Murder in the Sky: Airplanes and War in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock

Cary Grant chased by a crop duster spraying bullets. A WWII passenger plane shot down over water, its passengers struggling to survive after a spectacular crash at sea. These sequences from director Alfred Hitchcock’s classics North by Northwest and Foreign Correspondent are the two most famous uses of airplanes by the Master of Suspense. But planes, both on and off the screen, played a central role throughout Hitch’s life and career.

In this presentation by Emmy-nominated documentarian Steven C. Smith, we’ll discover how Hitchcock used flight as both an onscreen weapon of terror, and a real-life tool that made his international fame possible. We’ll hear about the secret government mission in 1944 that took Hitchcock by plane from Hollywood to Great Britain. And we’ll find out what behind-the-scenes tricks Hitchcock used to create his most famous scenes of aerial attack.

Presenter: Steven C. Smith