Everyone who loves the movies loves Alfred Hitchcock, from his earlier thrillers of the silent era through the birth of his popularity in the 1940s through his peak in the 1950s and 1960s. Come help us continue our commemoration of the master of suspense (as well as our continuance of Britweek 2008 celebrations from the start of the month). Born and bred in England, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1940 (directing REBECCA for David O. Selznick) in furtherance of his directing career. Proving a potent force for synthesizing British filmmaking sensibilities with Hollywood show business, he introduced a dry, often macabre (and very British) sense of humor and suspense to an incredibly widespread American audience, both through his movies and his popular, long-running television show. Join us for some of his best-loved films, including REAR WINDOW, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, SHADOW OF A DOUBT and DIAL M FOR MURDER.

Friday, May 30 – 7:30 PM

Alfred Hitchcock Double Feature:

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1956, Universal, 120 min. Alfred Hitchcock remakes his own entertaining but lightweight 1934 thriller as a melancholy examination of the pleasures and nightmares of family life. When husband and wife James Stewart and Doris Day’s son is kidnapped while on vacation, the couple’s long-simmering resentments threaten to get in the way of their attempts to rescue him. Although the film is rightly celebrated for setpieces like the famous Albert Hall assassination sequence, the depth of Hitchcock’s vision is more effectively felt in the film’s quieter moments: The scene in which Stewart tells Day their son has been kidnapped is one of the most powerful in all of Hitchcock’s cinema.

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, Warner Bros., 101 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. A chance encounter between tennis champion Guy (Farley Granger) and psychopath Bruno (Robert Walker) on a train triggers an unstoppable race toward double murder. Hitchcock’s classic thriller is a finely tuned engine of suspense, taking barely a breath as it steams through a spine-tingling story of fate, coincidence, guilt and psychopathology - favorite themes of noir writer Patricia Highsmith, whose novel was adapted by the great Raymond Chandler. With Ruth Roman.

Saturday, May 31 – 7:30 PM

Alfred Hitchcock Double Feature:

REAR WINDOW, 1954, Universal, 112 min. "See It! - If your nerves can stand it after PSYCHO!" That was the tagline for the 1962 re-release of one of director Alfred Hitchcock’s most rigorously structured thrillers. Adapted from a short story by noir master Cornell Woolrich, REAR WINDOW stars James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries, an ace photographer stuck in a wheelchair after breaking his leg on assignment. Despite receiving visits from his high-fashion sweetheart, Lisa (Grace Kelly), Jeffries is bored and soon resorts to spying on his tenement neighbors through a telephoto lens. Suddenly, he has cause to regret his indiscretion - it seems the ailing wife of a traveling salesman neighbor (superb heavy Raymond Burr) has taken an abrupt trip. Or has she? "The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first." - Roger Ebert, Chicago

SHADOW OF A DOUBT, 1943, Universal, 108min. What starts out as a charming portrait of idyllic small-town life gradually darkens into one of director Alfred Hitchcock’s most devastating thrillers. Teenager Teresa Wright’s romantic illusions about her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) are gradually shattered by the suspicion he may be the diabolic Merry Widow serial killer. Add to the mix a rewardingly rich tapestry of eccentric characters (Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Patricia Collinge are stand-outs in the cast), and you have one of Hitchcock’s most brilliantly constructed films.

Sunday, June 1 – 7:30 PM

Alfred Hitchcock Double Feature:

NORTH BY NORTHWEST, 1959, Warner Bros., 136 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Cary Grant gives one of his greatest performances as womanizing, mama’s boy executive Roger Thornhill – whose cozy life of afternoon cocktails with the boys is turned upside down when he’s mistaken for elusive government operative "George Kaplan" by suave villain James Mason and his murderous crony Martin Landau. Eva Marie Saint co-stars as Mason’s elegant mistress, with the wonderful Jesse Royce Landis as Grant’s fur-clad society mom ("You gentlemen aren’t really trying to murder my son, are you?"). Brilliantly scripted by Ernest Lehman (THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS) and photographed by veteran Hitchcock collaborator Robert Burks (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, REAR WINDOW).