by Rachel Stibi

Created on: January 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

To learn about Alfred Hitchcock's best films you should first know a little about the man himself, and how dedicated he was to his craft. Born on August 13, 1899, Alfred Joseph Hitchcock became a genius director and auteur of suspense and thriller movies; he was both smart and prolific in his work. Hitchcock started in the film industry at the bottom when he found full-time employment in 1920 at Islington Studios making titles for silent films. After using his job to learn anything he could about set design, production, and direction, Islington Studios and its production partner Gainsborough Pictures offered to let Hitchcock direct his first real film "The Pleasure Garden" in 1925. "The Pleasure Garden" was a successful film for Hitchcock and Islington Studios, Hitchcock worked almost 15 years in the British film industry, with many other successful movies to his credit, such as Blackmail (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and The 39 Steps (1935), but in 1940 Hitchcock took his visions to Hollywood and the Hitchcock era began.

Some of the most notable and best films from Hitchcock's early British Film career are as follows:

#1. The Lodger (1927, United Kingdom, Silent) Starring: Ivor Novello (Jonathan Drew)

Who could be murdering young girls on foggy London nights? When an enigmatic young man, Jonathan Drew (Ivor Novello) checks into a London boarding house, evidence starts to mount that point to him as the killer. Starring the brilliant and beautiful composer-actor-playwright, Ivor Novello, of silent screen fame, this is a beautifully captured piece that strikes you from the first cord as a Hitchcock thriller. In an interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock stated that he considered this to be his first real film; he had directed (or helped direct) two films prior.

#2. The 39 Steps (1935, United Kingdom) Starring: Robert Donat & Madeline Carroll (Richard & Pamela Hannay).

This is the story of an ordinary man caught up amongst extraordinary events. While fleeing a theater after a gun shot, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) meets a distressed woman that he takes back to his room, but when she tells him she is a British Spy and needs help, he does not believe her. She comes to his door the next morning with a knife in her back, a map in her hand, and mumbling about "39 steps". Now not only does he believe her, but he has been set up to look like he killed her. Wanted for murder, and followed by thugs, Hannay must now find a way to expose the truth and prove his

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