The famous director, the Master of Suspense Sir Alfred Hitchcock was almost 30 years elder to the French film director Truffaut . However, the age difference didn’t bother them to exchange their views and aspirations with each other. Hitchcock at his early age was deeply fascinated by the American movies and was a great admirer of Charlie Chaplin , D.W Griffith , Buster Keaton , and Fritz Lang . He was deeply captivated by German Expressionism . Lang’s silent film Der Mude Tod ( Destiny in English) induced a great impression not only on him but also on the other great directors due to its concept and intellectual merit. Perhaps the Bergman's film “ The Seventh Seal ”, appeared to be influenced by Lang's Destiny . The Seventh Seal Der Mude Tod: Ein Deutsches volkslied in 6 versen ( Destiny) ( Weary Death: A German Folk Story in six versions ) was a silent German Expressionist fantasy romance film released in 1921 and ...
In the year 1991, Hitchcock’s
movie “ Shadow of a doubt “ was selected for the preservation in the "United
States National Film Registry" as it was considered to be Culturally
, Historically & aesthetically significant.
The story was created by Gordon McDonell and based on a true story of a serial killer “Earle Nelson”.He was active during the late 1920s and known as “ The Gorilla Man”. Earle Nelson was portrayed as uncle Charles in the movie.
This is a must-see psychological thriller and was released in the year 1943. The storyline generally revolved around a teenage girl Charlie Newton ( Teresa
Wright ) and her maternal uncle Charles Oakley ( Joseph Cotten) whom she
initially idolized.
The story started with uncle
Charles leaving his present town for the idyllic town of Santa Rosa,
California. There his elder sister was staying with her husband and three
children. Charlie was her eldest daughter.
On reaching there, uncle
Charles distributed the gifts he had brought for the family members. He gifted
an emerald ring to her niece which had an initial of others. Gradually the proceedings made her convinced that her uncle was the Merry Widow Murderer and was trying to fool the police and all by tricking.
This was also aired on radio
several times and was remade twice in 1958 as “Step Down toTerror
“ and also as a TV movie in 1991.
Earle Leonard Nelson (
12th May 1897 – Jan 13,1928)
was an American serial killer and rapist. He is known to be the first serial sex murderer of 20th
century. Born and raised in San Francisco, California by his religious
grandmother.
He was quite outlandish and committed minor offenses in his childhood. When he grew up he committed at least 22
murders and rapes of mostly mid-aged ladies in the US.
Later he moved to Canada where he was arrested for rape and murder. Finally, he was executed by hanging in the year 1928 in Canada itself. It was revealed that his
victim used to be middle-aged landladies. In the pretext of renting a room, he
contacted them before attacking. The victims were often killed by strangulation and many were raped after death. Although such violence had not been integrated with the film however the crux was shown under the veil. This can only be possible by a master like Hitchcock.
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