Alfred Hitchcock

A clever combination of tension and humor, Alfred Hitchcock's style is recognizable among thousands. He directed his first film at the age of 23, and began his meteoric rise. Very quickly, he shaped modern cinema and became one of the most influential directors in terms of style. In particular, he introduced the notion of suspense and redefined the MacGuffin, the pretext necessary for the development of a scenario. Hitchcock, eager to manipulate the viewer and to be cruel in his scripts, used to mock those who demanded a rational explanation for all the elements of a film.

Fear, loss of identity, guilt, pursuit: certain themes are dear to the director, as well as certain actors. Indeed, we find James Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much, in Cold Sweats alongside Kim Novak, and in Rear Window, this time accompanied by Grace Kelly at the height of her fame. Also starring in The Crime Was Almost Perfect, Kelly followed the director again the following year and played in The Snare Hand with Cary Grant. The latter also climbed Mount Rushmore in a memorable scene in North by Northwest.

Anthony Perkins played the legendary Norman Bates in Psycho, a masterpiece of fear, whose subsequent parts he directed himself. Who doesn't remember the scene of Janet Leigh's murder in her shower? Along with Kim Novak and Grace Kelly, or Tippi Hedren in the terrifying The Birds, Ingrid Bergman in The House of Dr. Edwardes and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, she helped create the myth of the Hichcockian blonde. A heroine of icy, sophisticated, sculptural and subversive beauty, this figure sometimes appears to be the true subject of the films of the director, who had a habit of shaping his actresses in the image of their characters.

So many thriller masterpieces, and almost as many famous cameos by Alfred Hitchcock in his own films. We can count 37 of them, the most famous being perhaps his boarding the train in The Unknown in the North Express with a double bass. The master of suspense and intrigue even slipped onto one of the original vintage posters, can you find him?