Flying Geese

As a schoolgirl Alma Reville rode her bicycle to the London film studio where her father worked in the costume department, to watch silent movies being made. Later she got a job as a tea girl in the same studio. She was a film cutter at 16 and was quickly promoted to script writer. When she met Alfred Hitchcock, they were both 22, but Hitch was new to the industry and Alma was already a veteran. Hitchcock’s directorial debut was The Pleasure Garden in 1925. In the credits Alma is listed as director’s assistant. They were married a year later. Throughout his career, she was his closest and most constant collaborator. When Hitchcock received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, he thanked only four people, saying, “The first is a film editor, the second a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, and the fourth is a fine cook. And their names are Alma Reville.”