1. BBC Four
  2. Programmes
  3. Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock

Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock

Watch:

Availability:

Sorry, this programme is not available to watch again. (why?)

Last broadcast on Fri, 30 Oct 2009, 01:05 on BBC Two (Northern Ireland only) (see all broadcasts).

Synopsis

Paul Merton continues his love affair with silent cinema in an exploration of Alfred Hitchcock's British films.

Before Hitchcock became the master of suspense, he made all kinds of movies while learning his profession and honing his technique. His later, much loved American pictures are full of visual sequences which owe a huge debt to his early days as a silent film director.

Merton sees Hitchcock as a man immersed in the visual language of cinema, who understood how to use camera movement and lighting for dramatic effect. For Hitchcock, heavily influenced by the German expressionist cinema, the pictures would always be more important than the dialogue.

Using clips and previously unseen archive interviews with Hitchcock, Merton weaves together a playful narrative of the director's early career and macabre world, revealing a man with a great sense of humour.

He talks to those who knew and worked with Hitchcock, including actress Anna Massey, director Roy Ward Baker, Hitchcock's official biographer John Russell Taylor and the great cinematographer Gil Taylor, the latter about working on two Hitchcock films at either end of his career - Number Seventeen in 1932 and Frenzy in 1972.

Credits

Presenter
Paul Merton
Director
Paul Merton
Producer
Kate Broome
Executive Producer
Michael Poole
Writer
Paul Merton
Writer
Suki Webster

Broadcasts

  1. Sat 28 Feb 2009
    21:00
  2. Sun 1 Mar 2009
    00:10
  3. Sun 1 Mar 2009
    03:10
  4. Sun 1 Mar 2009
    22:00
  5. Wed 4 Mar 2009
    00:05
  6. Thu 29 Oct 2009
    23:20
  7. Fri 30 Oct 2009
    00:20
  8. Fri 30 Oct 2009
    01:05

More details

Duration

60 minutes

More like this

Find related BBC Four programmes.

Explore the BBC

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.