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Some of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest films are lost forever, as poor preservation and distribution methods resulted in their destruction or deterioration. Hitchcock's would-be feature directorial debut, Number 13, was never finished due to financial troubles, and only a few scenes were shot. The Mountain Eagle, Hitchcock's second completed film, is missing and likely was not preserved properly, as even Hitchcock himself admitted to hating it and thought his career was finished after making the movie.

Alfred Hitchcock was one of the greatest and most prolific filmmakers, and many of his movies are must-see classics, but there are a few of his films that can't be seen at all, as they're lost forever. Famously known as the "Master of Suspense," Hitchcock began his directing career in England in the 1920s before moving to Hollywood in 1940. Most of the best Hitchcock movies consist of titles released after his transition to American cinema,...

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most important and influential directors in cinema history, and anyone aspiring to become a filmmaker should do themselves a favor and study his body of work. This one man pioneered numerous filmmaking techniques still used today, shot some of the industry's most famous scenes, elevated the thriller genre to new heights, and achieved so much more than can be crammed into this paragraph. In fact, there's an argument to be made that Hitchcock's genius is so great that simply watching his movies is a fine substitute for enrolling in an expensive film school.

With a career dating all the way back to 1925's "The Pleasure Garden", it's no wonder why Hitchcock has so many classic films to his credit. "Psycho," "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," "The Birds," "Rear Window" –- it's hard to believe that all of these iconic, diverse films and others came from the same mind.

[This Halloween season, we're paying tribute to classic horror cinema by celebrating films released before 1970! Check back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic horror films, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Halloween 2019 special features!]

The most wonderful time of the year is quickly approaching, and I'm sure we are all looking for something spooky to watch either by ourselves or with family and friends. From Creepshow (1982) to Urban Legend (1998), there are so many interesting movies that will send a tingle down your spine this Halloween season. But, when you really think about it, how many of the films up for consideration in our movie marathons are silent films or were shot in black and white? It's easy for a lot of really great films to get lost in the shuffle and that's why here at Daily Dead, we've decided to dedicate our Halloween picks this year to films released before 1970. My pick to help us get into the Halloween spirit is from legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, and it's called The Wrong Man (1956).

For our readers who may not be familiar with Alfred Hitchcock or his TV/filmography,...

Bavaria Studios — often described as the heart of the Bavaria Film group — may be one of Europe’s largest and most state-ofthe-art film and television production facilities, but it also boasts an illustrious past that long ago cemented its place in cinematic history.

Film pioneer Peter Ostermayr founded the studios, originally known as Münchener Lichtspielkunst, in 1919. Six years later, a young Alfred Hitchcock arrived at the site in Grünwald, south of Munich, to shoot his first film, “The Pleasure Garden.”

It was renamed Bavaria Film in 1932 by new owners. A decade later, Germany’s Nazi government merged it into the Ufa-Film group along with several other companies. Productions continued at the studios in the post-war era and Bavaria was eventually reprivatized in 1956.

A number of high-profile U.S. pics shot there during that time, including Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” with Kirk Douglas in 1957. Douglas returned the following...

On November 30, 1970, New York City’s Anthology Film Archives opened its doors as the first ever “museum of film” at its original location at 425 Lafayette Street. That was an invitation-only Opening Night event with the first public screening occurring the following night, December 1.

A previous article on the Underground Film Journal uncovered the first five nights of screenings at the Anthology, and the reaction in the NYC press to this unique movie theater.

Digging around in the digital archives of the Village Voice, the Journal has been able to piece together most of the screening lineups for the month of December. Unfortunately, these archives do not contain issues for the last week of November nor the first week of December, so we do not have screening info for December 5-9.

However, below are the screenings for December 10-30. The Anthology’s original plan was to have three screenings every night...

“Hitch Begins”

By Raymond Benson

The British silent film period of director Alfred Hitchcock is simultaneously interesting and frustrating. It’s the former because it allows one to view a genius at the very beginning of his career—the kernels of motifs and themes, as well as stylistic choices, can be spotted and analyzed. It’s the latter because only one or two of the nine silent pictures he made are truly memorable and most are available today solely as poor quality public domain transfers.

The Criterion Collection has just released a bang-up, marvelous new edition of Hitchcock’s most celebrated silent work, The Lodger—A Story of the London Fog. The disk also contains one of the rarer silent titles, Downhill (also 1927), which might be reason enough for Hitchcock enthusiasts to purchase the package.

A bit of history: Hitchcock was working for Gainsborough Pictures under the auspices of Michael Balcon...

It’s been 34 years since Alfred Hitchcock’s passing and his influence still looms large, such as TV shows like “Bones,” which will present an homage to the director for its 200th episode. The tributes to the self-described traditional filmmaker don’t end there, as editor Shaun Higgins has crafted a nearly 13-minute long video tribute to the Master of Suspense. Covering the entirety of his big-screen career —which that means no “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” —the video contains shots from every single film Hitchcock directed, from the 1925 silent film “The Pleasure Garden” to Hitch’s last film, the disappointing 1976 comedy-thriller “Family Plot.” This may be the first time a tribute video finds itself impervious to criticisms of omitted films, though you may still be miffed that your favorite moment or shot isn’t accounted for. Watch “Alfred Hitchcock (1925 - 1976)” below and let us know what some of your favorite Hitchcock movies are.

Joel and Ethan Coen movie ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ tops 2014 National Society of Film Critics Awards (Oscar Isaac in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’) The National Society of Film Critics is the last major U.S.-based critics’ group to announce their annual winners. This year, their top film was Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, a comedy-drama about a hapless folk singer. Inside Llewyn Davis also earned honors for the directors, star Oscar Isaac, and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. Additionally, the Coen brothers’ film was the runner-up in the Best Screenplay category. Inside Llewyn Davis is the first movie directed by Joel and Ethan Coen to win the top prize at the National Society of Film Critics Awards. Back in early 2008, whereas most critics’ groups — and the Academy Awards — went for the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, the Nsfc selected instead Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.

In 1922, 23-year-old Alfred Hitchcock was readying his debut feature film, Number 13 — about the life of several Londoners in a tenement building. The project was shelved due to financial problems, and the few scenes captured have remained lost to this day. Hitch had a second chance to make his grand entrance in the film biz with 1925's The Pleasure Garden. It was shot in Italy and Germany (where it was a failure), but set at a London theater. The story follows two chorus dancers and their messy relationships. Critic Dave Kehr called the opening of the movie "a clip reel of Hitchcock motifs to come." Indeed, we see a group of leggy performers parade down a spiral staircase onto a stage, where a gentleman in the audience eyes up a blonde...

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Alfred Hitchcock silent movies added to Unesco UK Memory of the World Register (photo: Ivor Novello in The Lodger) The nine Alfred Hitchcock-directed silent films recently restored by the British Film Institute have been added to the Unesco UK Memory of the World Register, "a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK." The nine Hitchcock movies are the following: The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Ring (1927), Downhill / When Boys Leave Home (1927), The Lodger (1927), Easy Virtue (1928), Champagne (1928), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), The Manxman (1929), and Blackmail (1929) — also released as a talkie, Britain’s first. Only one Hitchcock-directed silent remains lost, The Mountain Eagle / Fear o’ God (1926). Most of those movies have little in common with the suspense thrillers Hitchcock would crank out in Britain and later in Hollywood from the early ’30s on. But a handful of his silents already featured elements and themes that would recur in...

Hitchcock's silents are now on the Memory of the World register – I can think of five others that deserve the same recognition

If, when you consider our national heritage, you think of murder, guilt, sex and cheeky humour – well, somebody out there agrees with you. The decision to add Alfred Hitchcock's nine surviving silent movies to Unesco's UK Memory of the World register puts his early work on a cultural par with the Domesday Book and Field Marshal Douglas Haig's war diaries – also selected for the list this year.

The nine silents were all directed by Hitchcock in the 1920s and include better-known films in the director's classic thriller mode such as The Lodger and Blackmail as well as comedies (Champagne, The Farmer's Wife) a boxing movie (The Ring) and dramas (The Pleasure Garden, Downhill, Easy Virtue and the lush, rustic romance The Manxman). The collection was nominated by the BFI,...

As if being one of — if not the — most famous director of all time wasn’t enough, the Alfred Hitchcock legacy can add another notch to its belt. On July 9th, the United Kingdom National Commission for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (also known as Unesco) welcomed nine of Hitchcock’s silent films into the UK Memory of the World Register, which is “a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK.”

BFI, the British Film Institute, restored the nine surviving films, including the classic The Pleasure Garden, and premiered them during the...

London -- Alfred Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films have been added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's U.K. Memory of the World Register. The register is part of a UNESCO program to support and raise awareness of archives. Hitchcock's films are among 11 items selected from the U.K.’s libraries, archives and museums to represent British heritage.

Among the nine titles are the filmmaker's first feature, The Pleasure Garden, and boxing drama The Ring. Hitchcock’s earliest films have unspooled at events from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro and from

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Man of Steel weekend box office: Above estimates, but real June record remains beyond the reach of Superman 2013 reboot (image: Henry Cavill as Superman in Man of Steel) Somewhat surprisingly — it’s usually the other way around — Warner Bros.’ Man of Steel grossed more than $3 million above studio estimates released on Sunday, June 16, 2013. Directed by Zack Snyder (300, Sucker Punch), and starring Henry Cavill (The Tudors, possibly the upcoming The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), the 2013 Superman reboot scored $116.61 million from 4,207 North American locations according to weekend box-office actuals found at Box Office Mojo. Once Thursday evening figures are added, the $225 million-budgeted Man of Steel‘s domestic cume reached $128.68 million by Sunday evening. Now, Man of Steel‘s adjusted $116.61 million doesn’t change the June Box-Office Record Chart in any way. The Superman reboot remains ahead of the former official June champ, the Tom Hanks-, Tim Allen-voiced Toy Story 3‘s...

Henry Cavill Superman: Man of Steel vs. Superman movies of years past [See previous post: "Man of Steel Trailing Original Iron Man in Ticket Sales."] As mentioned in our previous posts, the $225 million-budgeted Man of Steel grossed an estimated $113.08 million this past weekend, including $9 million from Thursday midnight screenings. Directed by Zack Snyder, the 2013 Superman reboot stars Henry Cavill as Clark Kent aka Superman. (Photo: Henry Cavill in Man of Steel.) Released in late June 2006, Bryan Singer’s $270 million-budgeted Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh as Superman, debuted with $52.53 million, or about $64 million today. Even taking into account that Superman Returns lacked the box-office-boosting advantage of 3D surcharges, Man of Steel is obviously a much bigger hit than its immediate predecessor. Superman Returns eventually reached $200.08 million in North America, plus a slightly more modest $191 million internationally. Man of Steel will not only easily surpass Superman Returns at the domestic box office, but it’ll also earn at the very least twice as much as Superman Returns internationally.

A series of nine silent films directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock between 1925 and 1929 have recently been restored by the British Film Institute, and are set to tour theaters in the Us this summer. According to Deadline.com, the so-called “Hitchcock 9” represent the first stage of the director's distinguished career, beginning with his first-ever film The Pleasure Garden, and including Blackmail, The Ring, The Manxman, and 1927's The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The latter, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, is considered by Hitchcock to be the first film to demonstrate his signature style – including his beloved tradition of making cameo appearances in all of his movies. The first Us screening will take place at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre as part of the Silent Film Festival June 14-16, followed by BAMcinématek, June 29-July 5, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Steinberg Screen in the Harvey Theater,...

The 17th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk) has announced its lineup. The festival will run from 7th to 14th December, 2012 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Some of the highlights of the lineup are festival favourites of the year Amour, Chitrangada, Samhita, The Sapphires, Drapchi, Miss Lovely, Me and You, Celluloid Man, and Baandhon.

Fourteen films will screen in the Competition section while seven contemporary films will be screened in “Indian Cinema Now” section.

Complete list of films:

Competition Films

Fourteen feature films from Asia, Africa and Latin America will compete for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasant) and other awards.

Always Brando by Ridha Behi (Tunisia)

Inheritors of the Earth by T V Chandran (India)

A Terminal Trust by by Masayuki Suo (Japan)

Shutter by Joy Mathew (India)

Today by Alain Gomis (Senegal-France)

The Repentant by Merzak Allouache (Algeria)

Sta. Niña by Manny Palo (Philippines)

Present Tense...

The BFI's restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's first film, about the tangled love lives of two chorus girls, introduces us to a Hitchcock we didn't know

Until last night no one had seen more than an approximation of Alfred Hitchcock's first film since it made his name 87 years ago. Unveiled at Wilton's Music Hall with a new score by recent Ram graduate Daniel Patrick Cohen, the BFI's restoration of The Pleasure Garden (1925) makes clear that the 26-year-old Hitchcock, as the Sunday Herald's critic Walter Mycroft wrote on its release, "definitely arrived in one stride". Its themes of voyeurism, manipulation, and delusion are instantly familiar from his better-known later work.

Wilton's, itself appealingly unrestored, provided an apt setting. A Victorian venue in Jack-the-Ripper territory, of the kind that was being displaced by cinemas when Hitchcock was working in nearby Blomfield Street, it is also not unlike the Pleasure Garden of the title,...

Three powerful UK film scores get a nod from the Ivor Novellos, while Hitchcock's restored silent movies are given modern musical accompaniment

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Why are the pop-based Ivor Novello awards nominating far more interesting film scores than any other awards body? Their three contenders for best original film score, announced last week, were: The First Grader, by Alex Heffes; We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood; and Life in a Day, by Harry Gregson-Williams and the great Matthew Herbert. These are inventive, creative and powerful modern film scores – far more vital, exciting and reflective of what's going on in film score composition in the UK at the moment than the usual boring nods for, say, Howard Shore and Alexandre Desplat.

Silent Hitch

Trash got a real treat last week, attending the launch of BFI Southbank's forthcoming Hitchcock season. The blockbuster event, designed to coincide with...

He was that rare thing – a hugely successful director who learned from the avant garde

Further proof of how badly the Academy Awards can get it wrong surely lies in this fact: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for best director. Yet he has won an even higher public accolade: he's become synonymous with a style. Ask even the most casual of film-goers to define "Hitchcockian", and you'll hear about the stabbing strings in Psycho; the escalation of panic in The Birds; the icy blondes and the MacGuffins. Hitchcock was that rare thing: a hugely successful director who learned from the avant garde – and so helped set the standards for all subsequent cinema. Born in the last days of Queen Victoria, Hitchcock gained his technical mastery and economy making silent movies – so full marks to the British Film Institute for restoring nine of those early works. The line between his 1926 debut,...

Newly restored silent movies included in BFI's biggest ever project, part of London 2012 Festival

Alfred Hitchcock is to be celebrated like never before this summer, with a retrospective of all his surviving films and the premieres of his newly restored silent films – including Blackmail, which will be shown outside the British Museum.

The BFI on Tuesday announced details of its biggest ever project: celebrating the genius of a man who, it said, was as important to modern cinema as Picasso to modern art or Le Corbusier to modern architecture. Heather Stewart, the BFI's creative director, said: "The idea of popular cinema somehow being capable of being great art at the same time as being entertaining is still a problem for some people. Shakespeare is on the national curriculum, Hitchcock is not."

One of the highlights of the season will be the culmination of a three-year project to fully restore nine of the director's silent films.

At the end of Alfred Hitchcock's long and storied film career he directed a total of 58 films. This summer, London's BFI will feature all of the films, including the premier of nine of his newly restored silent films, the Guardian reports.

From June to October, BFI will show all of Hitchcock's films in "The Genius of Hitchcock: Celebrating Cinema's Master of Suspense."

Hitchcock's horror films are as pervasive in the world of cinema as Shakespeare's plays are to theater. Films like "Psycho" and "Rear Window" were not only a peek inside the psychology of fear, but also that of a innovative and genius filmmaker.

"We would find it very strange if we could not see Shakespeare's early plays performed, or read Dickens's early novels," said Heather Stewart, the BFI's creative director, in an interview with the Guardian. "But we've been quite satisfied as a nation that Hitchcock's early films...

Although known for his silent movies, Miles Mander was a pioneer of the 'phonofilm', paving the way for directors such as Alfred Hitchcock

The BFI's restoration of the 1928 silent The First Born, with Stephen Horne's new score performed live, was one of the big events of the BFI London film festival. Full of surprises, including two racy "making eyes" scenes that had the Queen Elizabeth Hall audience all aflutter, it lives up to Michael Powell's description of the "fluent, expressive, visual story-telling" of late silent cinema that had been cut short by the introduction of synchronised sound. Directed by Miles Mander – a black-sheep Old Harrovian with a background in boxing promotion, aviation and sheep farming – it's a topical tale of a hypocritical, philandering politician who exploits his wife to mop up the women's vote. It was released just after the 1929 "Flapper Election", which brought women under 30 into the franchise for the first time,...

According to New Zealand news website Scoop, three reels of The White Shadow, a silent feature film from 1923 have been discovered in the New Zealand Film Archive. What makes the discovery so special is that it is believed to be the earliest example of the work of legendary British director Alfred Hitchcock.

While he did not direct the film, the then 24 year old Hitchcock is credited as the assistant director and also wrote the scenario, designed the sets and edited the film. Author of The Films of Alfred Hitchcock and Chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, David Sterritt, said that;

“These first three reels offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape. What we are getting is the missing link, one of those few productions where we are able to bridge that gap of Hitchcock, the young guy with all these ideas,...

Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Woman to Woman Despite some confusion in various reports, the 1923 melodrama The White Shadow, half of which was recently found at the New Zealand Film Archive, is not Alfred Hitchcock's directorial debut. It isn't Hitchcock's first ever credited effort, either. That honor apparently belongs to Woman to Woman, which came out earlier that same year. The White Shadow, in fact, was a Woman to Woman afterthought. Both movies were directed by Graham Cutts, both were produced by future British film industry stalwarts Victor Saville and Michael Balcon, both were based on works by Michael Morton (the earlier film was taken from a Morton play; the later one from a Morton novel), and both starred Clive Brook and Hollywood import Betty Compson. (Compson plays two parts in both films as well; but whereas in The White Shadow she plays two actual characters, in Woman to Woman...

A new - or rather, very, very old - Alfred Hitchcock film has surfaced in New Zealand. Thought to be the master of suspense's first film, The White Shadow stars Betty Compson as twins - "one angelic, and the other without a soul." The film is dated 1924, a year before Hitchcock's known directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden. More after the break. Hitchcock did not direct The White Shadow; he is credited as assistant director, art director, editor, and writer. Only three reels of the six-reel silent film have been found, but that amounts to more than half the film, and is thought to be the only copy in existance. The nitrate print was found in the collection of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack...

Great news for fans of cinema, namely the work of Alfred Hitchcock.

A New Zealand team of preservationists have announced the found the first half of one of Hitch’s earliest known works, in 1924′s White Shadow. As THR reports, Hitchcock is credited as assistant director, art director, editor and writer. He was 24 when he worked on the film; his feature directorial debut would come soon afterward on The Pleasure Garden (1925).

“These first three reels of The White Shadow — more than half the film — offer a priceless opportunity to study [Hitchcock’s] visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape,” said David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and author of The Films of Alfred Hitchcock.

The film, which stars Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters — one angelic and the other “without a soul” — turned up among the cache of unidentified American nitrate prints...

Now this is just the kind of news we like having on hump day (which by the way is nowhere near as fun as it sounds)! The earliest surviving film from the great Alfred Hitchcock has been found! Well, at least some of it has.

According to THR, just in time for the filmmaker’s 112th birthday, archivists and preservationists in New Zealand have announced the discovery of the first half of a 1924 film thought to be Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest surviving feature.

In 1924's The White Shadow, an atmospheric British melodrama picked up for international distribution by Hollywood’s Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises, Hitchcock is credited as assistant director, art director, editor and writer. He was 24 when he worked on the film; his feature directorial debut would come soon afterward on The Pleasure Garden (1925).

The film, which stars Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters — one angelic...

Alfred Hitchcock's 1925 film "The Pleasure Garden" is generally recognized to be his first work as a credited director. But for years prior, the film legend worked as both art director and assistant director on a number of silent films. Now, one of those movies, "The White Shadow," has been unearthed in New Zealand, and it is thought to be Hitchcock's oldest surviving film.

A silent British melodrama starring Betty Compson, "The White Shadow," known as "White Shadows" on this side of the Atlantic, told the story of two twins - one good and one evil, but both played by Compson. Hitchcock was only 24-years-old when he collaborated with Graham Cutts on the film, working as assistant director, art director, editor and writer.

"The White Shadow" we believed lost up until recently, when the first three reels of the original six were found sealed away in the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington,...

While Alfred Hitchcock and The Olympics may not scream loving partnership, apparently that’s exactly what will be occurring in honor of the 2012 London Olympics.

According to Digital Spy, a collection of Hitchcock films will receive new scores in honor of the 2012 Olympiad. The scores will be composed by Nitin Sawhney, Tansy Davies and Daniel Cohen, and will be featured on the films The Lodger, The Pleasure Garden, and a film that has yet to be revealed.

The films are the culmination of the Culture Olympiad that will also feature a retrospective of Hitchcock’s silent films. The retrospective will include nine newly restored silent films from the late auteur.

Having seen The Lodger, I can definitely say that the films in question here are in need of a new series of scores, and could really use them to great avail. The Lodger is a fine film, as are many of Hitchcock’s silent features.

A number of Alfred Hitchcock's early silent films are set for a musical make-over as part of London's 2012 Olympics celebrations.

Some of the legendary director's rarely seen movies are being restored by experts at the British Film Institute and a number of British composers have been commissioned to write new orchestral scores.

The films include Hitchcock's first suspense thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog from 1926 - which will be given new music by the London Symphony Orchestra - as well as 1925's The Pleasure Garden.

The finished works will be screened as part of the London 2012 Festival - a celebration of culture timed to coincide with the upcoming Olympic Games in the city.

Hollywood director Martin Scorsese has long campaigned for the restoration of Hitchcock's early films and he is delighted to see more movies are being rescued.

He says, "I'm thrilled that these films will be preserved and made available with the best possible prints for audiences to enjoy. Hitchcock remains an enduring influence on world cinema and these early works provide a wonderful glimpse into the development of his signature style."...

There isn't a person on Earth that can deny that Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. You simply don't earn the title "Master Of Suspense" without making a few great films. But before Hitchcock directed Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window and North By Northwest, he was a silent film director. Sadly, the prints of some of his earliest work are slowly decaying with time and are in desperate need of restoration, but it's something that you can help fix. The BFI National Archive is currently accepting donations from those willing to put money towards saving the remaining Hitchcock silent films. Asking people to "Rescue the Hitchcock 9," the films in question are The Pleasure Garden, The Lodger, The Ring, Downhill, Easy Virtue, The Farmers Wife, Champagne, The Manxman and Blackmail. Most mainstream moviegoers likely has never heard of any of these titles, but hopefully the name...