Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Suspense

Basically, the documentary is a chronological compilation of footage from Hitchcock's illustrious career in movies and TV. Starting off as director at age 23 in England in 1922, we follow clips from main films up to his last, Family Plot, 1976.There's voice-over narration connecting the clips along with comments from Hitch, especially as his career in Hollywood blossoms. The comments are an occasional hoot when done in his inimitably snarky style. The last third focuses mainly on clips made for TV. A few are at times over-done (over-long) but still fairly entertaining. The main highlight may well be his tour of sets from Psycho with a nifty final clip. However, fans expecting anything about his private life will be disappointed. This is all about Hitch the movie-maker and snarky personality. All in all, the hundred minutes amounts to a fairly interesting compilation of the master's darkly humorous professional life. Fans should be entertained, while newcomers get an encompassing intro to perhaps moviedom's most unusual legend.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK: MASTER OF SUSPENSE is a straightforward career retrospective of the famous director that consists entirely of archive footage either taken from Hitch's films themselves or occasionally the trailers for the movies. The inclusion of a handful of behind the scenes photos adds a little more coherency to the proceedings, but this is basic stuff indeed, perhaps for newcomers to the director rather than established fans.

The documentary adopts a chronological approach beginning with Hitchcock's career in silent cinema before moving into his career-building work of the 1930s. It really hits its stride when it reaches the 1940s, and doesn't let up until the mid '70s, when Hitch retired due to ill health. I particularly enjoyed the wealth of footage from the various TV shows that Hitchcock presented and which I didn't know much about. The clips are accompanied by basic narration which offers only the most obvious conclusions and facts. My main complaint is that the quality of the footage from the director's filmography as well as the trailer footage is very poor indeed, thoroughly grainy as though it's been taken from public domain prints or even Youtube.

Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Suspense (2013)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is a rather generic but mildly entertaining documentary that pretty much goes from one film to the next in the order that they were released. Each film is spoken about and we're told little bits of trivia while clips from that film (usually the trailer) is shown.

There's certainly nothing ground-breaking about this documentary as it's what you would call a copy and paste job but at the same time if you're interesting in Hitchcock then it's mildly entertaining. I say that because most fans will probably already know the bits of trivia that the narrator talks about but it's still a somewhat fun way to go down the masters career. There are some silly comments made throughout including one about SECRET AGENT breaking new ground by making the bad guy as likable as the good guy. Umm....didn't Warner do this years earlier with their gangster pictures?

There have been several Hitchcock documentaries. The key is to come up with something new and interesting. This is a pastiche of movie trailers and public documents. Most of the material has been done before with greater success. The film clips are mundane and have little, if any, depth. When one is dealing with a master of montage, perhaps the director should have attempted to learn a bit from his subject. It's not horrible. Only redundant.