[ Tires screeching ] [ Engine rumbling ] [ Horn blaring ] [ Tires screech ] ♪♪ -Tension, excitement, speed.

A hero under the spell of a beautiful blonde.

These are just some of the ingredients that made Alfred Hitchcock the master of suspense, a movie magician, and a TV star.

-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

-And yet the legend remains incomplete.

Hidden behind the familiar silhouette, lurking in the background, was the woman of his life, his other half, Alma Reville.

♪♪ In both moviemaking and their private life, the couple shared everything.

This is the story of the woman behind the man.

♪♪ [ Applause ] Hitchcock's movies were written using four hands.

Two of them belonged to his wife.

Their romance is inextricably linked to their work together, giving it impetus and inspiration.

-It has been my observation that man does not live by murder alone.

[ Laughter ] He needs affection, approval, encouragement, and occasionally a hearty meal.

[ Laughter ] I beg to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection and constant collaboration.

The first of the four is a film editor.

The second is a scriptwriter.

The third is the mother of my daughter, Pat.

And the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen.

And their names are Alma Reville.

[ Applause ] -On that night of 1979, Alma knew they were nearing the end of the road.

It was a moment to reflect on his life, his joys, and his torments.

♪♪ Alfred Hitchcock was born in London on August 13, 1899, just one day before Alma Reville.

"That's why he always called me his little one," she says.

"Also because I was not very tall."

Hitchcock, or rather "Hitch," as he liked to be called throughout his life, was the youngest of the family, the blue-eyed boy.

The baby?

[ Chuckles ] Yes, of course a little spoiled.

You know how families always spoil the youngest.

-His parents were traders.

From "Sabotage" to "Frenzy," the shops and warehouses of his youth became recurring backdrops in his movies.

♪♪ Like all of London's working classes, the family had a hard life.

But the Hitchcocks also loved to have fun.

[ Knocking on door ] -Come in.

-The Hitchcocks had a taste for saucy stories with a very black, very Cockney sense of humor, and Hitch's movies are shot through with this family legacy.

There's a hint of mockery in the most tragic situations, as in "Frenzy," when the murderer gets into a clinch with his victim.

-[ Grunting ] [ Panting ] ♪♪ But Alfred's youth was not all frivolity.

Hailing from an English Catholic minority, he was raised by Jesuits and even became a choirboy.

He later described how the legacy of this upbringing was his moral fear of evil and physical fear of corporal punishment.

♪♪ Religion would linger in his films, much like the fog in the streets of London.

♪♪ As a child, Alma was immersed in the world of cinema.

Her family lived near the Twickenham Studios, where her father worked.

She loved to hang out on set and started going to see movies at a very early age with her grandmother.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ A rather lonely child, very close to her mother and sister, she contracted a neurological disease that kept her away from school for two years.

All her life, she had an inferiority complex about what she perceived to be a lack of general knowledge.

♪♪ Hitchcock grew up in Leytonstone, right beside Whitechapel, where Jack the Ripper had forged his sinister reputation a few years earlier.

♪♪ People still talked about his sordid crimes, and the news stories of the day inspired the filmmaker, peppering his work with serial killers and all manner of psychopaths.

-[ Gasping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Hitchcock was a timorous child ruled by his fears... -...driving while intoxicated.

-...fears that his parents helped to stoke.

-They tried to kill me.

-At the age of 5, his father inflicted a strange punishment on him, sending him to spend a few minutes in a police cell.

-Somebody call the police.

-Come on.

Come on, now.

-Hitch had a longstanding phobia of the police that permeated many of his films, as in "North by Northwest," a film in which he also has fun with the special bond between Cary Grant and a mother who is anything but protective.

♪♪ As he jokingly told Dick Cavett, he attributed his timorous nature to his mother.

[ Laughter ] -I think my mother scared me when I was three months old.

You see, she said, "Boo!"

[ Laughter ] -Mother.

-It gave me the hiccups.

-Yes?

-And she apparently was very satisfied.

All mothers do it, you know.

That's how fear starts in everyone.

-[ Scoffs ] -Hitch made his fears his trademark, employing them to fascinating and exciting effect in his films.

It was what he called "the pleasure of fear."

♪♪ ♪♪ -[ Screams ] ♪♪ Mothers, too, are key characters in Hitchcock movies, often presented as stifling or abusive figures... -Mother.

-...as in "Notorious" or "Psycho," or eccentric and neurotic, as in "Marnie," quite the opposite of his own mother... -I need your help.

-...whom he adored.

-Something is wrong?

-Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.

-He was in the habit of giving her a bedtime debriefing about his day's activities.

Their closeness would be a huge influence on his relationship with women.

-What?

-Mother, I'd like you to meet Melanie Daniels.

Miss Daniels, my mother.

-How do you do?

-How do you do, Miss Daniels?

-[ Gasps ] You must have loved me, Mama.

You must have loved me.

-You're the only thing in this world I ever did love.

♪♪ -Another woman played an important role in his youth, his older sister, Nellie.

A tall and distinguished girl, she worked as a model on Oxford Street.

She helped foster Hitch's almost obsessive interest in the way his leading ladies looked.

He always had a clear idea of what their hairstyles and clothes should be like... -I have to go, Sam.

-...even their underwear.

It was something of an obsession.

-I can come down next week.

-What do you think?

-Is this the Lisa Fremont who never wears the same dress twice?

-Only because it's expected of her.

It's right off the Paris plane.

♪♪ -Hitch attached great importance to physical appearance.

Small and rotund, he always dreamed of being stick-thin and spent most of his adult life on a diet.

However, his curves did not prevent him from playing tennis, as long as the opponent returned the ball in his direction, nor from being a wonderful dancer.

It's no coincidence that there are so many ballroom scenes in his movies.

♪♪ ♪♪ In 1922, he had an encounter that would change his life.

It was in Islington's film studios that hitch first set eyes on Alma Reville.

But it wasn't the kind of love at first sight so often featured in the movies.

-Stop!

-Oh, excuse me.

-Stop.

-[ Chuckling ] Ahh... -At first, like his famous appearances in his films, their paths crossed, but he couldn't pluck up the courage to talk to her.

He was drawn to this pretty, slim young woman with blonde-red hair and hazel eyes.

But she was somewhat haughty towards him, which vexed him greatly.

"I was an experienced technician," recalls Alma, "while he was just starting out."

At that time in England, it was difficult for a man to admit that a woman had a more important job than he did.

She started work at the age of 16 in the editing room, the only place where a woman without experience was accepted.

By the time she was 22, when she first crossed paths with her future husband, she was already an editor, an assistant director, and an actress.

♪♪ -"Cinema," roll five, Alfred Hitchcock.

-Hitch would be forced to take a longer, more tortuous route.

After his engineering studies, he worked in the advertising department of The Henley Telegraph, wrote news, and studied art at university.

He was then hired to draw title cards for silent films at Islington Gainsborough Studios.

It was there that he met female writers from Hollywood teaching American methods to the British.

From then, he learnt the tricks of the screenwriting trade, a schooling that would shape his future work.

In the Hollywood films of the day, pretty girls often found themselves in danger.

They were the forerunners to Hitchcock's famous imperiled onscreen blondes.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Hello?

-[ Screams ] [ Bird cawing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ As Hitch climbed the career ladder, he grew in assurance, becoming an assistant director, screenwriter, set designer, and production manager, sometimes combining all those roles in a single film.

But he had not yet plucked up the courage to talk to Alma, despite seeing her every day.

Standing five feet tall, the young woman was an intimidating presence.

She had already made a name for herself and received praise in the press, where she was described as a pioneer, occupying a unique position in European cinema.

The article concluded that she would never have time to find a husband.

Hitchcock, meanwhile, got himself hired as editor and assistant director on a Graham Cutts film.

♪♪ Alma claimed he later confessed that it was the only way he could think of to get to speak to her every day.

A unique team was thus forged.

From that first shoot, together they provided the essentials for the staging, with the appointed director turning out to be a less-than-inspiring filmmaker.

It was a turn of events that had a drastic consequence for Hitch's career, as he later explained on the TV show "Cinema."

-Now, according to legend, you became a director because the director who you'd been assisting would no longer work with you.

Is that a fair way of describing the situation?

-I don't think he'd no longer work with me.

He didn't want me to work with him.

-By that time, you obviously had your mind very firmly set upon becoming a director.

Did you expect -- -Not at all.

It had never occurred to me.

Until the director said he didn't want me anymore, I was in a limbo for the moment, until the producer said, "How would you like to direct a picture?"

I said, "It never occurred to me."

-It may have never occurred to him, but nevertheless, when he came to make his first film, "The Pleasure Garden," Hitch knew exactly what he wanted.

He had it all assembled in his head, with each shot planned before he even set foot in the studio.

For him, the process of actually filming it was a formality he would have happily foregone.

♪♪ ♪♪ Right from the outset, Alma and Hitch hit it off and became a close-knit team, like the heroes of "The Pleasure Garden."

He began a sentence.

She finished it.

He had an idea for a plot.

She developed it.

They shared the same sense of humor, liked or hated the same books, the same shows, the same actors, the same movies.

♪♪ [ Train rumbling ] ♪♪ From 1924 onwards, Hitch and Alma visited Germany several times as assistant directors.

♪♪ In Berlin, Hitchcock watched Murnau directing on the set of "The Last Laugh."

♪♪ When questioned about his influences, Hitchcock repeated over and over, "The Germans, the Germans."

♪♪ He was impressed by their use of shadow and stark lighting, odd angles, camera movements, the way they used models and distorted perspectives in the studio.

Murnau said, "What you see on the set does not matter.

What matters is what you see on the screen."

It became Hitchcock's doctrine -- reality is immaterial as long as the illusion is effective.

[ Wind whistling ] ♪♪ Hitch and Alma admired the Soviet directors Pudovkin and Eisenstein, whom they regarded as masters of editing.

♪♪ -[ Screams ] -Their influence can be seen throughout Hitchcock's work, one of the most famous examples being the stunning cutting and editing in this legendary scene from "Psycho."

[ Blade plunging ] -[ Screaming ] [ "Psycho: The Murder" playing ] ♪♪ [ Up-tempo music plays ] Hitch and Alma shared everything, or almost, because their relationship, as he recounts, remained platonic for a long time.

"We traveled and worked together for years "and I never so much as touched her little finger.

"I had never been with a woman, and I did not have a clue "as to how a woman went about having a child, "much less what a man is meant to do when he is with his mistress in Paris."

In fact, it was Paris where together they first experienced the thrill of forbidden pleasures.

♪♪ During the preparations for the film "East of Shanghai," they visited the Folies Bergère.

There they were taken backstage to a room reserved for special customers.

♪♪ While Alma looked on, the manageress offered Hitch the services of young women.

He would later describe the scene to François Truffaut as a perfectly charming family evening.

♪♪ While Hitchcock readily confessed to having known only one woman in his life and to being impotent, his movies were charged with sex and eroticism.

Although often alluded to, it was sometimes more explicit and even subversive.

-I know.

A moonlight night and a parked car.

That's nice.

-Esmerelda!

Everywhere you search for sex.

-[ Moans ] David.

Ooh, David.

Ooh.

-His Cockney upbringing gave him a taste for provocation and irreverence.

-It's going to be a long night.

-True.

-And I don't particularly like the book I've started.

-Ahh.

-You know what I mean?

-Well, let me think.

♪♪ Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

♪♪ [ Match strikes ] ♪♪ -Hitch openly admitted to this aspect of his personality, which he talked about in the following interview.

-How far can you go with nudity or sexual relations?

You know, it would seem that we're all waiting for that zoom-in to a close-up of the sexual act.

And how close can we get to it?

Once you've reached that point, then where do you go?

And after all, it makes no difference to me because that scene I've already done.

I did it in the end of a picture called "North by Northwest," where I showed Cary Grant pull a girl into an upper berth, and then I cut to the phallic train entering the tunnel.

♪♪ [ Engine rumbling, tires screeching ] -Like his life, his films were suffused with romance.

In early 1926, when Hitch returned to England with Alma after filming his second movie, "The Mountain Eagle," their boat was swept up in a storm.

And the young woman was overwhelmed by seasickness.

"As I tossed and turned in my bed of pain, "Hitch knocked on my door and came in.

"It was the first and only time I ever saw him in such a state, "all disheveled, his clothes drenched.

"'Will you marry me?'

"I wasn't too sick to nod my head.

"He smiled.

"'I thought it best to catch you "'when you were too weak to say no.'"

He liked to boast that it was one of his best scenes, a little weak on dialogue, but remarkably staged and soberly interpreted.

-I can tell you one thing.

When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they ought to come together, Wham!

♪♪ [ Flashbulb pops ] ♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] ♪♪ -In July 1928, their daughter, Patricia, was born.

"I gave birth at home," said Alma.

"I was meant to have the baby early in the morning, "but nothing happened.

"Hitch couldn't bear the weight and suddenly disappeared.

"When he finally returned, I had a daughter for him and he had a beautiful bracelet for me."

♪♪ Hitch was a loving husband and father.

The family led a happy and peaceful existence.

Hitch actually hated suspense in real life and shot family movies.

♪♪ But most of all, they shot a dozen feature films from screenplays often written by Alma.

♪♪ Hitch became one of Britain's highest paid movie directors.

The year Patricia was born, cinema was revolutionized by the arrival of talkies.

-I say!

-Hitch, who has just started filming "Blackmail," threw himself into the new adventure and shot the last two reels using synchronous sound.

The sound tests carried out on set for the shoot are revealing.

-Now, Ms. Ondra, you asked me to let you hear your voice on the talking picture.

-[ Laughs ] But, Hitch, you mustn't do that.

-Why not?

-Well, because I can't speak well.

-Do you realize the squad van will be here any moment?

-No.

Really?

Oh, my God.

I'm terribly frightened.

-Why?

Have you been a bad woman or something?

-Well, not just bad, but, uh... -But you've slept with men.

-Oh, no!

-You have not?

Come here.

Stand in your place.

Otherwise, it will not come out right, as the girl said to the soldier.

That's enough.

♪♪ -"Blackmail" became the first British talkie, but Hitchcock never forgot the lessons of the silent era.

Many of his most famous scenes were shot without dialogue, accompanied only by music or sound effects.

♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] ♪♪ [ Cymbals crash ] ♪♪ -Oh, oh.

Good evening.

Thank you for waiting.

I was, uh, tied up in a story conference.

The writers seem to have escaped.

With the secretary, too.

[ Keys clacking ] -In reality, the writing process was much more enjoyable than he makes it sound.

While Hitch and Alma wrote most of their early films together, with the arrival of talkies, they found it stimulating to work with other writers.

The writing phase, their favorite, had to be a joyful process, and the more writers there were, the more fun it was.

Some of the wildest scenes in their 1930s films were the legacy of the home dinners they organized after a long day at work.

♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ The gypsy music haunts me ♪ ♪ Thrills me through and through ♪ -Hitch loved to entertain, make jokes, clown around.

He played his favorite tunes on a loop, sang along, and shimmied around, imitating belly dancers.

-♪ Once more I'm with my gypsy sweetheart ♪ ♪ Dancing to the violins ♪ ♪ Entrancing as we... ♪ -Whatever his antics, Alma was always the perfect audience.

♪♪ During the hectic years leading up to 1945, Alma wrote a dozen screenplays for other directors using her maiden name, as seen on this rare print of "The First Born," made in 1928 by Miles Mander, in which Hitchcock's influence on Alma's writing can clearly be seen.

♪♪ But she was reluctant to pursue a separate career and did not share her husband's enthusiasm for the media exposure that comes with the job.

♪♪ Hitchcock often worked with female writers, such as Dorothy Parker or Sally Benson.

While they were strong-willed in the pursuit of their careers, he found them to be relatively co-operative and less likely to drain his energy in a vain battle of egos.

Joan Harrison, for example, who started out as Hitch's secretary, became his co-writer on "Jamaica Inn" and produced the famous series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

Hitch also worked with famous British and American writers, such as Daphne du Maurier, adapting several of her novels, and the multi-award-winning Jay Presson Allen.

♪♪ Like Alma, all were strong-willed women who helped create powerful heroines just as smart and strong as male characters.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Tell me everything you saw.

♪♪ -All beautiful, distinguished, and resourceful women, especially when they're in danger.

♪♪ -[ Screaming ] ♪♪ Intrepid and combative, too.

They even solve crimes before the police.

-Operator, give me the FBI headquarters, please.

-Go away, or I'll kill you myself.

[ Gunshot ] -And they can lend a serious helping hand, like this feminist mother and sharpshooter in the first version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

-Where the devil can they have gone?!

[ Sheep bleating ] -Hitchcock wanted to get the best out of his actors.

He was a demanding taskmaster and sometimes went to extremes in his preparations.

His critics sometimes accused him of sadism.

"On the first day of shooting for 'The 39 Steps,'" recalls Alma, "during the flight scene, "when the two heroes are bound together, "he handcuffed Madeleine Carroll to Robert Donat "and left them chained up for a good while, claiming to have lost the key."

-Here, hold this.

-Oh, yes.

-It was both funny and uncomfortable.

The actors, who didn't know each other, had no choice but to break the ice.

This unorthodox approach proved very effective.

-Half a minute.

-Once Hitch realized that everything was going well, he miraculously found the key.

"Now that you know each other, we can get on with it."

♪♪ [ Horn blares ] ♪♪ In 1939, the Hitchcock family made the great leap and moved to the United States.

Hollywood had been making overtures to the director for some time.

Of course, it was not an easy decision to make.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] Hitch was the undisputed king of British cinema.

Now he ran the risk of becoming just another director among hundreds of others.

♪♪ But Hollywood is a gateway to a much wider world.

So he signed a contract with producer David O. Selznick that threw in Alma's work for free.

But from the very first project, things began to get complicated.

-Oh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hollywood.

[ Horse whinnying ] -Hitchcock liked Selznick and was impressed by the sheer scale of his most recent production, "Gone with the Wind."

But the producer proved to be a nightmare to work with.

For the adaptation of "Rebecca," Hitch, as usual, recast the story with his accomplices, Alma and Joan Harrison.

But Selznick wanted a faithful transcription of Daphne du Maurier's novel.

♪♪ -How could I ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?

-This is where I keep all her clothes.

-The exasperated director struggled to impose his vision.

His favorite sequences, among others, the wardrobe scene and the honeymoon film, were not in the novel.

He and Alma added them behind Selznick's back.

-Feel this.

-[ Chuckles ] You look lovely.

Lovely.

That's very nice for a change.

♪♪ Shall we see these pictures?

-Yes, I-I'd love to see them.

♪♪ [ Switch clicks ] [ Projector whirs ] -The movie won an Oscar, right?

-Yes, for the Best Picture of the year.

-The only time you won an Oscar.

-I've never had an Oscar.

That went to Selznick, the producer.

The directing award that year was given to John Ford for "Grapes of Wrath."

-Hitch was never lucky at the Academy Awards, despite receiving five Best Director nominations.

"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," he would joke.

[ Projector whirring ] ♪♪ [ Steam hissing ] War broke out during the filming of "Rebecca."

The Hitchcocks were worried sick about their relatives back in England.

Despite the threat posed by German U-boats -- their destructiveness was shown in his film "Lifeboat" -- Hitch crossed the Atlantic to try to convince his mother to move to California.

She refused.

Alma had more luck with her mother and sister.

♪♪ The eight movies Hitchcock made during the war years are among the most realistic and political to come out of Hollywood.

[ Gunshot ] -Van Meer consented and was shot dead by a revolver held close to the photographer's camera.

-He returned to England to shoot short propaganda films for the French Resistance, in French, using French actors.

♪♪ -I had felt that I needed at least to make some contribution.

There wasn't any question of military service.

I was overage and overweight.

I had a feeling that if I'd stayed away, it would have worried me in years after.

[ Conversing in French ] [ Alarm blaring ] -Alma, who stayed behind in Los Angeles with Patricia, became involved in civil defense.

She was worried.

"Hitch wrote me long, sad letters "from London during the Blitz.

"He felt lonely and helpless.

"Some said he was hiding in Hollywood, "but he would never defend himself or boast about his commitment."

At the end of the war, at the request of his old friend, producer Sidney Bernstein, Hitchcock oversaw the editing of a documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.

For this film, aimed at German audiences, Hitchcock spent weeks viewing and editing footage shot during the liberation of the camps.

The images would haunt him for the rest of his days.

But the film remained shelved for 40 years, deemed too controversial and likely to offend German sensibilities.

The Cold War was already under way, and the Soviets were the new enemy.

♪♪ [ Horns honking ] ♪♪ After the war, the Hitchcocks led a more peaceful existence, often entertaining their actor and writer friends at their Santa Cruz country house.

♪♪ In his professional life, Hitch parted ways with Selznick and was a free man again.

♪♪ Joining forces with Sidney Bernstein, Hitch decided to go for broke and produce his own movies.

But despite significant budgets and stars like James Stewart and Ingrid Bergman, the ambitious films they released, "Rope" and "Under Capricorn," failed at the box office.

♪♪ Alma was downbeat, but Hitch was already looking ahead.

He used to say, "I always try to look at things as if I was remembering them three years later."

He set about making preparations for "Stage Fright."

Alma worked on the screenplay with author Whitfield Cook, whom she met while he was directing her daughter, Patricia, in a play.

The charming Whitfield became a close friend of the whole family.

The intellectual bond that united the two writers took a more intimate turn, and they became inseparable.

Just how attractive was Alma to Whitfield?

-Go or don't go.

It's all the same.

I thought you loved me.

Doesn't matter now.

-Oh, my dear, my darling.

-Was Hitchcock jealous?

The only thing we know for certain is that the three artists collaborated on the highly acclaimed "Strangers on a Train," the film that set the Hitchcocks on their way to the dazzling successes of the 1950s with a string of movies adored by audiences and critics alike -- "Strangers on a Train," "Dial M for Murder," "To Catch a Thief," "Rear Window"... -No.

-..."Vertigo," "North by Northwest," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," and, of course, "Psycho."

-Madame, Monsieur, how are you?

-Delightful to see you... -Their daughter, Patricia, made her screen debut under her father's direction.

-Is your name Miriam?

-Oh, uh, incidentally, I thought the little leading lady was rather good.

Didn't you?

-Before long, she was married, and in 1953, Alma became a grandmother.

Movies were no longer so important to her, and her name disappeared from the credits.

Hitch, meanwhile, seemed more interested in the health of his daughter during her pregnancies than the reviews of his films.

♪♪ While Alma was less involved in her husband's work, her opinions and suggestions remained crucial for Hitch.

For example, the idea of filming one of the chase scenes in "To Catch a Thief" from a helicopter was hers.

♪♪ It was Alma, still an editor at heart, who fixed the sequencing of shots for the shower scene in Psycho.

And it was Alma who pointed out the flickering eyelid of the supposedly dead Janet Leigh.

[ Water running ] ♪♪ The figure of the director was by now a familiar one to cinemagoers, who watched out for his trademark appearances in front of the camera.

♪♪ -Morning, Miss Daniels.

-But his rotund profile was preserved for posterity in 1955 with the cult television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

-Hold it.

Hold it.

Wait a minute.

-Hitch took care of production, directed a score of episodes, and, more importantly, became a central character in his own right by presenting every one of the 268 shows.

-Oh, good evening.

We wanted to take you behind the scenes for a moment to show you how we make our films.

The friendly cooperation of many, many people is needed to bring you these stories -- prop men, make-up men, electricians, cameramen, all part of a team.

I'm very proud of them, and they, in turn -- You know, I sometimes consider getting out of this business.

-He got along like a house on fire with screenwriter James Allardice, who wrote the show's introductions, including the sharp humor that was such a contrast with the darkness of the stories.

-Good evening.

The really frightening part... -Viewers became familiar with the man Alma knew so well in private, the fun-loving, mischievous prankster... -One a week.

-...who would do anything for a laugh.

-Have you ever been in a position where the success or failure of a dinner party depended entirely on you?

-But the schoolboy pranks served a more serious purpose.

"As a director, making yourself known to audiences," said Hitchcock, "is possible only by attracting "the attention of the press, and that's the only way to get the freedom to do what you want."

-A captive audience.

♪♪ -Hitchcock became famous all over the world.

But the exhausting treadmill of filming, traveling, and attending premieres led to serious health problems, and he spent many weeks in hospital.

But it didn't prevent him from giving interviews from his bed and having fun in an episode of "Hitchcock Presents."

♪♪ [ Air hissing ] -I don't want to die.

There's someone inside me, and she says I must die.

♪♪ -Hitch, however, lost his legendary sense of humor when Alma fell ill. She was diagnosed with cancer, which in the late 1950s was akin to a death sentence.

♪♪ During the premiere of "Vertigo," Alma was absent.

Later that evening, Hitch broke down in tears.

Life without her was impossible to contemplate, and he was ready to throw himself out of the window if he lost her.

But Alma overcame the disease.

Patricia tells a little story about her father and mother.

"God sits on the top of a mountain "and cuts thousands of oranges in two, "letting the halves roll down into the valley, "and sometimes at the bottom of the slope, "two halves of the same orange find each other and become one again."

For Patricia, this orange was Hitch and Alma.

♪♪ -♪ Nothing ever worries me ♪ ♪ No one ever hurries me ♪ ♪ I take pleasure leisurely ♪ ♪ Even when I kiss ♪ -While Alma was the woman of his life, Hitchcock was obsessed by another female figure -- the blonde heroine.

While there were plenty of exceptions -- Tallulah Bankhead in "Lifeboat," The bubbly Shirley MacLaine in "The Trouble With Harry" -- Hitchcock seemed to make blondness a kind of feminine ideal.

♪♪ -You Freud, me Jane?

♪♪ -The supreme Hitchcock blonde was Grace Kelly, who played the role to perfection in "Dial M for Murder," "Rear Window," and "To Catch a Thief."

But her marriage to Prince Rainier deprived Hitch of an actress he got along with extremely well.

-Fremont.

-But the director never stopped creating archetypal Hitchcock-style actresses, rather like in "Vertigo," which tells the story of a man, James Stewart, who obsessively shapes a woman to resemble the one he has lost.

Just how far would Hitchcock go in this quest?

-You're looking for the suit that she wore for me.

You want me to be dressed like her.

-Judy, I just want you to look nice.

I know the kind of a suit that would look well on you -- -No, I won't do it.

♪♪ -I really didn't have any training as an actress.

I had been doing commercials, but when you're dealing with products, it's quite a different situation than being a character.

And Hitch was not only my director.

He was my drama coach.

You know, I was a very lucky lady.

-...of what you'll have to decide.

-He wanted somebody to own.

He wanted a star of his own.

Ho matter who the director is, you know, the care and feeding of stars is hard.

And I think Hitch got an age where he didn't want to do that anymore.

He wanted one of his own.

Perfectly understandable.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Hitchcock was in the habit of jokingly likening actors to cattle.

In reality, he cast them carefully, often in consultation with Alma, and directed them like no one else.

[ Applause ] Several of them never bettered their performances in his films and became close friends of the couple.

However, the director was irritated by the generation of actors who talked endlessly about their character's motivations, actors like Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, and, even before anyone else, his beloved Ingrid Bergman.

-I don't want to discuss it at all.

[ Laughter ] -I remember our first argument.

It must have been in "Spellbound" in 1945.

Something I said, "Oh, I don't feel like that.

I don't think I can give you that kind of emotion."

And you sat there, and you said, "Ingrid, fake it."

[ Laughter, cheers and applause ] Well, Hitch, that was the best advice I've had in my whole life.

-Bergman was not alone in praising the simplicity of Hitchcock's acting directions.

-Hitch gave me three basic pieces of direction.

First, always look directly into Cary's eyes.

Second, don't use your hands.

And third, lower your voice.

One of his greatest gifts as a director was that he made you feel you were the only perfect person for the role.

And this gave you incredible confidence in playing the part.

And then he'd leave you to your own devices.

-Oh.

-Walt Disney has the right answer where actors are concerned.

If he doesn't like them, he tears them up.

[ Birds crying ] -Was Hitchcock really so radical?

Did he really seek to deconstruct Tippi Hedren's acting, the better to redefine it?

As a director, he could be a very demanding taskmaster, and the filming of "The Birds" proved to be a trying experience for this particular young actress.

For the exhausting attack scenes, Hitch shot multiple takes.

[ Birds crying ] But despite suffering several injuries, Tippi soldiered on.

A better-known, more experienced actress might not have been prepared to put up with what she had to endure.

[ Birds crying ] -No.

No!

-Shh, shh.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -However, during the shooting of "Marnie," the relationship between filmmaker and actress deteriorated sharply.

Tippi had become more assured.

Her performance in "The Birds" was applauded in Cannes.

She was being courted by other directors.

The hitherto docile actress came to feel suffocated by Hitchcock's attentions, manipulations, and pranks.

-He was kind of trying to control who I saw, what I -- you know, all of those kinds of things.

So that became a very, very difficult time for me.

I think he became obsessed with this character named Tippi Hedren he felt that he had created.

-I think he was having an old man's cris de coeur, unquestionably.

Hitch was very possessive about the women in his life.

He was possessive of his own daughter.

And Alma was his.

-You are a gentleman.

Is that correct?

-Sometimes.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ -While working with Tippi, Hitchcock's director's-chair persona became more and more of a bully.

To improve her performance, he isolated her from the rest of the crew.

The actress became increasingly intolerant of the pressure being heaped upon her.

♪♪ -He would not take his eyes off of me.

He may be talking to somebody over here, but he was watching me all the time.

And it became very difficult.

Mrs. Hitchcock came to me on a number of times and said, "I'm so sorry you have to go through this."

And it eventually got to the point where I couldn't stand the control and I resented it so highly that I finally told him that I --I couldn't -- I couldn't bear it anymore.

And I said, "I need to get out."

And he literally said, "I'll ruin your career."

It was just a very definite cut-off.

And it was by me.

I am totally responsible for it.

No, I'm not.

He is.

♪♪ -Later, Tippi went so far as to describe her treatment as harassment.

During Hitchcock's long career, though, she was the only actress to complain about inappropriate behavior.

♪♪ In the early 1960s, Hitchcock lost several close associates.

Some passed away.

Others retired.

And on top of that, he fell out with his composer, Bernard Herrmann.

"Marnie" was a flop with critics and audiences alike, as were his following two films, "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz."

Hitch seemed to have lost his love of moviemaking.

"The job has changed," he lamented.

"It has been taken over by accountants, "businessmen, and agents.

It isn't as much fun anymore."

Always on the lookout for new trends, he tried to relaunch his career.

He was very impressed by Antonioni's "Blow-up."

"These Italian directors are technically "100 years ahead of me.

What have I been doing all this time?"

♪♪ Now almost 70, Hitch tried his hand at the New Wave style.

With Alma, he wrote "Kaleidoscope," a daring story of murder, sex, and violence.

He wanted to shoot it on a low budget using a small crew and no stars.

But the screenplay scared Universal, the studio Hitch was contracted to.

After months of struggle and uncertainty, he eventually abandoned the project.

-Alright, here we go.

Alright.

-He returned to his first love -- serial killers, murdered women, a wrongly accused man, the streets of London.

For the filming of "Frenzy," the Hitchcocks were happily reunited with an English crew and the studios of their youth.

-Alright, you're all looking at the speaker.

And turn!

And rush!

[ Crowd murmuring ] -She -- She's been strangled.

-Looks like a tie.

-Yes, it's a tie, alright.

Another necktie murder.

♪♪ -But Alma fell ill and had to be repatriated to the United States.

She would remain partially paralyzed.

Hitch completed his film on his own, constantly fretting about his wife's health.

-Any idea where he is?

-Despite this ordeal, "Frenzy" premiered at Cannes and was hailed as a masterpiece.

The old master, as provocative as ever, had not lost his touch, and his dark sense of humor was present and correct, even in the most routine, everyday scenes, such as the revolting dinner served to the inspector.

-Yes.

♪♪ For what would be his last film, "Family Plot," Hitch held a press conference in a cemetery setting, even putting the names of the guests on gravestones.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] ♪♪ He began the shoot as fervently as he had the 52 others.

"Nothing can stop Hitch," said Alma proudly.

♪♪ But age and ill health caught up with him.

He was tired, but unable to stop doing what he loved.

Everything had become more difficult for both him and for Alma, whose health was deteriorating.

It brought an end to an artistic collaboration that had lasted more than 50 years.

-That's a wrap!

-Ever the prankster, Hitch made the last shot of his final film a message to his audience.

♪♪ [ Applause ] -Tonight we consider the case of Alfred Hitchcock.

-Hitchcock accepted the invitation to the gala dinner the American Film Institute was giving in his honor with some trepidation.

He dreaded a public burial and spent the afternoon drinking to ease the pain caused by his arthritis.

Alma hated the idea of appearing in public in such a state of weakness, but at the last minute, she decided to accompany her husband.

In a Hollywood famous for its infidelities and divorces, their enduring marriage was a rarity, but it was the end of the road.

[ Applause ] The hug that reunited Hitchcock with Ingrid Bergman seemed more like a farewell than a greeting.

[ Applause continues ] The master's last public utterance paid tribute to the love of his life.

-Had the beautiful Miss Reville not accepted a lifetime contract as Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock some 53 years ago, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock might be in this room tonight as one of the slower waiters on the floor.

[ Laughter ] I share my award as I have my life with her.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪