Alfred Hitchcock and the First Episode of Suspense
Alfred Hitchcock and the First Episode of Suspense
Alfred Hitchcock was the director in 1940 of the first program of a proposed new series entitled Suspense which of course we all know went on to be successful over the next twenty years.
Mr Alfred Hitchcock brilliant English director of such outstanding motion pictures as The Thirty-Nine Steps, Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent was eager to create a very special type of radio drama, the suspense stories. As narrator and star of his production he thought at once of the distinguished actor with whom he had been associated in countless British film successes, Herbert Marshall. Mr Marshall suggested that they dramatized a certain favorite story of his and that story happened to be the very one Mr Hitchcock had in mind, Marie Belloc-Lowndes classic in chills, The Lodger which you can listen to on RUSC from the 5th May 2005.
The Lodger is a work of fiction, which springs from recorded fact a story that begins in the year 1888 in London, a London terrorised by the fifth in a succession of recent Jack The Ripper type murders. It is believed that these deeds were the works of one person, a tall gaunt figure in a black Inverness cape carrying a small narrow bag. The mysterious killer known as the Avenger preyed on young attractive blond haired women just like Daisy the daughter of the Buntings, the Buntings who had taken in a gentleman lodger…
Alfred Hitchcock said, "Suspense, as opposed to mystery, is giving information to an audience in order to make them worry, whereas mystery is merely withholding information," and under his direction the story of The Lodger certainly does that.
In 1979 Hitchcock received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute. In the British New Year's Honour's list of 1980 only a few months before his death on 29th April 1980, he was named an Honorary (as he was now a U.S. citizen) Knight Commander of the British Empire.
If you would like to learn more (click on the link) about Alfred Hitchcock BBC Radio 4 recently featured a documentary about this great man featuring audible clips from interviews given in 1966.
Happy listening my friends,
