Hitchcock’s friendships and close professional relationships with gay people continued for his entire career. Novello starred in two of Hitchcock’s silent movies and went on to a highly successful career writing musicals. In late 1920s England, Alfred and Alma Hitchcock socialized and were good friends with Ivor Novello and his partner, Robert “Bobbie” Andrews, who had lavish parties that were notoriously gay. Hitchcock worked with too many of them to be anti-gay. The director was not prejudiced against gay people but instead fascinated by them. They were intentional, and he knew exactly what they implied. He knew their subculture well, and the gay codes in his movies were not an accident or an oversight. Hitchcock was exposed to vibrant gay communities in both England and Hollywood, and he worked with many gay and bisexual professionals in various aspects of film production, including writers and actors.
They are intentionally ambiguous in order to maintain deniability if questioned, especially by the censors. If he wanted to refer to homosexuality, as he did in at least 10 of his movies, Hitchcock would use what are now called “gay codes.” These are subtle references that gay people and their allies would recognize but could pass by most of the audience unnoticed. He meticulously planned each film and knew exactly the effect each detail would have on his audiences. The famed, late English film director Alfred Hitchcock was a complicated, twisted and mischievous man - characteristics that show up in all his great movies. Editor’s note: The following article, like many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, includes references to sex and violence.ĭid Martin Landau play a homosexual in North by Northwest? Did Alfred Hitchcock really show gay sex on-screen in Rope, albeit in an unusual way? Was the whole plot of Rebecca driven by the twisted jealousy of an evil lesbian? And, most surprisingly, did Hitchcock depict a gay marriage way back in 1938’s The Lady Vanishes?