IT WAS almost a sell-out screening for the start of the Oxford Film Festival yesterday when fans of Alfred Hitchcock crowded into the Phoenix Picturehouse in Walton Street.

They watched a double bill of The Lodger – a 1927 silent film that was the scare-meister’s first blockbuster – and the deliciously fiendish Strangers On A Train (1951).

Jeremy Smith, entertainment editor on the Oxford Mail which co-sponsors the annual festival, now in its fifth year, said: “We couldn’t have wished for a better opening, and it was great to see that the lure of watching terrific movies as they should be seen – on the big screen, in the dark, with other cinemagoers – has lost none of its appeal. I can’t wait for tonight when we screen Vertigo, one of Hitchcock’s best-loved thrillers.”

Hugh Reid, 23, from central Oxford, said he had attended the Mail’s previous festivals and always found them exciting. He said: “You never get the chance to see these great films as they should be seen, and even if you have a large flat-screen TV at home, it’s still not the same.”

Sophie Wilson, 19, from Headington agreed: “I love films, and Hitchcock of course was hugely influential as a film maker.

“I’m going to be here every night.”

Edward Packham, 22, from Cowley, said: “I really like Hitchcock and my favourite film of his is Rear Window [showing tomorrow evening]. There’s no horror in it, but it still terrifies me.”

Tonight’s screening – Vertigo (1958), starring James Stewart and Kim Novak – is considered by many to be one of his greatest thrillers.

The film starts at 9pm at the Phoenix cinema in Walton Street. Tickets are half price for anyone with a copy of today’s Oxford Mail.