The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

In advance of performing an essential service in North Vancouver last Thursday I stopped at the Lonsdale Sally Anne and picked up a new bundle of DVDs and CDs. Among them, a Hitchcock trilogy that includes the first of his two The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) films.

The screen shot up top is a dissolve that begins with the broach given to the kidnapped girl by her mother at 4:53 of the link in the preceding paragraph and ends with the child in the hands of her kidnapper.

Hitchcock had a name for objects like these that are common to his films. He called them MacGuffins. As for the origin of the term, that came from Scotland's Angus MacPhail, who worked as an uncredited screenwriter on the second The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).