Free Republic

2012 marks the 90th anniversary of what is believed to be Alfred Hitchcock’s first directorial effort: an unfinished, now lost silent film called No. 13. I’ve been holding my own private Alfred Hitchcock festival at home for several weeks, using DVDs, streaming video, even a VHS. I’m not aware of any other, official celebrations out there, but Hitchcock doesn’t really need any: His work is never out of circulation, and he’s often in the news for one reason or the other. Image by AFP via @daylife For instance, it was recently reported on LiveScience.com that scientists believe they’ve ascertained the...

An opera singer is suspected of murdering her wealthy husband then using a double to assume his identity to claim his £5 million estate in a case detectives claim is "straight out of a Hitchcock film". Police believe that Waltraud Hill, a 55-year-old soprano, killed her husband Hermann, then used a man to impersonate him to sign over to her his properties, stocks, bonds, cash and life insurance policy. Detectives suspect that she approached up to 10 people to play the part of the "fake" husband, and once she had found a willing candidate, used a make-up artist to...

"OK, so Jimmy Stewart is sitting in his DeSoto right where that white minivan is parked — right there!" says author Aaron Leventhal, as knowledgeable an Alfred Hitchcock fanatic as you are bound to find. "And he's looking between those two pillars — right over here — at Kim Novak, who's coming out of her apartment building to get into her green Jaguar and go wandering through the city." We're standing at the corner of Mason and Sacramento streets atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, and we're about to follow, 50 years later, in the footsteps of Stewart, Novak —...