“I had no intention”: the man who convinced Alfred Hitchcock to become a director
Sometimes, we don’t realise what it is that we want until it comes to us, presented on a silver platter and too good to turn down. That’s what happened to Alfred Hitchcock, who never intended to change cinema forever with his groundbreaking approach to filmmaking.
Yet, it was clearly what he was born to do. He’d fallen for cinema when he was young, the medium in its infancy at this point, but he couldn’t predict what cinema would become. I mean, these days, it’s easy to set your sights on becoming an era-defining filmmaker, whether you can do it is a different question, but back then, how could Hitchcock aim for that when movies didn’t even have sound?
He began working at Henley Telegraph and Cable Company in London as a technical clerk following the passing of his father, and within a few years, he’d become heavily involved with editing and contributing to The Henley Telegraph. Soon, however, he caught wind of a film studio opening up nearby, and before he knew it, he’d moved on to designing title cards for Islington Studios.
Of course, cinema was still in its early stages, but Hitchcock threw himself into it regardless, trying out a range of jobs behind the scenes which allowed him to get closer to directing. But that wasn’t even something he’d considered, and he once revealed (via MoMA), “I had no intention of becoming a film director, you know. It was quite a surprise to me.”
“Sir Michael Balcon is really the man responsible for Hitchcock,” he added. “At the time, I had been a script writer, and when I finished that job I became the art director or production designer. And I did that for several pictures, until one day Balcon said that the director (I worked with the same director all the time) didn’t want me any more. I don’t know what the reason was, some political reason. And it was then that Balcon said, ‘How would you like to become a director?’”
When an opportunity as exciting as that comes your way, you just have to take it – even though Hitchcock was rather satisfied with what he was doing already. “I had been quite content at the time, writing scripts and designing. I enjoyed it very much,” he said.
So, Hitchcock started work on his first film as a director, Number 13, in 1922, but unfortunately, it all happened very fast. Not long after Hitchcock started filming the movie, production was suspended due to a lack of funds, so the film never came to fruition.
It wouldn’t be long, of course, until Hitchcock would find greater success, becoming known as the Master of Suspense and eventually, one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. He made his first feature, The Pleasure Garden, in 1925, while he made the comedy short Always Tell Your Wife in 1923. His debut feature was actually rather controversial, dubbed a “sex picture” by one reviewer who found the project utterly unsuitable for viewing. He had to start somewhere, though.
