Film Preview: Alfred Hitchcock In East London

Dean Nicholas
By Dean Nicholas Last edited 177 months ago
Film Preview: Alfred Hitchcock In East London

1906_hitch.jpg Alfred Hitchcock may have grown in stature (not to mention shape) once he became the toast of Tinseltown, but his roots were in the east end of London, and his early days in the business, in the now-forgotten Walthamstow film industry, helped turn him into one of the true supermen of 20th century cinema.

As part of the Story of London festival, a new documentary, "Alfred Hitchcock in East London, will premiere next week at the Heathcote Music Venue in Walthamstow. The film retraces Hitch's life early life in Leytonstone and Stratford, and teases out little-known threads about the early years of British cinema, showing a rarely-seen side of the master that is often conventionally ignored in favour of his later American success.

The documentary is presented by the Hitchcock-ophiles at the McGuffin Film Society, who are mounting a campaign to save an early cinema that the young Alfred frequented in the Twenties.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the mileau in which the Society operates, advance tickets can only be ordered via snail mail, and sent payable to 'McGuffin' to: McGuffin Film Society, 458 Hoe Street, London E17 9AH. You can also (obviously) show up on the door, though it's well worth checking first to see if the show is sold out.

Alfred Hitchcock in East London, Saturday 27 June at the Heathcote Music Venue, 344 Grove Green Road, London E11 4EA, 8pm. Tickets cost £5.

Last Updated 19 June 2009