Hitchcock and Du Maurier

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in 1899 In London, England. His father was a grocer. The Hitchcock family resided in a middle class neighbor hood in a house that no longer exists "A blue oval plaque on a gas station marks the spot today" (Auiler. P.2.). He began his prolific film and television career in 1922 with the release of the film Number Thirteen.

Over the course of over fifty years, he managed to produce or direct 66 films, as well as a television series entitled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In these films and television episodes, Hitchcock often adapted short fiction or novels from popular mystery and suspense writers of the day, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Joseph Conrad, and Daphne Du Maurier.

Daphne Du Maurier, granddaughter to the well-known artist and author, George Du Maurier, was born May 13, 1907 in London, England. After finishing her education at a finishing school in France, she began to write. Between the years of 1931 and 1939 (when Hitchcock released his last British film), she had already published seven novels with good success.

Du Maurier wrote many novels in the gothic style, intertwining romance and horror musically and almost masterfully. She wrote mainly about women, and many of her short fiction pieces (such as Kiss me Again, Stranger and Don't Look Now, which have also been adapted for either television or film) often tell the stories of men who have been taken advantage of, or sometimes even murdered by overbearing, psychotic, or conniving women.

Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne Du Maurier have a long standing relationship within the world of fiction and film. Throughout his career as a film and television director, Alfred Hitchcock adapted three of Daphne Du Maurier's works to film, and was undoubtedly and greatly influenced by her sense of suspense, mystery, and macabre horror. Furthermore, the overwhelming gothic themes and overtones, as well as the idea of gender role reversal in Du Maurier's works strongly and evidently bled through into Hitchcock's film production.