Guillermo del Toro Dissects Hitchcock

Director and lifelong Alfred Hitchcock fan Guillermo del Toro delivers an in-depth lecture on this quintessential spy thriller from the Master of Suspense, followed by a screening.

One of Hitchcock’s most significant masterpieces marries a tense post-WWII espionage drama with an intense love story. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman play charming agent T. R. Devlin and patriotic American Alicia Huberman, whose father is a convicted Nazi. Helplessly head over heels for Devlin, Alicia cannot refuse when he asks her to spy on and seduce Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a Nazi hiding out in Rio de Janeiro. Elegantly formulated camera movements orchestrated with dense, emotional performances iterate Hitchcock’s incomparable sensibility and mastery of the cinematic language of suspense.

Director and lifelong Alfred Hitchcock fan Guillermo del Toro delivers an in-depth lecture on this twisted family portrait from the Master of Suspense, followed by a screening.

Shadow of a Doubt strikes an intimate noir tone, and features Teresa Wright as Charlotte “Young Charlie” Newton, named after her favorite uncle, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotton). Set in the warm and inviting town of Santa Rosa, California, where a strong sense of communal security lingers in the air, this psychological thriller surveys the notion of human trust and its fragility through Charlotte’s growing suspicion of her uncle in the notorious Merry Widow murder case. The high-contrast lighting and meticulous application of shadows are woven in the storytelling, elegantly orchestrated by the boldly framed static shots and dramatic movements of the camera.

Director and lifelong Alfred Hitchcock fan Guillermo del Toro delivers an in-depth lecture on this Cary Grant classic from the Master of Suspense, followed by a screening. 

Hitchcock plays with a concept of the wrong man, a frequent theme in his narratives, in one of the most admired and entertaining of his mid-career films. North by Northwest stars four-time collaborator Grant as Roger O. Thornhill, a suave ad executive whose identity is mistaken for a government agent. Ruthless spy Philip Vandamm (James Mason) is after Thornhill; on a separate mission is a group of secret agents who follows Thornhill across the country. On the run, Thornhill meets Eve Kendall, a mesmerizing, peculiar woman whose mysterious identity amplifies the level of danger he is in. The film’s ironically ecstatic tone parallels the enchanting aspect of Grant’s portrayal of Thornhill—elegantly sarcastic with a witty sense of humor. Processed in Technicolor, this spectacular thriller showcases now-iconic action sequences such as the crop duster plane chase and climax at Mount Rushmore.

Director and lifelong Alfred Hitchcock fan Guillermo del Toro delivers an in-depth lecture on this slow burn from the Master of Suspense, followed by a screening.

A Catholic priest (Montgomery Clift) is the prime suspect when a blackmailer who claims to have evidence about a secret in the priest’s past is murdered. But the priest is unable to defend himself—because he has heard the real killer’s confession. Released in the midst of such Hitchcock classics as Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rear Window (1954), the rarely screened I Confess is an unusually low-key effort for the master suspense filmmaker, focusing more on the hero’s moral quandary than on traditional genre thrills, and benefiting from the evocative, black-and-white location cinematography of Oscar winner Robert Burks (To Catch a Thief, 1955).

Director and lifelong Alfred Hitchcock fan Guillermo del Toro delivers an in-depth lecture on this nail-biter from the Master of Suspense, followed by a screening.

A down-on-his-luck RAF veteran (Jon Finch) finds himself the prime suspect in series of rape-murders in the penultimate film from Hitchcock. Making his only film to receive an R rating at the time of its release—and filming in his native England for the first time in more than two decades—Hitchcock took advantage of the new permissiveness of 70s filmmaking with an unusually brutal and bleakly witty thriller, working from a clever screenplay by Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth, 1972) based on Arthur La Bern’s 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square, complete with the master’s usual meticulous visuals and classic suspense set pieces.