British Film Institute Remasters Hitchcock Silent Films for Olympiad

Before the legendary filmmaker began his Hollywood career in the late ‘30s, Alfred Hitchcock made a name for himself through his early British work and created such classics as Blackmail, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps. However, even adamant cinephiles might not be familiar with Hitchcock’s first films, which predate the “talkie” era.

Luckily, the British Film Institute is digitally remastering these nine surviving films for the Cultural Olympiad for the London 2012 Olympics. These films, also known as the “Hitchcock 9,” were made from 1925 to 1929 and feature elements that would later been seen in Hitchcock’s most influential works such as Vertigo and Psycho.

Bryony Dixon, curator of Silent Film at the BFI, told Sky News: “The government asked all the big national institutions what they would like to do to celebrate (the Olympiad) … He is our big national icon – we have Shakespeare, so you have Dickens and you have Hitchcock.”

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