The Architecture of Suspense: The Built World in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock by Christine Madrid French: The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock by Steven Jacobs.

This article reviews two books analyzing the role of architecture in Alfred Hitchcock’s films, focusing on Christine Madrid French’s *The Architecture of Suspense: The Built World in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock* and Steven Jacobs’s *The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock*. French’s work centers on key buildings in Hitchcock’s late 1950s and early 1960s films, such as *North by Northwest*, *Vertigo*, *Rear Window*, and *Psycho*, but is critiqued for extensive tangential material and limited film analysis. Jacobs’s study emphasizes the influence of studio “house styles” on Hitchcock’s set designs, particularly Paramount’s VistaVision format, revealing a consistent five-part vertical division underlying the visual composition of Hitchcock’s films at that studio. The review highlights Jacobs’s more focused and substantial approach to architectural analysis in Hitchcock’s work compared to French’s broader but less cohesive treatment.