HitchGeek Academy: A Portrait of Hitchcock as a Young Man

Twickenham Studios, where Alma Reville's father worked as a costume maker. 

If you think you know Hitchcock by his famous profile shot and jokey TV show monologues, you’d be quite wrong. You’ve just gotten to know his shadow—not the real person. And I’d say 99% of his fans have fallen into that trap—sometimes with hilariously disastrous results.

To understand what made this guy tick, we have to go back to the beginning. 

Hitch was born at the turn of the 20th century—the birth of the modern era. He saw the rise of cars, airplanes, telephones, recorded music and radio broadcasting. London was the biggest city on the planet, and he got to know it intimately. In fact, by the time he was 8, he’d memorized the schedule of the entire London public transportation system. Bright kid.

His family wasn’t wealthy, but they did have a routine of going to plays in the West End, and as a young man, he got a reputation for being a “first-nighter”—every weekend catching opening night at the new plays and musicals. That's why, in part, his movies are famous for having a lot of theatrical bits in them.

In this video, we look at his early days growing up in "the Hollywood of England," where he was quite literally born and raised with the movies themselves. Vintage archival footage and rare interviews await:

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Great news! I'm now producing Alfred Hitchcock Geek as a video series. Combining a lifetime of scholarship with film sequences, rare behind-the-scenes clips, interviews with Hitch himself and more, I'm doing my part to bring Hitchcock studies into the 21st century while building a community that thinks more expansively about film, art and maybe life itself. It's a huge undertaking, and I can't do it alone. Check it out—I'd be honored to receive your support!