When Jim and I set out in late 2005 to watch every Hitchcock film in a year and write about them all, we didn’t give much thought to whether it had been done before. It just seemed like an exciting project to try, so we did it — an early and incomplete draft ran as a series of popular weekly features on DVDinmyPants.com before we pulled it offline to concentrate on the book — and it was a lot of work, and we persevered, and it became a book.
A happy ending to our story.
It wasn’t until much later that we realized others had later attempted to do the same. Seeing how those projects panned out is always interesting.
We recently came across A Year with Hitchcock, a 2008 blog with a similar name and a similar mission. It looks as if the writer petered out after just a few films, but what he has there is worth reading. Do check it out, he has some worthwhile observations.
I only just found this one — hey Jim, forgot to send this to you! — called Hitchcock Year. It’s unfolding at this very moment. Quite eclectic and interesting, lots of screenshots. I wish these guys the best, it looks as if they’re doing a great job.
A writer called Andrew Nixon began an attempt at chronologically reviewing all of Hitch’s films, but it looks as if his effort halted fairly early. The reviews are very brief.
And finally, it looks as if the Yahoo! Groups group devoted to Alfred Hitchcock had a Hitch A Week schedule in 2007, and a quick glance through their archives shows efforts at the same in previous years. Same general premise of watching them all in order and then discussing the films. Sorry to say I haven’t read their discussions, as I find the Yahoo! groups pretty cumbersome to navigate. Since this one was a community effort, presumably they reached their goal and watched them all.
Some very cool projects out there. If you’re reading our book, listening to our Year of Hitchcock podcast, or following some of these others blogs — preferably all of the above — we hope you’re enjoying the work of this extraordinary director.
