Authors: Patrick McGilligan
*
Hitchcock’s pre-1939 films fared less well on the BFI’s list of 100 Greatest British films of all time.
The 39 Steps
at number 4, and
The Lady Vanishes
at number 35, were the only ones that made the list.
Cast and crew are identified and listed in the order of the original credits, as the names appeared on the screen at the time of the film’s initial release. “Unbilled” players and technical personnel are omitted. There are some exceptions, including Hitchcock’s own cameo appearances, which were never officially credited. Various Web sites—including the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)—feature more complete listings of cast and crew, including spelling variations and additional personnel.
1920
The Great Day
As title designer.
Dir: Hugh Ford. Sc: Eve Unsell, from a play by Louis N. Parker and George R. Sims. Ph: Hal Young.
Cast: Arthur Bourchier, May Palfrey, Bertram Burleigh, Marjorie Hume, Adeline Hayden-Coffin, Meggie Albanesi, Percy Standing, Geoffrey Kerr, Lewis Dayton, L. Thomas, L. C. Carelli.
(Silent, B & W, Hugh Ford for Famous Players-Lasky British)
The Call of Youth
As title designer.
Dir: Hugh Ford. Sc: Eve Unsell, from a play by Henry Arthur Jones. Ph: Hal Young.
Cast: Mary Glynne, Ben Webster, Jack Hobbs, Malcolm Cherry, Marjorie Hume, Gertrude Sterroll.
(Silent, B & W, Hugh Ford for Famous Players-Lasky British)
1921
Appearances
As title designer.
Dir: Donald Crisp. Sc: Margaret Turnbull, from a play by Edward Knoblock. Ph: Hal Young.
Cast: Mary Glynne, David Powell, Langhorne Burton, Marjorie Hume, Mary Dibley, Percy Standing, Jane West.
(Silent, B & W, Donald Crisp for Famous Players-Lasky British)
The Princess of New York
As title designer.
Dir: Donald Crisp. Sc: Margaret Turnbull, from a novel by Cosmo Hamilton. Ph: Joseph Rosenthal.
Cast: Mary Glynne, David Powell, Ivor Dawson, George Bellamy, Saba Raleigh, Dorothy Fane, Philip Hewland, Wyndham Guise, R. Heaton Grey.
(Silent, B & W, Donald Crisp for Famous Players-Lasky British)
Dangerous Lies
As title designer.
Dir: Paul Powell. Sc: Mary O’Connor, from a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Cast: Mary Glynne, David Powell, Minna Grey, Warburton Gamble, Harry Ham, Clifford Grey, Arthur Cullin, Ernest A. Douglas, Daisy Sloane, Philip Hewland.
(Silent, B & W, Paul Powell for Famous Players-Lasky British)
The Mystery Road
As title designer.
Dir: Paul Powell. Sc: Margaret Turnbull and Mary O’Connor, from a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim. Ph: Claude McDonnell.
Cast: Mary Glynne, David Powell, Ruby Miller, Nadja Ostrovska, Irene Tripod, Percy Standing, Lewis Gilbert, Pardoe Woodman, Arthur Cullin, Lionel d’Aragon, Ralph Forster, R. Judd Green, F. Seager.
(Silent, B & W, Paul Powell for Famous Players-Lasky British)
Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (U.S.: The Bonnie Brier Bush)
As title designer.
Dir: Donald Crisp. Sc: Margaret Turnbull, from a novel by Ian Maclaren and plays by James McArthur and Augustus Thomas. Ph: Claude L. McDonnell.
Cast: Donald Crisp, Mary Glynne, Alec Fraser, Dorothy Fane, Langhorne Burton, Jerrold Robertshaw, Humbertson Wright, Adeline Hayden-Coffin, John M. East.
(Silent, B & W, Donald Crisp for Famous Players-Lasky British)
1922
Three Live Ghosts
As title designer and art director.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice. Sc: Margaret Turnbull and Ouida Bergere, from a play by Frederic S. Isham and Max Marcin. Ph: Arthur C. Miller.
Cast: Anna Q. Nilsson, Norman Kerry, Cyril Chadwick, Edmund Goulding,
John Miltern, Clare Greet, Annette Benson, Dorothy Fane, Wyndham Guise.
(Silent, B & W, George Fitzmaurice for Famous Players-Lasky British)
Perpetua (U.S.: Love’s Boomerang)
As title designer and art director.
Dir: John S. Robertson. Sc: Josephine Lovett, from the novel by Dion Clayton Calthrop. Ph: Roy Overbaugh.
Cast: Ann Forrest, David Powell, Geoffrey Kerr, Bunty Fosse, John Miltern, Florence Wood, Roy Byford, Lillian Walker, Lionel d’Aragon, Polly Emery, Amy Williard, Tom Volbecque, Frank Stanmore, Ida Fane, Sara Sample.
(Silent, B & W, John S. Robertson for Famous Players-Lasky British)
The Man from Home
As title designer and art director.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice. Sc: Ouida Bergere, from the play by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson. Ph: Arthur C. Miller.
Cast: James Kirkwood, Anna Q. Nilsson, Geoffrey Kerr, Norman Kerry, Dorothy Cumming, José Ruben, Annette Benson, Edward Dagnall, John Miltern, Clifford Grey.
(Silent, B & W, George Fitzmaurice for Famous Players-Lasky British)
The Spanish Jade
As title designer and art director.
Dir: John S. Robertson. Sc: Josephine Lovett, from the play by Louis Joseph Vance and the novel by Maurice Hewlett. Ph: Roy Overbaugh.
Cast: David Powell, Evelyn Brent, Charles de Rochefort, Marc McDermott, Harry Ham, Roy Byford, Frank Stanmore, Lionel d’Aragon.
(Silent, B & W, John S. Robertson for Famous Players-Lasky British)
Tell Your Children
As title designer and art director.
Dir: Donald Crisp. Sc: Leslie Howard Gordon, from a novel by Rachel MacNamara.
Cast: Walter Tennyson, Doris Eaton, Margaret Halstan, Gertrude McCoy, Mary Rorke, Adeline Hayden-Coffin, Warwick Ward, Cecil Morton York, A. Harding Steerman.
(Silent, B & W, Martin Sabine for International Artistes Film Co.)
Number Thirteen (unfinished; also referred to as Mrs. Peabody)
As director and producer.
Sc: Anita Ross. Ph: Joseph Rosenthal.
Cast: Clare Greet, Ernest Thesiger.
“The picture dealt with London low-life, the ‘Number Thirteen’ of the title referring to the number of a tenement flat in a Peabody Building (a poor person’s dwelling). In a letter … Ernest Thesiger comments on the fact that Clare Greet was persuaded to put up some of the money towards the making of the
picture, which was never eventually shown. Adrian Brunel, however, remembers Hitchcock showing it to him, in an incomplete state, in 1922
.”
Peter Noble, “An Index to the Work of Alfred Hitchcock,” Special Supplement to
Sight and Sound
, May 1949
1923
Always Tell Your Wife
As production manager and codirector (with Hugh Croise).
Sc: Seymour Hicks and Hugh Croise, from a one-act play by Hicks. Ph. Claude L. McDonnell.
Cast: Seymour Hicks, Ellaline Terriss, Stanley Logan, Gertrude McCoy, Ian Wilson.
(Silent, B & W, Seymour Hicks for Comedie-de-Lux, Seymour Hicks Productions)
“Only the first reel [of two] survives; and the narrative is well enough handled to leave you eager to know what happens next when it cuts off
.”
David Robinson,
18th Pordenone Silent Film Festival Catalogue
, 1999
Woman to Woman
As coscenarist, art director, and assistant director.
Dir: Graham Cutts. Sc: Hitchcock and Michael Morton, from a play by Morton. Ph: Claude L. McDonnell. Editor and Second Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Josephine Earle, Marie Ault, Myrtle Peter, A. Harding Steerman, Henry Vibart, Donald Searle.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Balcon-Saville-Freedman)
“The film critic of the
Daily Express
said … that it was the ‘best American picture made in England.’… On
Woman to Woman
I was the general factotum. I wrote the script. I designed the sets, and I managed the production. It was the first film that I had really got my hands onto
.”
Alfred Hitchcock,
Stage
, July 1936
1924
The White Shadow
As coscenarist, art director, and assistant director.
Dir: Graham Cutts. Sc: Hitchcock and Michael Morton, from a story by Morton. Ph: Claude L McDonnell. Editor and Second Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Henry Victor, Daisy Campbell, Olaf Hytten, A. B. Imeson.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Balcon-Saville-Freedman)
“Engrossed in our first production, we had made no preparations for the second. Caught on the hop, we rushed into production with a story called
The White Shadow.
It was as big a flop as
Woman to Woman
had been a success
.”
Michael Balcon,
Michael Balcon Presents … a Lifetime of Films
, 1969
The Passionate Adventure
As coscenarist, art director, and assistant director.
Dir: Graham Cutts. Sc: Hitchcock and Michael Morton, based on the Frank Stayton novel. Ph: Claude L. McDonnell. Editor and Second Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Alice Joyce, Clive Brook, Marjorie Daw, Lilian Hall-Davis, Victor McLaglen, Mary Brough, John Hamilton, Joseph R. Tozer.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Gainsborough)
“Some of the sets in
The Passionate Adventure
are unique, especially the large hall which is seen so many times and from so many different angles during the progress of the story. Graham Cutts tells me it was especially designed so as to give a minimum of two hundred different camera angles. The movie itself will doubtless be popular, for it is well acted, beautifully costumed and ably directed.”
Pictures and Picturegoer
, October 1924
1925
The Blackguard (German: Die Prinzessin und der Geiger)
As scenarist, art director, and assistant director.
Dir: Graham Cutts. Sc: Hitchcock, based on the Raymond Paton novel. Ph: Theodor Sparkuhl. Editor and Second Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Jane Novak, Walter Rilla, Bernhard Goetzke, Frank Stanmore, Rosa Valetti, Martin Herzberg, Dora Bergner, Fritz Alberti.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Gainsborough and Erich Pommer for Ufa)
“The producer who up to now has adhered to following the ordinary American feature productions has now gone over to the German idea of realism coupled with gigantic and, in some cases, almost unnatural settings. The result is that he has a picture which, whether it proves a showman’s proposition or not, is miles above the average production.”
Variety
, May 27, 1925
The Prude’s Fall (U.S.: Dangerous Virtue)
As scenarist, art director, and assistant director.
Dir: Graham Cutts. Sc: Hitchcock, based on the Rudolf Besier and May Edginton play. Ph: Hal Young. Editor and Second Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Jane Novak, Julanne Johnston, Warwick Ward, Miles Mander, Hugh Miller, Gladys Jennings, Henry Vibart, Marie Ault.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Gainsborough)
Variety
‘s review of the U.S. version notes that no producer or director is named, but that Alfred J. Hitchcock is credited with editing and titling. The review goes on to say:
“Dangerous Virtue
is just a piece of film junk and nothing more. The answer is apparent that no producer or director is credited, and the note that American editing and titling were tried to whip it into shape, but even then there was nothing that could be done to save the picture. The
[Loew’s]
New York’s audience laughed at it and practically hooted it from the screen in derision.
”
Variety
, November 3, 1926
1926
The Pleasure Garden (German title: Irrgarten der Leidenschaft)
As director.
Sc: Eliot Stannard, from the novel by Oliver Sandys. Ph: Baron (Gaetano di) Ventimiglia. Art Dir: Ludwig Reiber. Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Virginia Valli, Carmelita Geraghty, Miles Mander, John Stuart, Georg H. Schnell, Karl Falkenberg, Ferdinand Martini, Florence Helminger.
*
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Gainsborough and Münchener Lichtspielkunst, Emelka, original British running length:7,508 ft.)
**
“
It is improbable that Mr. Hitchcock chose this hectic story of his own accord, but the point is that he has produced it with remarkable power and imaginative resource. The technical skill revealed in this film is superior, I think, to that shown in any film yet made by a British producer, despite the fact that it was made under the difficult conditions, for an Englishman, of a German studio.
”
G. A. Atkinson,
Daily Express
, February 14, 1926
The Mountain Eagle (German: Der Bergadler)
As director.
Sc: Eliot Stannard, from an original story by Charles Lapworth (German version: Max Ferner). Ph: Baron Ventimiglia. Art Dir: Willy and Ludwig Reiber. Asst Dir: Alma Reville.
Cast: Bernhard Goetzke, Nita Naldi, Malcolm Keen, John Hamilton, Ferdinand Martini.
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon for Gainsborough-Münchener Lichtspielkunst Emelka, 7,503 ft.)
“The Mountain Eagle,
is due in May and incidentally, is one of the finest pictures of the year.
”
“Lolita” for “Film of the Week,”
Modern
, February 19, 1927
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (U.S.: The Case of Jonathan Drew)
As director.
Sc: Eliot Stannard, from the novel by Mrs. Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. Ph: Baron Ventimiglia. Art Dir: C. Wilfred Arnold, Bertram Evans. Asst Dir: Alma Reville. Editing and Titling: Ivor Montagu. Title Design: E. McKnight Kauffer.
Cast: Ivor Novello, June [Howard-Tripp], Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, Malcolm Keen, and Alfred Hitchcock (a newsman on the phone, and, perhaps, in the crowd crying for the lodger’s blood, toward the end).
(Silent, B & W, Michael Balcon and Carlyle Blackwell for Gainsborough, 7,503 ft.)
“The Lodger
is not an apprentice work but a thesis, definitively establishing Hitchcock’s identity as an artist. Thematically and stylistically, it is fully characteristic of his filmic writing. By ‘writing’ I mean not what we ordinarily think of as a script but a film’s construction as a succession of views, what is technically called its ‘continuity’ and in France its ‘decoupage.’ The writing of The
Lodger
in this sense is amazingly imaginative and complex. Every shot, every framing, reframing, and cut, is significant.
”