Alfred Hitchcock

Decades after his death, Alfred Hitchcock is still considered one of the greatest directors of all time. But did you know that in addition to his reputation as the “Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock was also a notorious (no pun intended) prankster? He once bet someone they couldn’t spend the night in a darkened movie studio, chained to a camera. Once the man agreed to the bet, and got into position, Hitchcock offered him some brandy - laced with a laxative. That’s just one of the shocking facts featured in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

Everyone knows Psycho, and the character of Marion Crane, who steals $40,000 from her boss, goes on the road, and winds up at the Bates Motel, where she encounters a very unhappy old lady and her very sharp knife in her room’s shower. But did you know that Anthony Perkins, who played the motel manager Norman Bates, was paid $40,000 for his performance — the exact same amount Marion stole? That’s just one of The Shining facts featured in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

Actress Tippi Hedren rose to fame during the ’60s as the leading lady of such late-period Alfred Hitchcock classics as The Birds and Marnie. But in her upcoming memoir Tippi, an excerpt of which has been obtained and reported on by the New York Post, Hedren reveals that that stardom came with a terrible price...

ScreenCrush’s latest series, Greatest of All Time, aka The GOATs, celebrates the best of the best when it comes to the movies. This week we’re ranking the best horror movie theme songs in honor of Halloween.

In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut spent a week in a room at Universal Studios talking about movies. That interview became the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, which proceeds systematically as the two explore Hitchcock’s career, analyzing each of his films one by one. The discussion wasn’t filmed, but the audio was recorded, and now that audio forms the spine of Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut documentary, which doesn’t so much adapt the book as it does bring it to life onscreen. Hearing Hitchcock and Truffaut makes clear something that’s easy to forget reading words on a page: That this conversation — maybe the greatest ever on the subject of films and filmmaking — was conducted through a translator. Hitchcock didn’t know French; Truffaut couldn’t understand English. But both spoke the language of cinema, which transcends communicative limitations.

Themed entertainment is a like a shark or a relationship – it has to keep moving forward or it has to die. Today, September 8, 2015, marks the day that Universal officially leaves its past behind. Disaster!: A Major Motion Picture Ride Starring You, is closing to make way for a Fast and Furious themed ride. It’s closure marks the definitive end of the park’s original intentions, for better and for worse.

A remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (or any Hitchcock, for that matter) seems absurdly unreasonable and destined to fail. A remake of The Birds from producer Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes banner seems even more absurdly unreasonable, but here we are. The remake has been in development for some time now, but Bay & Co. have finally found a brave soul to volunteer their services.

Many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies, from 'Psycho' to 'Vertigo' to 'Rear Window,' are about voyeurism, so the idea of peering into Hitchcock's own previously hidden private life does make a certain amount of sense. But if 'Hitchcock' resonates with some of the Master of Suspense's ideas, it's never faithful to his spirit. Hitch would never have put his name on a film so full of lame pop psychology a

Let us, for now, put aside the question of if Alfred Hitchcock was one of the greatest directors of all time -- he was, but... -- and instead contemplate how no director before or after Hitchcock has been as public, and as perfectly matched to their public persona. Sure, Scorsese and Spielberg and Shyamalan all get out in front of their flicks, to an extent, but not in the clever, in-on-a-joke way that Hitchcock became Hitchcock. It is, interestingly, one of the things that gets in the way of actually looking at the films -- Hitchock's life was more fractured and flawed and unforgiving than that of even most directors. But this new Universal set, 'Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection,' confronts you with such a dense chunk of his filmography so well-presented and restored, in a package as stout as the man himself, that it physically confronts you with his actual work.

“Good evening.” Fox Searchlight has decided to give Sacha Gervasi’s ‘Hitchcock,’ with Sir Anthony Hopkins playing the ‘Psycho’ director, a November release date. That’s a bit of a shock, given the fact that the busy Thanksgiving weekend seemed to be set with Ang Li’s ‘Life of Pi,’ David O. Russell’s ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ and the animated ‘Rise of the Guardians.’ But now we’re tasked with f