Nine Surviving Silent Hitchcock Films to Have U.S. Tour

From a press release today –

“THE HITCHCOCK 9”

New BFI restorations of Alfred Hitchcock’s

Nine Surviving Silent Movies To Have U.S. Tour

Kicks off with screenings presented by

San Francisco Silent Film Festival,

BAMcinématek (Brooklyn Academy of Music),

and Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (L.A.)

(March 21, 2013) – A national tour of Alfred Hitchcock’s nine earliest surviviving works, all newly restored by the BFI (British Film Institute), will roll out with screenings presented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Castro Theatre, June 14-16);the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (kicking off June 18 at the Academy’s Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles); and BAMcinématek (kicking off June 29-July 5) at the Academy of Music’s Steinberg Screen in the Harvey Theater. The touring festival is a joint venture of the BFI, Park Circus/ITV Studios, and Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal.

Early portrait of Alfred Hitchcock

The nine early Hitchcocks are also set to screen in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Boston, Berkeley, Columbus, and other American cities. Both the Brooklyn and San Francisco events will feature live music performed by the Colorado-based Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, British composer/pianist Stephen Horne, and other artists.

While Hitchcock is one of the most famous film directors of all time, his first ten films – nine of which surivive – are little known compared to his later work. Made from 1925 to 1929, Hitchcock’s extant silents are among the greatest achievements of early British cinema, containing the motifs and obsessions we’ve come to recognize as “Hitchcockian,” though most of the nine have been little-seen here, if at all.

A still from the movie “The Ring,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

The nine new BFI restorations include the director’s very first film, The Pleasure Garden, and such rarities as Downhill, Easy Virtue, Champagne, and The Farmer’s Wife. The familiar Hitchcock style begins to emerge strongly in at least four of the films: Blackmail, The Ring, The Manxman, and The Lodger, which the director himself dubbed “the first true Hitchcock picture” (it also features his first cameo appearance). One early Hitchcock, The Mountain Eagle, is lost.

The restoration of the “Hitchcock 9” is the largest restoration project ever undertaken by the BFI, which holds some of the most important and earliest surviving copies of the silent Hitchcocks; the restorations also include materials sourced from other international archives. The restorations have made the films crisper and fresher than ever and uncover new layers of meaning, encouraging a deeper appreciation of the precocious genius at work.

About the BFI

The BFI is the U.K.’s leading film organization, with the ambition to create a flourishing film environment in which innovation, opportunity and creativity can thrive by:

Connecting audiences to the widest choice of British and World cinema

Preserving and restoring the most significant film collection in the world for today and future generations

Investing in creative, distinctive and entertaining work

Promoting British film and talent to the world

Growing the next generation of filmmakers and audiences

www.bfi.org.uk