her.”
He couldn’t help noticing that she was just five feet, petite, with bobbed reddish blond hair and hazel eyes. Pretty and vivacious—but for the hair color, almost the ideal woman he described in “Fedora.” Yet she was his superior, and he would let three or four years go by before speaking to her again.
Alas, British Famous Players-Lasky did not last long. By the summer of 1922 the experiment was suspended, and rumors began flying that the American parent company had abandoned the idea of producing pictures in England. Although Paramount was proud of its handful of completed films, the Islington product was regarded as a hybrid, neither English nor American enough to succeed. Moreover, Famous Players had overextended itself by building a new studio on Long Island almost simultaneously with Islington. The company was backing away from grandiose plans for an additional plant in Bombay. On a visit to London, company founder Jesse L. Lasky claimed that the Islington shutdown was temporary, but issued a call for fewer, better pictures.
Months passed, and work was catch-as-catch-can at Islington. The payroll was trimmed, and Alma Reville was one of the people let go. Hitchcock must have worried over his own future, but he managed to stay on as part of the skeleton crew—and, characteristically, he perceived an opportunity in the unstable situation, and made himself indispensable. Working longer hours for less money, he thrived.
It was while the studio was in limbo that Alfred Hitchcock took his first turn at directing.
Always Tell Your Wife
was a two-reeler based on a theatrical sketch by the venerable actor-manager Seymour Hicks. A comedy about a philandering husband, his suspicious wife, and a blackmailing mistress, the story had been filmed before, in a 1914 production with Hicks in the lead; now, in January 1923, director Hugh Croise leased space at Islington to launch a new version, again starring Hicks. When Croise fell ill, Hicks looked around in desperation. His gaze fell on “a fat youth who was in charge of the property room,” according to Hicks, a young fellow “tremendously enthusiastic and anxious to try his hand at producing.”
Today, only one reel of
Always Tell Your Wife
survives at the British Film Institute in London. Its footage bears the dominant imprint of Hicks, its star, writer, and producer. The camerawork is static, the comedy broad. Yet one detail is surely of interest to Hitchcockians: this first “quasi Hitchcock” has pointed shots of a fluttering caged bird. Whether the picture was even completed or released is unclear; probably not.
Or perhaps the obscure
Number Thirteen
, shot during this same period, was the young aspirant’s true debut. Hitchcock directed
Number Thirteen
, a.k.a. “Mrs. Peabody,” sometime in late 1922 or early 1923. The story was about low-income residents of a building financed by the Peabody Trust, founded by American banker-philanthropist George Peabody to offer affordable housing to needy Londoners.
Number Thirteen
was written by a woman employed at Islington, her precise identity unknown, whose background included a vague prior affiliation with Charles Chaplin. Hitchcock took on the directing and producing. The star was Clare Greet, the daughter of famed actor-manager John Greet and his wife, Fanny. * Greet knew Hitchcock from
Three Live Ghosts;
a popular older character actress, she had first appeared onstage before Hitchcock was born.
The most notable thing about
Number Thirteen
is that Hitchcock’s uncle John invested in the picture; when the funds ran out, Greet also pitched in money. Still, filming was ultimately shut down with only tworeels completed. All that is known to survive of
Number Thirteen
are a few stills; it would rank high on anyone’s list of important “lost” films.
The failure of
Number Thirteen
—and the loss of his uncle’s investment—was “a somewhat chastening experience” that Hitchcock took deeply to
He couldn’t help noticing that she was just five feet, petite, with bobbed reddish blond hair and hazel eyes. Pretty and vivacious—but for the hair color, almost the ideal woman he described in “Fedora.” Yet she was his superior, and he would let three or four years go by before speaking to her again.
Alas, British Famous Players-Lasky did not last long. By the summer of 1922 the experiment was suspended, and rumors began flying that the American parent company had abandoned the idea of producing pictures in England. Although Paramount was proud of its handful of completed films, the Islington product was regarded as a hybrid, neither English nor American enough to succeed. Moreover, Famous Players had overextended itself by building a new studio on Long Island almost simultaneously with Islington. The company was backing away from grandiose plans for an additional plant in Bombay. On a visit to London, company founder Jesse L. Lasky claimed that the Islington shutdown was temporary, but issued a call for fewer, better pictures.
Months passed, and work was catch-as-catch-can at Islington. The payroll was trimmed, and Alma Reville was one of the people let go. Hitchcock must have worried over his own future, but he managed to stay on as part of the skeleton crew—and, characteristically, he perceived an opportunity in the unstable situation, and made himself indispensable. Working longer hours for less money, he thrived.
It was while the studio was in limbo that Alfred Hitchcock took his first turn at directing.
Always Tell Your Wife
was a two-reeler based on a theatrical sketch by the venerable actor-manager Seymour Hicks. A comedy about a philandering husband, his suspicious wife, and a blackmailing mistress, the story had been filmed before, in a 1914 production with Hicks in the lead; now, in January 1923, director Hugh Croise leased space at Islington to launch a new version, again starring Hicks. When Croise fell ill, Hicks looked around in desperation. His gaze fell on “a fat youth who was in charge of the property room,” according to Hicks, a young fellow “tremendously enthusiastic and anxious to try his hand at producing.”
Today, only one reel of
Always Tell Your Wife
survives at the British Film Institute in London. Its footage bears the dominant imprint of Hicks, its star, writer, and producer. The camerawork is static, the comedy broad. Yet one detail is surely of interest to Hitchcockians: this first “quasi Hitchcock” has pointed shots of a fluttering caged bird. Whether the picture was even completed or released is unclear; probably not.
Or perhaps the obscure
Number Thirteen
, shot during this same period, was the young aspirant’s true debut. Hitchcock directed
Number Thirteen
, a.k.a. “Mrs. Peabody,” sometime in late 1922 or early 1923. The story was about low-income residents of a building financed by the Peabody Trust, founded by American banker-philanthropist George Peabody to offer affordable housing to needy Londoners.
Number Thirteen
was written by a woman employed at Islington, her precise identity unknown, whose background included a vague prior affiliation with Charles Chaplin. Hitchcock took on the directing and producing. The star was Clare Greet, the daughter of famed actor-manager John Greet and his wife, Fanny. * Greet knew Hitchcock from
Three Live Ghosts;
a popular older character actress, she had first appeared onstage before Hitchcock was born.
The most notable thing about
Number Thirteen
is that Hitchcock’s uncle John invested in the picture; when the funds ran out, Greet also pitched in money. Still, filming was ultimately shut down with only tworeels completed. All that is known to survive of
Number Thirteen
are a few stills; it would rank high on anyone’s list of important “lost” films.
The failure of
Number Thirteen
—and the loss of his uncle’s investment—was “a somewhat chastening experience” that Hitchcock took deeply to
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