In the 1920s, Alfred Hitchcock, the son of a shopkeeper, embarked on a career in the fledgling movie industry, and things were never the same again. From silence to sound, from monochrome to colour, from cinema to television, no other film director would stake such a large claim to entertainment in the twentieth century.
In this special series of episodes, hear all about Hitchcock's beginnings, his triumphs and failures, the battles that raged behind the scenes, the people that helped him become the most iconic director of all time, and the darkness inside him that emerged from time to time to cause damage to himself and to those closest to him.
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(The Secret History of Hollywood, 10 August 2018, 19 hours 35 minutes, audiobook, Audible Original Podcast free from @audibleuk with membership)
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Hitchcock is one of my favourite directors and some of his films are among my favourites. I knew very little of him as a person or his life. I found these podcasts fascinating and illuminating. Like other podcasts in The Secret History of Hollywood, these podcasts don't just focus on Hitchcock, but the lives of his wife and people he knew such as other directors, actors and actresses. I found these podcasts engrossing. One episode stands out in my mind. The episode, towards the end of the series focuses on Hitchcock discovering Tippi Hedren, becoming obsessed with her and filming The Birds. I was shocked to discover she had real birds thrown into her face that she had to fend off for five days for the final scene of the movie. This is well worth a listen.
