A Review of the Life of Alfred Hitchcock and All His Works

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in London on August 13, 1899, to William Hitchcock, a poultry dealer and fruit-importer, and Emma Whelan Hitchcock. As a young boy he was possessed by wanderlust, and by the time he was eight he had ridden every bus line in London and explored all its docks and shipping terminals. His parents were devout Catholics and made sure their son had a proper Jesuit upbringing. Once, as a child, when he had done something of which his father disapproved, he was given a note to take to the police chief. The officer read it and put Alfred in a jail cell for ten minutes. "That's what we do to boys who are naughty," he reprimanded. Ever since then Hitchcock has had a phobia for police and police stations, and this fear has manifested itself in many of his films. He attended St. Ignatius College, a Jesuit preparatory school in London, where he started on a course that would prepare him to become an electrical engineer. He eventually was forced to give up his courses at the University of London to help support his family by working as a technical clerk in a cable-manufacturing concern. Not to be deterred, he rose from the lowly job to the advertising department.…