from “How Well Do You Know Your Hitchcock? A Multiple-Choice Test for the Maestro’s Fans”
By David Lehman | January 19, 2024 / in The American Scholar
Ben Hur or message movies like To Kill A Mockingbird. But Hitchcock always used mystery genre conventions to explore themes of deeper significance; he relied on what he called “the MacGuffin,” the merest pretext, as the pivot for a plot involving crime or espionage and ultimately touching on the dialectic of guilt and innocence, good and evil.
Hitchcock was born in London on August 13, 1899 (and when the 13th of August falls on a Friday, freaky things do happen). He made films for nearly two decades in Britain before moving to Hollywood in 1939, on the eve of World War II. His love for his adopted country shines through in some of his grand settings: the cliffhanger scenes at the Statue of Liberty (Saboteur, 1942), at Mount Rushmore (North by Northwest, 1959), or on the Golden Gate Bridge (Vertigo, 1958). But we also have small-town America at its most innocent (Shadow of a Doubt, 1943), the intimate courtyard shared by Greenwich Village bohemians (Rear Window, 1954), a posh London flat (Dial M for Murder, 1954), and a lonely motel on a dark country road in the rain (Psycho, 1960).
He was prolific; he headlined Cary Grant, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, and a bouquet of beauteous and talented blondes, including Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, and Eva Marie Saint. Understanding his own singularity, Hitchcock signed his pictures with himself in a cameo. He might be the fellow sitting next to Cary Grant on the bus (To Catch a Thief, 1955), a musician carrying a violin case (Spellbound, 1945), or a passenger struggling with a double bass (Strangers on a Train, 1951). In Lifeboat (1944), in which all the action takes place on a small craft and is limited to the few survivors of a shipwreck, the master makes his appearance as the heavyset fellow in a newspaper ad for weight reduction.
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For more, and for a multiple choice quiz designed to delight aficionado and novice alike, click here for the full article on the website of The American Scholar.
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