A tour of Alfred Hitchcock’s London: how the locations look today
Born on this day 127 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock was a Londoner who kept returning to the city as a location for many of his thrillers. We went in search of the exact spots where he placed his cameras.
Although he made his most famous films in America, Alfred Hitchcock was a Londoner through and through. Born in Leytonstone when it was still technically a part of Essex, Hitchcock lived in several areas of the city before accepting the call to Hollywood in 1939. So when he was starting out as a filmmaker, he naturally looked to London as a source for drama and location work.
Hitchcock’s 1927 adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes’s novel The Lodger is a prime example, combining London history and urban mythology (the story was inspired by Jack the Ripper) with real places. Even when the city was not the main setting for one of his earlier films, London was often seen in fragments as a framing device, as in his espionage thrillers The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).
After his momentous move to America, having been coaxed over by producer David O. Selznick, Hitchcock continued to employ London as an occasional location, whether largely recreating it in Hollywood for the courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947) or returning to film in the capital for the backstage mystery Stage Fright (1950). In the twilight of his career, Hitchcock again returned to the city of his birth, adapting Arthur La Bern’s grim page-turner Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square into the serial killer thriller Frenzy (1972) – a film we’ve already revisited on an extensive location walk.
Here are five Alfred Hitchcock films in which London plays itself.
The Lodger (1927)
Hitchcock’s first out-and-out classic, The Lodger perfectly showcases many of the thematic preoccupations that came to define his career, including murder, suspicion and urban tension. Featuring some very early location filming, the film boosts its interior drama with a smattering of real places. In one sequence, one of the film’s victims (Eve Gray) stops to fix her shoe only to be attacked by the killer. The whole sequence takes place in the shadow of Westminster.
The victim leaves her man (Reginald Gardiner) in front of the Houses of Parliament and the statue of Cromwell. Today, the area is notably tightened in security, with most of the buildings surrounded by tall fences and guards.
The man then walks around the corner, an area which is today protected by huge security blocks to stop vehicles.
The attack itself takes place on the other side of the road in the shadow of St Margaret’s Church. However, as the area is only open now to guided tours, this is the only shot that can be easily recreated, looking north on St Margaret Street.
Blackmail (1929)
Another of Hitchcock’s silent classics, Blackmail continues his exploration of murder and tension as Alice (Anny Ondra) is blackmailed for killing Mr Crewe (Cyril Ritchard) after his attempt to assault her. The film opens with a frantic drive across London in a Flying Squad car. The sequence begins at the very end of Regent Street.
The car careens up the road. The building seen in the background is today a restaurant.
During the sequence, Hitchcock cuts dramatically to a different area. The squad car magically misses out Covent Garden and finds itself in Holborn. This shot is looking north on Kingsway, showing the car travelling south just past Remnant Street on the right-hand side.
Hitchcock then looks south down the street, with the then relatively new Bush House seen at the end of the road. Today, the shot is difficult to recreate due to the endless parade of coaches parked along the road.
The 39 Steps (1935)
Hitchcock’s celebrated adaptation of John Buchan’s adventure novel is one of his most travelled earlier films, showcasing some very early location filming for the director outside of London, notably in Scotland. However, the exploits of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) begin in the capital. Hannay’s flat, where the mysterious Annabella Smith follows him in her last desperate effort to warn him to flee, is on Park Crescent.
The film’s finale also takes place in London, with the reveal of the ‘39 Steps’ occurring at the London Palladium on Argyll Street.
However, with the unusual, flat lighting, there’s the possibility that these shots of the Palladium may in fact be very faithful studio recreation.
Yet Hitchcock shows the venue in great detail, even down to the design of its doors.
The Paradine Case (1947)
One of Hitchcock’s less discussed dramas, The Paradine Case sees Gregory Peck playing an English barrister who takes on the case of an Italian woman accused of poisoning her husband. Although set in London and the Lake District, most of this David O. Selznick production was filmed on sets in Hollywood, including an elaborate recreation of a courtroom in London’s Old Bailey. However, the opening shot, which establishes the setting with the on-screen title ‘London. The time: the recent past’, adds a touch of authenticity by including a real location shot of an address in Belgravia.
As the camera pans to the other side of the road, we see the house of the accused, Maddalena Paradine (Alida Valli). This is 33 Wilton Crescent. Today, the house is adorned with a blue plaque, as it’s the previous residence of a Colombian dignitary.
Stage Fright (1950)
Filmed on real London locations during Hitchcock’s brief partial return to British filmmaking with the founding of his Anglo-American company Transatlantic Pictures, Stage Fright boasts a dramatic and paranoid portrayal of the city. It’s another of Hitchcock’s stories of accusation and the effort to disproof guilt, in which Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) tries to help her friend Jonathan (Richard Todd) clear his name after the death of his mistress’s husband. Jonathan lives on one of the idyllic rows of mews houses in the Belgravia area.
The location is Eaton Mews, and the flat in question is the second from the corner of the mews entrance leading to Eaton Place. The organisation of the ground floor has been vastly changed, but the house can be deduced from the layout of the upper row of windows.
When Jonathan makes his dramatic escape in the car, we see him exit the mews onto Eaton Place.
Many other London locations feature throughout the film. As Eve is studying drama, we see shots of RADA on Gower Street.
We see the famed drama school several times, including when the police follow Jonathan there and park up on Gower Street while in pursuit.
Hitchcock’s plaque
Hitchcock and his family moved around the city a fair bit, from Limehouse and Poplar to Stepney and – for Hitchcock himself – a brief stint boarding at a college in Battersea. But the main official blue plaque celebrating the director’s connections to the city is today on Cromwell Road. Number 153 is where Hitchcock lived with his wife and collaborator Alma from 1926 to 1939, before the move to Hollywood.
References
In search of Hitchcock’s Frenzy (and a decent bite to eat)
Our head curator gets on his bicycle and goes in search of the London locations where the master of suspense shot his 1972 serial killer thriller Frenzy.
By Robin Baker