For many years, a photograph has been circulating on the Internet in which, according to publications on social networks, the Hollywood director lies in the waters of the Thames River. At the same time, Hitchcock is dressed in a suit and shoes. We checked whether the photo really shows the master of suspense.

The photo we are interested in has been circulating on VKontakte for at least nine years with the following caption: “Alfred Hitchcock draws inspiration from the dark waters of the River Thames, London.” According to search “VK”, there are several hundred similar posts on the social network, and the earliest one we discovered published August 30, 2013 in the Great History public (1.1 million subscribers) and collected more than 1000 likes. One of the latest entries posted in the Naked Movie community (115,000), where she received more than 2,200 likes and 60,000 views. Please note that some posts claim that the photo was taken in 1960s, and in others - in 1972. In addition, there is a photograph from a different angle (examples here And here). You can find such posts on other social networks, for example on Twitter (here, here And here) And "Odnoklassniki", as well as on "Peekaboo"

At some point, this post became so popular that it even turned into a meme: people began to caption funny photos and videos of people and animals in the water, like the photo with the supposed Hitchcock (here, here And here).

So, in 1972, the thriller “Madness"(Frenzy), directed by Hitchcock. It is an adaptation of Arthur Le Bern's novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. At the beginning of the film's trailer, there is a scene where a man dressed in a black suit and boots is swimming in the water. In the next scene, Hitchcock himself appears, shot in close-up and seemingly lying in the water, and pronounces the following remarks: “I daresay you’re wondering why I’m floating around London like this. I'm in the notorious River Thames, investigating a murder. Rivers can be very dangerous, and in my new film Frenzy, this river is the scene of a terrible crime." The director also appears in the middle of the video in a scene in a London market, where he accidentally finds the leg of a corpse, and also at the end - where he discovers his tie on the body of a dead woman.

Does this prove that the filmmaker himself swam in the river? No, because even the close-up itself suggests that Hitchcock most likely did not even dive into the water. In that scene, only part of the face and the shoulder are visible on the screen, probably so that it would not be noticeable that the director was not lying in the water. In the previous scene, the floating body's shoulders and head were shown to be partially submerged in water.

As for the photographs distributed on the Internet, they definitely do not depict Hitchcock. More precisely, not quite him. On movie sites "Kinopoisk" And IMDb Interesting facts about the film indicate that Hitchcock may have originally appeared in Follies as a body floating on the Thames. For the filming, a mannequin was even made with an exact copy of Hitchcock’s head, but plans changed, and instead of it, a woman’s body was shown in the film - the victim of the “tie killer.” And they decided to use the footage of the fake Hitchcock in a humorous trailer.

However, the director still appeared in the film itself, but in a different cameo. In one of the opening scenes, he stands sullenly in a black bowler hat and a dark suit among a crowd that applauds Sir George's speeches. After that, the body of a strangled girl was found on the shore.

Picture filmed in London from July to October 1971. When you search for "Hitchcock 1971" on the website of the American photo agency Getty Images, you can find many photographs of Hitchcock with his dummy. One description of the photo reads: “Bodies floated up and down the Thames near County Hall, but no one batted an eye. When Alfred Hitchcock kept swimming up to the audience with his hands folded on his chest, they laughed, because Hitchcock, walking nearby, convinced them that it was not him in the river, but only a plastic copy. "Alfred and his team were on the set of his latest film, Frenzy, which is scheduled for release next Easter." According to the captions, the scene with the mannequin was filmed on August 26th.