Alfred Hitchcock was a British director.His movies
frequently show innocent people caught up in
situations beyond their control or even understanding.
Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense to surprise
in his movies. In surprise, the director provides
the viewers with frightening things. In suspense, the
director tells or shows things to the audience which
the charactors in the movie do not know, and then
skillfully builds up tension around what will happen
when the charactors finally learn the truth.
Hitchcock had a great sense of humor.Once at a French
airport , a suspicious customs official looked at
Hitchcock's passport, which was marked simply PRODUCER.
The curious official asked. "And what do you produce?"
"Gooseflesh." replied Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock always managed to make a brief
appearance in his movies:He was sometimes getting on
a bus, or crossing a street., or walking in front of
a store, or across the courtyard in an apartment.
However, for the movie Lifeboat in 1994, he was faced
with a difficult problem. The entire movie was set in
a lifeboat out at sea, and there were only a few
characters in the boat Originally, he wanted to float
by as a dead body, but he was afraid he'd sink! His
clever solution was to place a photograph of himself in
a newspaper that one of the characters reads during the
course of the movie.