page_title: Alfred Hitchcock
section_title: Transatlantic Pictures
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Hitchcock / Biography / Post-war Hollywood years: 1945–1953 / Transatlantic Pictures
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of James Stewart from the trailer for the film Rope
context_page_description: Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as the "Master of Suspense", he directed over 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing of the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His films garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.
  Born in Leytonstone, London, Hitchcock entered the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer after training as a technical clerk and copy writer for a telegraph-cable company. He made his directorial debut with the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden. His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, helped to shape the thriller genre, while his 1929 film, Blackmail, was the first British "talkie". Two of his 1930s thrillers, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century.
context_section_description: Hitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film. With Rope (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1944). The film appears to have been shot in a single take, but it was actually shot in 10 takes ranging from 4-​¹⁄₂ to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film was the most that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. The film features James Stewart in the leading role, and was the first of four films that Stewart made with Hitchcock. It was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. The film was not well received.
  Under Capricorn (1949), set in 19th-century Australia, also uses the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white films for several years. Transatlantic Pictures became inactive after these two unsuccessful films. Hitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) at studios in Elstree, England, where he had worked during his British International Pictures contract many years before. He matched one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the expatriate German actor Marlene Dietrich and used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first proper production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties.
  His film Strangers on a Train (1951) was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest.
caption: A typical shot from Rope (1948) with James Stewart turning his back to the fixed camera
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