- The Master’s style: Hitch established distinct visual language from the start
- Even his earliest films contain hallmark themes, since endlessly imitated
- MacGuffins, murder, love, sex, voyeurism, attractive blondes, espionage,
- Domineering mothers, inept police, innocents accused, men on the run…
- All these and more mark out a Hitchcocks – all have his wife Alma’s input
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
- Hitchcock’s Motifs (2005) – Michael Walker; free PDF
- Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch (2017) – ed. Wieland Schwanebeck
- Hitchology: The Style and Themes of Hitchcock (2024) – Neil Alcock
Hitch’s timeless appeal is largely founded on his many recurring themes and motifs which have, contrary to popular opinion, been strongly in evidence from his first film onwards. Collectively, they’re commonly referred to as the “Hitchcock Touch” and while many are much analysed and imitated, at least one is far less desirable and seldom discussed. The more respectable frequent appearance of clocks and other assorted timepieces in his films is another. Here are some of the most thorough explanations and analyses of the Master’s methods.
- Hitchcock’s World – Charles Higham
- Hitchcock Considerations – Ken Mogg
- Themes in Hitchcock Films – Hitchcock Zone
Of course, while there was both continuity and development throughout Hitch’s career, we mustn’t forget his major themes and fascinations were largely due to his wife’s steering influence. By his side throughout his entire career, Alma Reville had both credited and uncredited input on every film he ever made, and viewing any of the many non-Hitchcocks which she scripted, often from original stories, clearly demonstrates that ‘Hitch’s’ predilections were just as much hers. In fact, we really ought to use the term “Hitchcocks” even when referring to his films in the singular. The campaign starts here.
- A Photo Essay on the Master’s Visual Motifs – Alan Vanneman
- I Make Suspense My Business/Hollywood Speaks… – Alfred Hitchcock
- The Hitchcock Touch: Visual Techniques in the Work of AH – Paige A. Driscoll
- Hitchcock’s Blondes (2023) – Laurence Leamer | interviews
- Hitchcock’s Blondes (2018) – Thilo Wydra | Italian
- Hitchcock’s Flashing Blondes (2013) – Serge Koster
The term ‘MacGuffin’ is widely believed to have been coined by prolific Scottish screenwriter Angus MacPhail, albeit describing a concept long established in fiction. It concerns an item with no intrinsic importance other than to cause the characters to act in a certain way, thus propelling the narrative. He worked on Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, Spellbound, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Wrong Man for the Master but penned many other classics, such as the British horror Dead of Night. During production of The 39 Steps, MacPhail described the MacGuffin to Hitch who went on to popularise it uncredited, as was his habit.
What’s a MacGuffin? – Ken Mogg
MacGuffin vids: What’s a | Chasing the | We Need to Talk about | Trope Talk | Wer oder was zur Hölle ist MacGuffin?
According to this great infographic, The 39 Steps is the only Hitchcock with all of the Master’s themes, which figures, as it’s also my absolute fave!
The 39 Steps and Then Some – George Perry
Infographic by Adam Frost and Zhenia Vasiliev, 2013; it inspired this one
Infomania infographic | Writing Suspense the Hitchcock Way by Wendy Van Camp, 2017 | Presenting Alfred Hitchcock by Michela Lazzaroni, 2019
Puzzles
Just for fun, test your Hitchcock knowledge with this selection of quizzes rounded up from the interwebs.
In 2017, TCM sponsored an online course, The Master of Suspense: 50 Years of Hitchcock, in conjunction with Ball State University; here are the syllabus and lecture notes. Its many delights included Hitch Pitch! A Game for Storytellers, devised by bright sparks in the uni’s Immersive Learning programme.
- Cameo quiz: Which Hitch?
- Try these Alfred Hitchcock Trivia Quizzes, with more here and some word searches.
- The Wall Street Journal’s Saturday Crossword for August 10, 2019 (review) was a Hitchcock special!
- August 2024 crossword by Hitchcock Facebook group experts Paul Farrar and Rick Senger.
If you live in the UK or have a decent VPN, see how you’d fare on the BBC’s Mastermind with “Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1950s” as your chosen specialist subject.
US channel MeTV, which broadcasts Alfred Hitchcock Presents, publishes a prolific number of consistently brilliant quizzes on their website; I hope whoever compiles them is paid well! All of the Hitch entries can be found here, here and here. There are also several books to stretch your brain, the first of which was one of the dozens issued to cash in on the popularity of the TV series:
- AH’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries (1963, Zone) – illus. Fred Banbery/Zone
- The AH Movie Quiz Book (1986) – Bryan Brown
- The AH Triviography and Quiz Book (1999/2011) – Kathleen Kaska
- Psycho Puzzles Inspired by the World of AH (2019) – Jason Ward
Movie Masters: Alfred Hitchcock jigsaw puzzle by Alexandre Clérisse (2020); he also illustrated Now Playing: A Seek-and-Find Book for Film Buffs/French, Spanish (2016)
Other than his many books and records, there’s a surprisingly small amount of official Hitch merchandise available. In terms of games, the first to be issued was 1958’s Why (rules, vids), originating from Milton Bradley in America but issued in various international language editions and reissued twice more in the 1960s. In 1973, with a change in artwork and references, it was recycled as the Columbo Detective Game (rules, vids). Next up, the first special edition of Clue, the long running board game, was released in 1999 to mark the Master’s 100th birthday, with the six staple suspects dressed up as their favourite Hitch characters. Elsewhere, I’ve detailed the respective board and computer games dedicated to Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. The foregoing games are all long deleted but easily found on the likes of eBay.
Two items still available new are the Alfred Hitchcock Classic Mystery jigsaw puzzle from BePuzzled and the one above. There are the only actual Hitchcock puzzles I know of, although there’s quite the fashion for producing old and new poster designs styled as puzzles.
There are also two official sets of Hitchcock playing cards with the first, from German company Piatnik and featuring all of his films, seemingly deleted but still available here and here. The second, specific to Vertigo, is from UK company Solomagia and still widely available.
Lastly, this seems as good a place as any to mention Hitchcock: The Final Cut, a 2001 video game based on the Master’s films. Designed for use on Windows PCs, it was issued in the US and Europe, and used copies abound on various eBay sites.
Related articles
This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
