Why We Are Still Talking About

Alfred Hitchcock’s
fearless film-making

As time goes by, what makes something ‘timeless’?

Alfred Hitchcock is the most prolific director of our lifetime.

Known both for his fearless filmmaking and ground-breaking methods, here we explore just how vast his legacy is.

The Greatest Movie of all Time

Sir Alfred Hitchcock is easily one of the most influential film directors of all time. He was known throughout his life as a brilliant but curmudgeonly man; a visionary and a scoundrel. Since his death, he has, if anything, been treated with even fiercer reverence. He developed a style all of his own, which has defined entire genres of film and inspired other hugely successful films. Perhaps his most idiosyncratic, iconic work was done on Vertigo and North by Northwest.

In the 2012 British Film Institute film critic’s poll, Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane as “the best film of all time”. But it was not always such a hit. When it premiered sixty years ago at the iconic Fairmont San Francisco, it was not the hit we know it to be today. As Hitchcock academic Dr Steve Rawles explains, “It flopped badly on its initial release in 1958 and was poorly received by critics. However, once Hitchcock’s cause was championed by critics and filmmakers, largely French ones in the 1960s and academics through the 1970s, the film’s reputation as one of the most complex ever produced by classical Hollywood began to be enshrined.” It is now regarded as one of Hitchcock’s finest cinematic achievements, not least because of his technical ingenuity.

The Renegade

Anyone who has seen North by Northwest will remember the climactic scene in which our hero is pursued across presidential faces on Mount Rushmore – or, as we should point out, a very realistic recreation of Mount Rushmore. Hitchcock was originally given permission to film there, on the condition that there would be no violence depicted on the presidents’ heads. He revealed in a newspaper interview that he intended to film actors running and shooting each other directly across their faces, and had his permit immediately rescinded by the US Department of the Interior. He filmed the scene in a studio, but cheekily thanked Mount Rushmore and the department in the credits, which tricked many viewers into thinking he filmed it at the real location. According to legend, he originally wanted Cary Grant to have a sneezing fit inside the giant nostril of a president, but ultimately settled for a raucous chase instead.

Hitchcock’s disregard for the rules was one of his defining characteristics. He was denied permission to film outside the United Nations building in New York, so he simply sent Cary Grant towards the entrance and filmed him using cameras hidden in a van nearby. Those iconic shots of Grant entering the UN building were entirely illegal, but fabulous nonetheless. While in New York, Hitchcock filmed scenes from North by Northwest at The Plaza, A Fairmont Managed Hotel, which is actually the first time an entire film crew assembled on location, rather than filming on a soundstage.

In fact, it was the first Hollywood movie filmed at The Plaza, which set the precedent for many blockbusters to come…

…including Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Great Gatsby and The Way We Were.

During the filming of North by Northwest, its leading man was actually living in an apartment at the hotel. Cary Grant had the world’s shortest commute, simply walking downstairs to shoot each day. The opening sequence, on which Grant is abducted from his business meeting, was shot in the Oak Room.

Hitchcock also started the trend for directors having a small cameo in their own films: In North by Northwest, Hitchcock himself can be spotted just missing his bus, about two minutes into the opening credits, which, by the way, are famous in themselves for being the first credit sequence to feature kinetic typography so extensively.

The Vertigo Effect

Leading Hitchcock expert and author of three books including Alfred Hitchcock’s Movie-Making Masterclass, Tony Lee Moral, says Vertigo is a real “film-maker’s film” because of its innovative cinematography. “Hitchcock invented several techniques in Vertigo, such as the ‘zoom dolly’. To show the effects of Vertigo, he has a camera that zooms in at the same time as it dollies out.

He invented that shot - he called it the Vertigo Shot. That very shot was later replicated by other directors such as Steven Spielberg when Chief Brody sees the shark for the first time in the movie Jaws. He zooms in on Brody’s face while dolly-ing out, which creates a disorienting effect, just like when Jimmy Stewart looked down the staircase of the bell tower in Vertigo.”

It is not just the pioneering camera techniques seen in Vertigo that make it iconic, the filming location, Fairmont San Francisco is at the heart of cinematic history and still stands today as a symbol of Old Hollywood. Famous for its majestic lobby, the Fairmont San Francisco has remained an institution and continues to be a chosen location for many directors and producers.

The First James Bond

North by Northwest is often referred to as “the first James Bond film” because it really set the precedent for action-suspense thrillers, especially the Bond franchise. Hitchcock’s fast-paced, entertaining masterpiece was the definitive action film, complete with epic chase sequences, high octane stunts, a hero in a tailored suit, a complex seductress and a charismatic villain. Everything from Mission Impossible and Die Hard right down to the way ad executives were dressed in Mad Men were inspired by it.

“This film has all the ingredients of a classic Hitchcock: the suave villain, the duplicitous blonde, the protagonist in a perfect suit from Saville Row,” says Lee Moral. “The scene in which Cary Grant is chased by a crop-duster is a classic and that was replicated later in James Bond films, such as the helicopter chase in From Russia With Love.” Hitchcock changed the way action films were made when he dressed Cary Grant in that famous grey suit and set him running across a dusty field, pursued by a crop duster (which was filmed separately, of course, for Mr Grant’s safety).

Sir Alfred Hitchcock made history on the sets of his most famous films. Perhaps this is why we are still talking about his movies decades later: because he changed the way films were made and altered the industry forever. He was a pioneer and a visionary, whose timeless classics are perhaps more revered now than when they were originally released.

Fairmont

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts celebrates its deep connection to cinematic history with it's event series Fairmont Loves Film. Comprised of pop-up events, a retrospective photo exhibit, as well as an exclusive collaboration with film director Gia Coppola, Fairmont Loves Film is an ode to the brand’s unrivalled Hollywood legacy.