My Year With Hitchcock: April

This year (2026), from January until December, I'll be watching every Alfred Hitchcock film I can find. This is similar to the viewing projects I did for Woody Allen in 2016 and Disney Animation in 2022. I'll be watching a different movie each week, in chronological order and reviewing them as I go. The rule for the reviews is that I cannot reference any movie I have not yet watched. They don't exist yet. Each film is reviewed as if it were brand new (sort of). The only difference this time is that I have to watch two movies a week in January and February, since there are more than 52 movies to watch (plus TV stuff later on). Reviews will also be posted on my Letterbox'd page. 

This is everything viewed in the month of April.

WEEK 14

Waltzes From Vienna (1934) - 77 min.

Watched on 4/4/26

Availability: YouTube rip

During this period in Hitchcock’s career, there were vast chasms between the films he really seemed to enjoy making, with lots of filler in between that he clearly didn’t enjoy making at all. For every “Blackmail,” there are at least three “Juno and the Paycock”s. At least “Rich and Strange” has a biographical element about being a rich and strange person travelling around the world, something he and his wife could relate to, but even that movie failed to come together into a satisfying piece. 

“Waltzes From Vienna” (or “Strauss’ Great Waltz”) feels like another dud without any of his personality to be found anywhere in the mix. It’s essentially a bio-pic about Johann Strauss, both the Elder (Edmund Gwenn) and the Younger (Esmond Knight), as The Younger is starting to come into his own as a composer, while married to Resi (Jessie Matthews), a confectioner who sees herself married to Johann The Younger as they run a confectionary together without any musical compositions getting in the way. We know how that turns out. 

The younger Strauss is most famous for composing “The Blue Danube,” which becomes the highlight of the film when it is presented for the first time and we in the audience can appreciate it as a piece of music and, no doubt, flashing back to sequences in Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” because honestly, how can you not? But at least with this film, many of us who are unschooled in classical music history now know there are lyrics for these familiar tunes. 

The film should be given credit for taking the right approach toward a bio-pic, which is to take a specific part of the life and focus on that period of time and let that tell the bigger story. The relationships between Younger Strauss and his father and, eventually the Countess Helga von Stahl (Fay Compton) and, of course, his wife, all have conflicts that make for good drama and Hitchcock and his writers manage to distill it all down to an easily digestible 77 minutes, but is that what we want? 

Hitchcock has no flair for this story and basically just aims his camera in one direction, shoots, then says cut. He’s covered this territory before, leading up to this, and with varying degrees of interest. “Waltzes From Vienna” isn’t down there with the worst, necessarily–it’s competent and I’m a sucker for dramatizing the artistic process for a piece of music or art with which I have some familiarity. It’s just at this point--when watching the films he made in chronological order--we know Hitchcock can be more than merely competent.

WEEK 15

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) - 76 min.

Watched on 4/12/2026 

Availability: Criterion DVD checked out from the library

With Hitchcock starting fresh at a new studio, it was clear with “The Man Who Knew Too Much” that he knew exactly the kinds of films he wanted to make and what kinds he definitely did not. TMWKTM is as tight, suspenseful, meticulous and darkly funny as his best efforts up to this point (“The Lodger,” “Blackmail,” “Murder!” and the last 20 minutes of “Number Seventeen”), if not more so. Gone is the melodrama and the confined settings. Hitchcock was now damn near free to express himself. 

Even the opening shot expresses that freedom as we see a pair of hands going through a pile of travel brochures. Where does Hitchcock want to go today? Switzerland, of course, one of his personal favorite travel destinations. So sets the tone for a film that, thankfully, never feels like a play. We go from the mountains of Griesalp to London with an effective dissolve that shows the expansiveness of both landscapes, as the story of a kidnapped girl and her parents who try to get her back gets more complicated and risky. 

The film clocks in at 76 minutes and features some of Hitchcock’s funniest moments and most memorable performances as well. Peter Lorre, in his first English-speaking performance, is a natural scene-stealer as the villain in charge of orchestrating the kidnapping as well as the assassination attempt on the statesman at the symphony. His center stripe of blond hair reminds one of Humphrey Bogart’s creepy get-up in “The Return Of Dr. X,” which I’m sure wasn’t any kind of influence, but it sure works just as well and would set the tone for many roles to come for Lorre.

Hitchcock is coming off of the limp “Waltzes From Vienna,” in which he filmed a symphony playing "The Blue Danube” for the first time. Here, he returns to that setting, albeit in a much grander scale, and uses it to build suspense in one of the film’s climactic scenes, using a crescendo (as a chorus sings “Save the girl!”) as a means to inform the editing as it gets quicker and quicker. 

The film also has some of Hitchcock’s trademark dark humor. If you know about his short story that he wrote about a woman who is being tortured, only to reveal that she's really at the dentist, that makes the scene involving the dentist that much funnier as one character, Uncle Clive, becomes the unwitting victim in a bit of espionage, while his brother, the hero (Leslie Banks as Bob Lawrence) gets to give the dentist a comeuppance by choking him with his own gas tank, something I’m sure Hitchcock reveled in while filming it. 

The film’s funniest bit of absurdism comes when they make their way to a church, then descend to the basement where, eventually, they fight off the bad guys with chairs, while one of the women decides to play some music on the organ to try and drown it out, lest the lawmen outside should hear something. It’s like something out of a Marx Brothers or Three Stooges film. 

TMWKTM is a breath of fresh air after the steady stream of contractual obligations that came in the wake of “Blackmail.” The actors look invested, the film has polish and character and Hitchcock is finally awake with passion for the material.

WEEK 16

The 39 Steps (1935) - 86 min.

Watched on 4/18/26 

Availability: Criterion blu-ray

We’re finally here. After three months of slogging through Hitchcock’s silent era, we’re at the point where he’s no longer chained to the British Film Institute and assigned to adapt stuffy melodramas with only a hint of his personality weaved in. “The 39 Steps” follows the equally refreshing “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and has the same fast pace, witty dialogue, dark humor and crowd-pleasing action. These are works by a director who has found a new freedom and will never look back.

As our wrongfully accused hero, Hannay, Robert Donnat is Hitchcock’s most charming leading man yet. A loner and blank page when we first meet him, the script gradually reveals his wit and ability to talk his way out of any situation. The centerpiece of this performance and perhaps the film’s most fun sequence comes when Hannay is mistaken for an important spokesperson at a political rally. As a means to dodge the police, he acclimates himself to the situation and remains in character right until the very end. 

As his eventual accomplice, Pamela, Madeleine Carroll convincingly goes from “how did I wind up here with you?” to “let’s get the hell out of here!” A resourceful heroine in her own right, Carroll has a coolness about her, but never cold. The two of them build chemistry throughout the chases, tense situations and being handcuffed together. 

The only thing missing is a truly memorable villain, which “The Man Who Knew Too Much” had in Peter Lorre, but it doesn’t matter much. “The 39 Steps” moves too quickly and keeps the viewer glued to the screen that you don’t even notice. Hitchcock keeps everything running smoothly in a tight 86 minutes, but also remembers to take a breather. In the film’s quieter moments, there is still a tension and unease wrapped around the conversations, but it’s never at anyone’s expense. 

“The 39 Steps” also gets Hitchcock out of the confines of the studio set and into the vast landscapes of rural Scotland where he makes ample cinematic use of the plains, the moving clouds and even the livestock on the farms. Hannay has to travel from one farmhouse or hotel to another and at every turn, Hitchcock finds a new personality in a setting, a place that is more than just a means of escape and evasion. 

“The 39 Steps” is a peak, one that will reward the viewer with each screening.

WEEK 17

Secret Agent (1936) - 86 min.

Watched on 4/26/26 

Availability: DVD from the library

“Secret Agent’ is a fun little thriller that deserves more than the Public Domain has to offer in terms of its availability. Every copy of the film that’s out there is in need of a drastic series of facelifts. It’s a shame, too, because while it might not be one of his very best films (even in this era), it is not without entertainment value, particularly since Hitchcock hit his stride during this time, this coming off of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “The 39 Steps.” 

The film continues in the same mold as his previous two efforts, with spies, McGuffins, doomed romance and the return of Peter Lorre, who again steals every scene, particularly his first when he throws a tantrum because, once again, a good looking spy (a baby-faced John Gielgud) has been given a good looking dame (Madeleine Carroll) to be at his side. What does Lorre (whose character is simply known as “The General”) get? The sidekick role. He’s also the one who does all the dirty work, while Gielgud and Carroll get to decide if they’re in love or not, whether or not they want to be spies and whether or not they’re after the right man. 

What makes everything work is what made it work before. Once again, Hitchcock is working with screenwriter Charles Bennett, so we have the snappy dialogue and the sharp character development coupled with Hitchcock’s flawless visual storytelling that trims away anything unnecessary to maintaining the forward momentum of the plot, which, as always, is secondary to the dilemmas these characters face, but without ruining the fun. Even though, at one point, Gielgud reminds Carroll, and us, that the business of spying and killing is no laughing matter, Hitchcock and Bennett cannot help themselves. It’s a comedy disguised as a spy thriller and the other way around as well. 

The balance works as it did before and so, we’re along for the ride, even if we’re aware that it’s a little too soon in Hitchcock’s newfound freedom with a new studio to start recycling a good formula. It might not be as artful as his previous two films, but “Secret Agent” works well enough to forgive it of its many familiar echoes. I happen to enjoy the noise, especially when he, once again, utilizes a train for a good, solid thrill.