Themes and plot devices in Hitchcock films other iconic stairwell shot comes from the movie "Suspicion" as Cary Grant slowly walks up the stairs to deliver what would have been the poisonous warmed milk to his wife. Hitchcock, the studios and Grant decided his character could not end up as a murderer and that scene becomes a red herring with a new ending added. In "The Birds", the camera follows Tippi Hedren up the stairs to the attic where (suspensefully) the birds wait silently to attack her. Staircases also appear prominently in the 'ball-gown scene' in "Rebecca" and in the 'guard-dog scene' in "Strangers on a Train".
Alfred Hitchcock filmography first of which was the psychological thriller "Rebecca" starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. He received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, and the film won Best Picture. Hitchcock worked with Fontaine again the following year on the film "Suspicion" which also starred Cary Grant. In 1943, Hitchcock directed another psychological thriller "Shadow of a Doubt" which starred Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Three years later he reunited with Grant on "Notorious" which also starred Ingrid Bergman. The film included a three-minute intermittent kissing scene between the leads shot specifically to skirt the Motion Picture Production