Appeal to restore Alfred Hitchcock's early films

[kelly]

There is video link to this time is running out

He's best known for his classic thrillers like Pyscho, The Birds and Vertigo but Alfred Hitchcock, who was born in Leytonstone in east London, also made 10 silent movies in the 1920s.

Now, an appeal has been launched to raise more than £1m to restore them back to their former glory.

It's part of the British Film Institute's 75th birthday celebrations. BBC London's Yvonne Hall reports.

news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8922000/8922601.stm

[Larry's 66 Diner]

I've seen this all over the news lately and, in fact, I posted it on the KS Silent Film Festival's Twitter page.

Thanks for passing it on here, Kelly.

[kelly]

OH NO problem I thought nobody hear about it so I post it also hit TCM message board about it

[robin]

I really wouldn't bother, because they were rubbish.

[Midge]

Sept 14, 2010 21:20:36 GMT -6 robin said:

I really wouldn't bother, because they were rubbish.

Aw, that's harsh. Even though the entertainment value isn't what we would expect from the later Hitchcocks, it is still interesting to see his style evolve. You can see him experimenting with directorial touches such as innovative use of sound effects or unusual camera angles, variations of which turn up again and again in his later films but in a more sophisticated way as he perfected his technique.

[rmichaelpyle]

I like the early ones from 1926-1938 better than all the rest. Some of the silents are fabulous. I have prints of everything extant.

[Hedvig]

Some of them have become classics, like The Lodger. At any rate, in my opinion, any film from that time is worth restoring. When it's more than 70 years old, it's more than cinema.

[Midge]

Sept 19, 2010 16:25:39 GMT -6 Hedvig said:

Some of them have become classics, like The Lodger. At any rate, in my opinion, any film from that time is worth restoring. When it's more than 70 years old, it's more than cinema.

Absolutely. It's more than cinema, it's history.

[Hedvig]

Aye.

[robin]

I've never been a Hitchcock fan, so I'm being biased, but I never really got into his stuff. I found him to be a gloomy, sinister man - and his films reflected it.

[Hedvig]

That's certainly true of a lot of his films. But he could make films! I think he created a lot of innovations in cinema. I like to place his movies of the 1930's next to other film-making from that time for a comparison. Movies like The Lady Vanishes really move, they are so creatively filmed. I'm thinking of scenes like the one where Iris Henderson faints at the train station. It's shot from her point of view and it's very evocative. Psycho is a genuinely unpleasant film, but it's meant to be of course. One of its scenes scared me, but the most famous shockers in it had already been spoiled for me by popular culture, and didn't have such a strong impact as they might have had on me otherwise. It has a horrifying atmosphere throughout, though, with or without spoilers. I wonder what his problem was with mothers, exactly? I don't think his demonizing depictions of them have aged very well.

I think he kept on some of the best traditions of the late silent era, particularly German films. I wonder what his silent movies are like. I'd like to see The Lodger some day.

[filmnoirfanatic]

Hi! Kelly...
Thanks, for the link...I plan to check it out too!
DeeDee

[addie]

Robin---You might hate Edgar Allan Poe, but can you picture life without detective stories? It is too ugly, do not try.
You might hate NASA, but who could live without Velcro?? I am kidding-I have no idea where Velcro comes from, but Tang or freeze dried ice cream would not make a strong point. lol

Every inch of Hitch's films is important because the innovations he came up with changed the industry, improved it beyond measure.

Hedvig---
That is a great point about the german silents. I never thought about it, but I think I understand what you mean, very interesting.
Hitch did one silent that is not even a mystery, it is one of the first two or three movies he directed, I forgot the name, right now, but I have a feeling you would appreciate it. I wonder if I could track it down.

[addie]

Sept 15, 2010 5:40:00 GMT -6 rmichaelpyle said:

I like the early ones from 1926-1938 better than all the rest. Some of the silents are fabulous. I have prints of everything extant.

Yes-sir-ee-Bob, Thaaank you!!! lol

[Hedvig]

Hedvig---
That is a great point about the german silents. I never thought about it, but I think I understand what you mean, very interesting.
Hitch did one silent that is not even a mystery, it is one of the first two or three movies he directed, I forgot the name, right now, but I have a feeling you would appreciate it. I wonder if I could track it down.

Is it The Farmer's Wife you're thinking of, or is that one also a mystery? Some of his earliest talkies were also a bit untypical, like Richand Strange.