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Friday, August 13, 1999 7:10:25 PM EST

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Alfred Hitchcock surely would have appreciated that the 100th anniversary of his birth falls on Friday the 13th. Born on August 13, 1899, Hitchcock was a director whose cultured taste for bad luck permeates several of the finest films ever made.

He was a complicated (some would say tortured) man who systematically broke his obsessions down into broad-stroke signifiers, the better to scare the bejeebies out of you and me. Even indifferent filmgoers can name a handful of Hitchcock's trademark devices; his ability to orchestrate his audience's unspoken fears and desires is all but unmatched in film history.

Looking back: From Catholic schoolboy to master of suspense Analysis: Bad-news scenarios were his good fortune Hitchcock's best: The CNN.com Top 10 list The Portfolio: Hitchcock's complete works First Chapter: 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho'

His calling cards include the wrongly accused innocent man ("The Wrong Man," 1956, "North by Northwest," 1959); sexual obsession that leads to outright psychosis ("Vertigo," 1958, "Psycho," 1960, and, in bits and pieces, practically every film he ever made); and the cool blonde who's as dangerous as she is alluring (again, take your pick).

The accepted wisdom is that Hitchcock's work hinges on ordinary men being thrown into extraordinary situations, but that's way too easy. Steven Spielberg's films, for instance, are constantly described this way. That setup is just an established route to building suspense, and great directors know what works.

Hitchcock's greatest gift was the way he slowly revealed that his characters were in over their heads. And he always made sure it was too late for them to turn back by the time they discovered it, giving the audience an extra boost of fearful adrenaline.

The obvious example is "Rear Window" (1954) in which a wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart spies on his neighbors with a set of binoculars, almost playfully insisting that one them has committed a murder. This is amusing for a little while, but -- whoops -- Stewart's theory turns out to be true.

It's also amusing to watch Farley Granger realize he's made an evil pact with a card-carrying lunatic (who may very well be in love with him) in "Strangers on a Train" (1951). Hitchcock always managed to have the best time with the most horrible situations imaginable.

My personal favorite of his films is the relatively obscure "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943). In his later years, when pressed to name the film of which he was the most proud, Hitchcock wavered between this one and -- somewhat inexplicably -- "The Trouble With Harry" (1955). Both films are steeped in small-town Americana and, despite his droll wit, Hitchcock always seemed to be more American than British. Note his penchant for dangling characters from the tips of national landmarks and his love of long-distance travel.

But "Shadow of a Doubt" subtly subverts the American landscape in horrifying ways. The film is a first cousin to "Our Town" (playwright Thornton Wilder worked on Hitchcock's script), with the wicked addition of a charismatic lady-strangler spicing things up considerably.

Teresa Wright plays a teen-age girl who's thrilled that her family is being visited by her beloved Uncle Charley (Joseph Cotten in arguably the best performance of his career). Charley is gentle and unfailingly suave, doting on Wright in a manner that verges on romantic seduction. The town's tree-lined streets are dappled with sunlight; the picket fences are freshly painted; the neighbors are cheerful and friendly.

Then, just when everything reaches a peak level of peachy-ness, the knowledge that good old Uncle Charley might be The Merry Widow murderer everyone's been reading about in the papers starts creeping up on Wright.

The best moment is a quiet dinner-table scene that's as effective as anything Hitchcock ever committed to film. Wright fixes on Cotten's cold profile as he recounts to the shocked family his strangely intense feelings about widowed women.

The terror lies in Uncle Charley's blatant attempt to further rattle his suspicious niece, but it's made palpable by Hitchcock's refusal to crosscut between the two characters. The pitiless camera just slowly moves in on Cotten as he grows increasingly bile-ridden, droning on and on about the deceitful ways of money-grubbing females.

Of course, for all his subtlety, Hitchcock could sometimes get exceptionally wiggy. His strict Catholic upbringing, coupled with his own lack of physical self-worth, apparently wreaked havoc on his libido. Although happily married to a brilliant woman who served as his filmmaking confidante, he claimed to have been celibate the last 30 years of his life.

Jimmy Stewart's carnal meltdown in "Vertigo" is suffocating, and only Hitchcock could wring such a sweaty, sexually panicked performance out of the all-American boy. The film is all the more powerful for playing like a barely lucid dream.

But the wildly provocative shower scene in "Psycho" -- celebrated directors didn't linger on nude actresses being stabbed to death back in 1960, no matter how ingenious the shot sequence -- unleashed a histrionic strain in Hitchcock's work.

From then on, he had a tendency to get carried away with himself. "The Birds" (1963) and "Marnie" (1964), for all their successful moments (OK, "Marnie" only has one), spring from somewhere so emotionally cryptic they don't really fit on a cinematic canvas. They seem crazy rather than erotic or frightening. By the time of "Frenzy" (1972) and its multiple necktie strangulations, Hitchcock had gotten downright tawdry.

None of that, though, could overshadow his sheer sinister brilliance. "North by Northwest" changed the way we look at crop dusters, for God's sake. And then there's the famous instance of the man who wrote to the director complaining that his daughter would no longer take a shower after seeing "Psycho." Hitchcock suggested that she be sent to the dry cleaners.

His impish sense of humor endeared him to us, even while he was filling our heads with vivid nightmares. Hitchcock somehow understood the delicious fun of having a cleverly murderous uncle, so he volunteered to play the part for all of us. And he'll be playing it long after all of us are gone.

Happy birthday, Hitch.