3 AUG 12 6 SEP 12 3 CINEMAS CAFE BAR - Filmhouse

The Genius of Hitchcock
THE LODGER NOTORIOUS SABOTAGE
SECRET AGENT
The Genius of
Hitchcock
One of the world’s greatest directors, Alfred
Hitchcock excelled in a variety of genres
during his early British career, before moving
to Hollywood in 1939. It was here he became
known as the ‘Master of Suspense’, producing
some of the most analysed works in the
history of cinema.
See next month’s programme for more Hitch!
We would like to thank Julie Pearce and her
team at BFI Southbank for their invaluable
help with this season.
The Lodger
HITCHCOCK’S
Fri 10 to Thu 16 Aug
BRITAIN
Alfred Hitchcock • UK 1926 • 1h32m
Digital projection • Silent PG – Contains mild threat
Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Malcolm Keen, Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney.
Now painstakingly restored and boasting a new score
by Nitin Sawhney, this classic ‘tale of the London fog’ has
long been recognised, not least by its director, as ‘the first
true Hitchcock movie’. After a remarkably dynamic first 15
minutes beginning with a blonde’s murder and charting
the responses of police, press and public, the story proper
starts with the emergence from the fetid city fog of a
mysterious stranger (Ivor Novello) keen to rent a room in
the home of golden-haired fashion model Daisy. Despite
her detective boyfriend’s objections, Daisy takes to the
handsome newcomer, to the consternation of her mother
who’s troubled by her tenant’s nocturnal outings…
Notorious
SECRET
Fri 17 to Sun 19 Aug
AGENTS
Alfred Hitchcock • USA 2008 • 1h42m
Digital projection • U – Contains mild sex references and threat
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern.
A US agent (Cary Grant) plies his charm on an executed
traitor’s tormented, alcoholic daughter (Ingrid Bergman)
until she makes up to a German friend and admirer
(Claude Rains) suspected of consorting with Nazis in Brazil.
Undercover work, starting with guilt, desire and idealism,
proceeds to betrayal, (partly self-)loathing and still murkier
emotions. A dark love story which rivals, in terms of its
bitter overtones, even the later Vertigo.
Sabotage
HITCHCOCK’S
Fri 17 Aug at 6.30pm &
BRITAIN
Tue 21 Aug at 6.30pm
Alfred Hitchcock • UK 1936 • 1h16m • 35mm • PG
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder,
Joyce Barbour.
Arguably Hitchcock’s greatest London movie, this
adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Secret Agent’ centres
on the young American wife of an Eastern European
funding his ailing cinema by helping a group of terrorists;
his kindness to her teenage brother means she’s reluctant
to believe the insinuations of a detective passing
himself off as a greengrocer’s assistant next door. Various
landmarks are imaginatively used, but it’s the colourful,
witty account of the capital’s vibrant working-class life that
makes the threat to it feel so urgent.
Secret Agent
Sat 18 at 6.30pm &
Sun 26 Aug at 6.45pm
Alfred Hitchcock • UK 1936 • 1h29m • 35mm • U
SECRET
AGENTS
Cast: John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, Robert Young.
Even a hardened spy might feel pangs of guilt, or so
suggests this loose adaptation of two ‘Ashenden’ stories
by Somerset Maugham. The cost of deadly patriotic
subterfuge is made clear in the tensions arising between
three agents (John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll and Peter
Lorre) sent to identify and kill an enemy operative in the
Swiss Alps – a (studio-concocted) milieu ideal for a series
of imaginative set-pieces. A film where nothing is as it
appears, and where hearing counts for as much as seeing.
SEASON CONTINUES OVERLEAF
17