How To Make A Hitchcock Movie

Blonde Bombshells

The Trademark: Hitchcock’s leading ladies are invariably blonde bombshells, and often appear to be prim and proper – a façade which quickly reveals them as thieves, adulterers and kleptomaniacs.

Seen In: Grace Kelly in Rear Window , Kim Novak in Vertigo , Tippi Hedren in The Birds , Ingrid Bergamn in Spellbound etc.

How To Recreate It: Head down your local IKEA, which if we know anything about IKEA should be packed full of Scandinavian beauties.

Find the slightly damaged one who can’t help but steal, and you’re away.

Director Cameo

The Trademark: Hitch couldn’t help but throw himself among the pigeons, turning up at some point in almost every film he ever made, from obscure blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments to long shots.

Seen In: Being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the Underground in Blackmail , missing the bus in North By Northwest , boarding the train in Strangers On A Train.

How To Recreate It: Short of resurrecting the chap and being responsible for an awesome undead Hitchcock roaming the earth, a cardboard cut out should suffice.

Famous Landmarks

The Trademark: Hitchcock’s finales were finely orchestrated set-pieces often involving famous landmarks.

Seen In: From the domed roof of the British Museum in Blackmail to the Statue of Liberty in Sabotuer , The Royal Albert Hall in The Man Who Knew Too Much to Mount Rushmore in North By Northwest

How To Recreate It: Filming at most major landmarks is going to be tricky. It’s mostly illegal for one, unless you have a permit, which you likely will not.

Best thing to do is get a small handheld camera, pretend you and your actors are tourists and run like buggery if you get caught.

Technical Skill

The Trademark: The Jowel™ was always pushing the boundaries of cinema, constantly striving to develop new techniques and pioneering several.

Seen In: POV shots in Spellbound , using a giant hand and props to keep perspective. Use of the ‘Dolly Zoom’ in Vertigo . Clever editing made Rope appear to be a single take.

How To Recreate It: Get jiggy with your in-camera effects. A dolly zoom can be achieved by walking forwards and zooming out.

An office favourite is the classic ‘click your fingers and disappear’ trick that makes it appear you have teleported.

Mommy Issues

The Trademark: Characters in Hitchcock films are often involved in highly unusual relationships with their mothers.

Seen In: Roger Thornhill’s abrasive relationship with his mother in North By Northwest . Sebastian’s meddlesome mother in Notorious . Oh, and that lovely Norman Bates in Psycho .

How To Recreate It: Sadly, totalfilm.com don’t need any help in this department, after being maternally disowned for snubbing a decent career in favour of film journalism.

Perhaps you could come work for us, and then yours might hate you too.

Ordinary Man In An Extraordinary Situation

The Trademark: The protagonists in 'Alf’s Joints' are often average middle class types, victims of circumstance, who rise to the occasion and become heroes.

Seen In: Joel McCrea in Foreign Correspondant , Jimmy Stewart in North By Northwest , Leslie Banks and Edna Best in The Man Who Knew Too Much .

How To Recreate It: You need to find the most wholly average person available. Do you have a friend with a bit of Jimmy Stewart/Bogey/Tom Hanks/Shia The Beef about them? Cast them, and the rest will take care of itself. Kinda.

Single Location

The Trademark: The Cock often set his film in a small space, as a technical challenge as much as a dramatic device of a budgetary concern.

Seen In: The lifeboat in Lifeboat , the apartment in Dial M for Murder , the apartment in Rear Window , the apartment in Rope .

How To Recreate It: Pick a place - preferably a tiny, uncommonly used place - and build your story around that.

A tree house perhaps, one which no-one can leave as there are zombies waiting on the ground, zombies that are never seen… Someone should seriously make this film. Seriously.

The MacGuffin

The Trademark: An item of value which is of extreme importance to the characters, who all want to possess it.

Seen In: The ‘Top Secret Plans’ in The 39 Steps , the ‘microfilm’ in North By Northwest , Guy’s Lighter in Stranger’s On A Trai n , the stolen $40,000 in Psycho .

How To Recreate It: Look around you right now, wherever you are – and pick the first object you see.

The more trivial the item the better. A stapler for example, which has staples made from a top secret alloy or something.

Or just stick with zombies.