Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1934 • United Kingdom
Starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, Edna Best
An ordinary British couple vacationing in Switzerland suddenly find themselves embroiled in a case of international intrigue when their daughter is kidnapped by spies plotting a political assassination. This fleet and gripping film is the first of the early thrillers the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, made during the fertile phase of his career spent at the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Besides affirming Hitchcock’s genius, it gave the brilliant Peter Lorre his first English-speaking role, as a slithery villain. With its tension and gallows humor, it’s pure Hitchcock, and it set the tone for such films as THE 39 STEPS and THE LADY VANISHES.
Up Next in Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
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Rich and Strange
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1931 • United Kingdom
Starring Henry Kendall, Joan BarryTaking its all-too-appropriate title from “The Tempest,” this fascinatingly offbeat satiric drama concerns a stuck-in-a-rut young couple who, upon coming into a generous inheritance, immediately use the mo...
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Murder!
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1930 • United Kingdom
Starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Phyllis KonstamOne of Alfred Hitchcock’s signature obsessions—the “wrong man” motif he would return to time and again—receives one of its earliest treatments in this innovative whodunit. After a you...
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Blackmail
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock • 1929 • United Kindgom
Starring Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John LongdenAlfred Hitchcock’s—and Britain’s—first talkie finds the director using sound technology as inventively as he used the camera. Anny Ondra (prototype for the many Hitchcock blondes to come) play...
