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The tower is a special effect though &ndash the mission had no such building

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(The tower is a special effect though – the mission had no such building.)After this tragedy, Stewart keeps seeing Madeleine's face everywhere he looks, until suddenly he discovers her "double" living in downtown San Francisco, at the Empire Hotel, 940 Sutter Street. Nowadays it's called the York Hotel (001 800 808 9675, ) and makes a great place to stay while retracing Jimmy Stewart's steps Doubles cost from $149 (£99). Supposedly a sojourn into nearby Muir Woods follows (001 415 388 2595, ) – a charming place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city – although Hitch actually filmed the scenes in Big Basin Redwoods State Park (001 831 338 8860, ), some distance south, off Highway 9 by Boulder Creek And after that... well, I wouldn't want to reveal the ending, would I?Did hitch love San Francisco?That's an understatement. The brilliantly edited murder scene from his not-so-brilliant last film, Family Plot (1976), took place inside Grace Cathedral, on 1051 Taylor Street while Tippi Hedren walked across Union Square in the opening shot of The Birds (1963). To the north, Shadow Of A Doubt (1943) featured the town of Santa Rosa – mainly the train station and a house at 904 McDonald Avenue – while south of San Francisco you'll find the wild beauty of the Point Lobos Reserve (001 831 624 4909, ), located three miles south of Carmel on Highway 1. It stood in for a windswept Cornish coastline in Hitch's first American film, Rebecca (1940); you can relive the experience for a $3 (£2) per vehicle entry fee.

Further south you'll find East Bakersfield, where Cary Grant flees from a murderous crop duster in North By Northwest.What about his london landmarks?Before he absconded to the States, Hitch made a great many films in this country, beginning with the silent melodrama The Pleasure Garden (1925). (You'll soon be able to buy a luxury apartment in what was once Gainsborough Studios in Hoxton where he shot some of his early films.) His first talkie, Blackmail (1929), featured a chase scene around the British Museum, although due to low light inside the building, he made do with blown-up photographs as studio backdrops, as he did with the Royal Albert Hall in his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). The London Palladium cropped up at the climax of The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935); Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Simpsons-in-the-Strand featured in the effective "terrorist on the streets of London" film Sabotage (1936), in which a boy is blown up in a bus outside a full-scale photographic blow-up of the Strand Law Courts. Similarly dangerous was Westminster Cathedral in Foreign Correspondent. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on Gower Street featured in the theatrical shenanigans of Stage Fright (1950).The film with the greatest number of London locations is probably Hitchcock's 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Apart from the riveting climax at the Albert Hall – filmed in the real place this time – you can spot Plender Street and Royal College Street (both Camden), St Saviour's Church in Brixton and Park Lane House, Park Lane, standing in for the embassy. This latter building no longer exists – it was demolished in 1960 to make way for the 28-storey London Hilton .With Hitch's penultimate film, he returned to his roots; Frenzy (1972) opens with something he couldn't achieve with Psycho – a helicopter shot sweeping along the river Thames. Much of the film's action takes place at Covent Garden, in its former incarnation as a fruit and veg market, with Barry (Van Der Valk) Foster playing a seemingly innocuous grocer called Bob Rusk (in reality the dreaded "Necktie Murderer") who lived at 3 Henrietta Street.Was Hitchcock always confined to Britain and the Americas?No, he occasionally ventured "overseas". In his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, James Stewart and Doris Day begin the film in Marrakesh, Morocco – they stay at the La Mamounia Hotel (00 212 44 388600, ) on Avenue Bab Jdid (doubles from £153) – while the exotic locations for the Cary Grant film To Catch A Thief (1955) were captured along the C?d'Azur in France.How do I find out more?Writer and lecturer Sandra Shevey leads a guided tour around Hitchcock's London every Monday at 11am, beginning outside Queensway Tube station The three-hour tour costs £15. She also organises a New York walk – e-mail sandra_shevey yahoo for details. Hitchcock by Truffaut (Simon & Schuster, £13.99) is invaluable, likewise Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco by Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal (£11.25 from amazon ); an excellent internet resource is Scott Trimble's Northern California Movies website ( ), while next May sees the publication of Paul Duncan's glossy full-colour reference work Hitchcock (Taschen, £10).The Hayward Gallery (020-7921 0600) in London is currently showing Douglas Gordon's installation 24 Hour Psycho, a slowed-down version of Hitch's masterpiece.

On 13 December the gallery will stay open for 24 hours to allow the piece to run in full.Falling for youNo head for heights? don't look down...Hitch seemed to have a phobia about falling – many of his films feature a climactic tumble from a high tower or monument. Here's the top five, in order of altitude:1 Mount Rushmore (5,725ft): Adam Williams and Martin Landau are the victims, while poor undercover agent Eva Marie Saint hangs by her fingertips. (North By Northwest)2 Westminster Cathedral (273ft): Edmund Gwenn tumbles over the railings from the campanile. (Foreign Correspondent, 1940)3 The Statue of Liberty (151ft): Norman Lloyd plunges to his death from the flaming torch, despite the hero, Robert Cummings, trying to grab hold of him. (Saboteur, 1942)4 The British Museum (106ft): Donald Calthrop plunges through the domed roof of the Reading Room.

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