexuality, and gratuitous early 90s violence would have on a developing brain (something to do with being a social worker or something). So instead of being raised on modern classics such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Clueless, I was raised on the films of Alfred Hitchcock and old Humphrey Bogart detective classics.  For my 13th birthday party, I had a sleep over and watched The Birds, which didn’t exactly make me the most popular girl in school. My dad had a few tapes of Hitchcock movies, the classics like Psycho, North By Northwest, Vertigo, and To Catch a Thief, which I would regularly watch, completely riveted by Hitchcock’s style and method. Aside from the movies, my parents also gave me a wonderful copy of The Films of Alfred Hitchcock, an extensive guide to every film Hitchcock ever made. With this background, book, library card, and ambition, I decided to embark on a quest to become an unofficial Hitchcock scholar called “Project Hitchcock”.

The Project

I will watch every film that is available on DVD/VHS/internet that Alfred Hitchcock directed during his 50 year career, starting with the 1926 film The Lodger and ending with the 1976 film Family Plot. I will watch the films in order they were released, in order to see the evolution of the ‘Hitchcock style’ and perfection of the art of suspense. In addition to watching all of Hitchcock’s films, I will read the biography The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto, and any other Hitchcock books I can lay my hands on, in order to gain a deeper appreciation for the life of this great director.

Committing myself to 50 years of suspense could be madness, but as Norman Bates said in Psycho, “We all go a little mad sometimes”. Let the project begin.

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