It was an experience that left him with a lifelong phobia of law enforcement. In an interview a few years before his death, he said he remained “scared stiff” of anything to do with the law and never even drove a car in case he got a parking ticket. That experience in the cell also had another lifelong impact on Hitchcock: it steered him towards a genre of films in which characters found themselves in extremely uncomfortable, dangerous, unexpected and usually very confined or cramped situations.
In his first film as director, (1925), the heroine is threatened by a man who has already murdered his mistress. In 1927, in his third film, , a Jack the Ripper-like hunt set mostly in fog, he set standards and styles for suspense that are still copied almost a century later. And that’s not bad for a man whose 125th anniversary will be celebrated on August 13.
He had originally wanted to be an engineer and in 1913 enrolled in night classes at the London County Council School of Marine Engineering and Navigation, where he studied mechanics, electricity, acoustics and navigation. His father died in December 1914 and Hitchcock, who never wanted to work in the family greengrocery business (which his older brother took over), went to work as a technical clerk at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company until the First World War was over. During his time at Henley, he took an interest in creative writing and in June 1919 was appointed founding editor of the in-house publication, During .