Alfred Hitchcock one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with "Lifeboat" and "Rope", the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment". From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the
Alfred Hitchcock (May Whitty), a British spy posing as a governess, disappears on a train journey through the fictional European country of Bandrika. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, the only time he won an award for his direction. Benjamin Crisler, the "New York Times" film critic, wrote in June 1938: "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not: Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world." David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning