Susan Smith's treatment of the works of the most subtle of all film-makers analyses the key elements of suspense, humour and tone across the whole of the director's career. Arguing that all three are central to our viewing experience, the book demonstrates how Hitchcock's masterly integration of those elements is the key to his success as a film-maker.

Examining in detail such films as Sabotage, Notorious, Rear Window, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope and The Birds, amongst many others, the book discusses the idea of the director as saboteur and the importance of 'the avoidance of cliché' in Hitchcock's narrative.

Susan Smith is Reader in Film Studies at the University of Sunderland, UK. She is author of Elizabeth Taylor (BFI/Palgrave, 2012), Voices in Film (Wallflower Press, 2007), The Musical: Race, Gender and Performance (Columbia University Press, 2005) and Hitchcock: Suspense, Humour and Tone (BFI, 2000). She also co-edits the BFI's Film Stars series.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. A cinema based on Sabotage
The avoidance of 'cliché'
Reaffirming contract
Who Killed Cock Robin?
2. Suspense
Murder!: practising the art of suspense
Forms of adress
Patterns of suspense
Suppression and surprise
Suspense and surprise
Rereading the text
3. Humour
Humour and suspense
Counter voices in Rope
Framed by irony
A notorious form of humour?
4. Mise en scène
Setting the scene
The point-of-view shot
Objects
The cameo device: Hitchcock, hunger and the single set film
Music
5. Tone and meaning in The Birds
A very avian form of sabotage
Seeing - feeling - knowing
A bird's eye view
Multiple perspectives, multiple readings
Conclusion
Filmography
Bibliography
Index