LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Alfred Hitchcock: Suspense
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Easy Virtue (1928) takes Hitchcock away from his typical suspense film. It is a kind of film not much made today, but which was hugely popular in the silent era: a romantic melodrama set against a world of upper class wealth. It reminds one in general terms of Lady Windemere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925). Hitchcock does surprisingly well with this kind of material. The conflict between a worldly, sophisticated woman with a secret past, and a proper family in British upper-crust Society, is at the center of both works. Both films revel in their depiction of Society amusements.
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Hitchcock was a very calm man, and had a measured, courtly manner and wore dark suits, white shirts and conservative narrow ties. He was a gourmet and wine connoisseur, and, with a 5-foot-8- inch frame, his weight once soared to 290 pounds, though he tried to keep it down by dieting to about 220 pounds. He avoided exercise and fiction, and voraciously read contemporary biographies, travel books and true-crime accounts. He increased his fame and fortune by lending his name to, and supervising for decades, popular suspense anthologies and magazines with tales by many writers.
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The suspense and the gallows humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in film had continued to appear in his productions. The working arrangements with Selznick... were less than optimal. Selznick suffered from perennial money problems, and Hitchcock was often displeased with Selznick's creative control over his films. Consequently, Selznick ended up "loaning" Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. In addition, Selznick, as well as fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, made only a few films each year, so Selznick did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Remarkably, Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick.
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David O. Selznick pursued Hitchcock to make some Hollywood films. With Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American film, and he worked in America for the rest of his career. Rebecca evokes the fears of a naive young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with the legacy of the dead woman who was her husband's first wife. The droll touches of humor are still there in his American work, but suspense became his trademark.
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Hitchcock became famous for his expert and largely unrivalled control of pace and suspense, and his films draw heavily on both fear and fantasy. The films are known for their droll humour and witticisms, and these cinematic works often portray innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or understanding.
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North By Northwest recalls such earlier Hitchcock spy films as Foreign Correspondent and Sabotage. All three are comic extravaganzas, involving much traveling to different locations, a series of brilliant set pieces, and a suspense sequence atop a famous high landmark. Before that, Hitchcock included cross-country journeys in such British adventure films as The 39 Steps (1935) and Young and Innocent (1937).
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