As a twelve-year-old in the mid-60's, I watched whatever vintage films the networks aired (these were mostly from the mid-50's on up) and whatever aired on the matinee movie on Cleveland's local stations. Alfred Hitchcock was my favorite director. Back then, station libraries had very few films predating WWII, and for years Saboteur (1942) was the earliest Hitchcock I knew. I watched it whenever it ran, if I didn't have to be in school, and after repeated viewings I anticipated specific shots, sometimes for an actor's reaction, but more often for the style markers that credential all of Hitchcock's films.

Early in Saboteur, the hero, Robert Cummings, who is sought for sabotage and murder, tries to remember an address he read on an envelope dropped by the actual saboteur (Norman Lloyd.) Hitchcock creates a 5-second flashback intensifying the sensory elements as Cummings struggles to recapture the memory. We see a scattering of envelopes and crumpled bills. The ambient sound drops out, and we hear footfalls of the workers at the airplane assembly plant where Cummings saw the envelope. A series of diagonal shadows glides across the screen as Cummings' hand lifts the envelope until it fills the screen, which fades back to his face as he remembers the crucial information.

In five seconds, Hitchcock uses sound and image to advance his story. He also signals the mystery behind the sinister Mr. Fry whose name appears on the envelope. It is highly compelling, or in Hitchcock's pet phrase, charged with emotion. I knew as a twelve-year-old Hitchcock was shading in layers of feeling and suggestion that most directors were overlooking or were incapable of creating. These touches are in all Hitchcock films; when he is fully engaged in his story, they are legion.

Here's a selective list of small but telling moments that enrich Hitchcock's films.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) This fast-moving thriller follows a band of anarchists who kidnap a girl so her parents won't divulge what they know about an assassination plot. Peter Lorre made up with a streak of white in his hair and a scar bisecting his brow, makes merry with the role of the gang leader. Hitchcock cast Cicely Oates as Lorre's companion. She's Nurse Agnes in the credits, but functions as a true fanatic in the gang. Gaunt, with piercing eyes and pinned back hair, she has none of Lorre's humor. Both of them would kill you, but Lorre would do it with a chuckle.

Agnes is one of Hitchcock's creepiest female villains. She appears in a black, turtlenecked frock and seems to have no warmth, and especially no maternal instinct. We watch her and try to imagine her former life, for she has nothing but her role in Lorre's gang. In the climactic shootout with the London police, Agnes drags an ammunition chest across the room before making the ultimate sacrifice. Her death distresses Lorre, for the first time in the film.

Foreign Correspondent (1940)
A globetrotting thriller with plot elements reappearing in Notorious and North by Northwest. Along with some classic Hitchcock showstoppers, the film has an oddball female character among the enemy agents, a sister to Nurse Agnes. She's a young woman with thick glasses that give her the look of an obsessed insomniac. When George Sanders busts into Eduardo Ciannelli's den of spies, she pulls a gun on him. Later, as the spies go to work on the kidnapped diplomat (Albert Basserman), she stands in the back, drawing our eyes as her glasses reflect light from the high intensity lamps trained on their captive. Significantly, when Basserman is tortured off camera, this woman gives the only sign of horror, uttering a little shriek. I have not discovered the name of the valuable actress who took this part.

Saboteur (1942)
Once you've seen the film enough times that its showpieces are thoroughly familiar, savor Ian Wolfe's supporting performance as Robert, the butler in the house of spies. It's not long, but every second tells. Hitchcock presents him as a prim, officious employee right up to the moment where he blackjacks Robert Cummings. Robert enjoys the chore so much he continues the assault until his master (Otto Kruger) calls it off with 'That's enough, Robert.'

Another deft moment: Hitchcock's choice of ambient sound over music during the final confrontation between Cummings and Norman Lloyd. It's the famous Statue of Liberty scene, and Hitchcock works on our nerves by dubbing in distant traffic, tugboat horns, and the restless wind as the two men face off.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Classic story, literate script, wonderful cast (especially Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, and Patricia Collinge). With these elements in place, Hitchcock's imagination is fully charged, and he packs the film with inventive touches. Two of my favorites:

Cotten's landlady, played by Constance Purdy, appears as dilapidated as the flophouse she's running. Hitchcock asked her to appear in the least flattering look imaginable, and Purdy creates a wholly realistic character. In a baggy, sleeveless housedress showing off her chubby arms, unbecoming glasses, and hair parted like a man's, Purdy shows us a woman who has long ago dispensed with vanity. She leaves us wishing she had another scene or two.

And don't forget Cotton at the second family dinner, going on about rich widows ('these useless women...faded, fat, greedy women'). The script overplays it; it's hard to imagine Uncle Charlie revealing himself so blatantly. Still, there's power. As Cotten drones on about the women, the camera creeps closer, until his face fills the screen in profile, reaching maximum size on 'faded, fat, greedy women.' It's a Rushmore-sized face of evil, and the original audience must have squirmed in their seats.

Dial M for Murder (1954)
Hitch derided films that were 'pictures of people talking', but this film has that most unHitchcockian aspect: a dialogue scene early in the film running 22 minutes, over a fifth of the total run time. It's the scene where Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) entraps the scoundrel Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) in his murder scheme. It's all talk, and it's irresistible. Milland is urbane, witty, and cold at the center; Dawson is his slimy counterpart as the man carrying out the murder.

The scene is integral to the original play, since it gives us the complete back story and lays out Tony's clever plan, which is soon to unravel. Milland is mesmerizing. He projects malice cloaked in elegance, observing the niceties as he describes how his wife is to be killed. Hitchcock's camera services the dialogue, since the audience must remember about a half dozen key details. There are a few overhead shots, but they show us the layout of the room where the murder will occur. Hitch also places his cameo in this scene. He is spotted in a framed reunion photograph Wendice hands to Lesgate.

There are talky Hitchcock films that try the audience, certainly The Skin Game, and perhaps The Paradine Case and The Trouble with Harry. Dial M for Murder is the exception that proves the rule. Tony's meeting with Lesgate amounts to two reels of dialogue, but Hitchcock has us all the way through. He has a solid story, two expert actors, and an uncluttered style that keeps the plot details in focus.

North by Northwest (1959)
This wonderful film is one of Hitchcock's career highlights. In its mix of suspense, romance, and comedy, it's a companion piece to The 39 Steps. It may top Steps, for it also has iconic action scenes among the best-known in American cinema.

One of my favorite moments has nothing to do with spies or machine guns. In Cary Grant's drunken scene, he learns the arresting officer is named Emile Klinger, and this enchants him. 'Emile!' he says. He repeats Officer Klinger's name over the phone to his mother. Here Grant thickens his voice and stresses the consonant blend 'kl' in Klinger. The comic conceit is simply that Grant, who has just been through several hair-raising adventures, is so potted that he finds Klinger's name to be remarkable. It only takes a second or two, but it's the sort of character comedy Hitch lets us savor in his better films.

North by Northwest also contains an unplanned special moment: a genuine Hitchcock blooper. In the Mount Rushmore cafeteria scene, watch the extras as Eva Marie Saint draws her pistol. One little boy whose back is to us plugs his ears because he's sat through all the previous takes of the scene.

Alfred Hitchcock left us 52 features packed with killer effects and provocative moments. This list has only suggested the rich oeuvre. One can create whimsical categories of Hitchcock obsessions. There's 'women and cigarettes' (Florence Bates mashing out her cigarette in a jar of cold cream in Rebecca; Jessie Royce Landis dunking hers into the yolk of a fried egg in To Catch a Thief.) There's 'menacing authority figures' (the dour judge whose wig and face fill the screen as Easy Virtuebegins; thirty years later, in Psycho, Mort Mills as the highway patrolman whose staring face gives Janet Leigh what is almost the worst shock of her life.) There's 'objects about to give way' (two nincompoops tied to a sagging balcony rail in Number Seventeen; a sleeve tearing loose at a perilous moment in Saboteur; the telltale wine bottle teetering at the edge of the shelf in Notorious; Tippi Hedren's shoe about to fall from her pocket and give her away, in Marnie.) Hitchcock believed a full tapestry of telling details would keep his films from going out of date. He was right.