He then almost always says, "Good evening." The caricature drawing and Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" have become indelibly associated with Hitchcock in popular culture. Hitchcock appears in silhouette from the right edge of the screen, and then walks to center screen to eclipse the caricature. The camera fades in on a simple line-drawing caricature of Hitchcock's rotund profile (which Hitchcock drew), to the theme music of Charles Gounod's " Funeral March of a Marionette" (suggested by Hitchcock's long-time musical collaborator Bernard Herrmann). One volume, devoted to stories that censors would not allow to be adapted for broadcast, was entitled Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV-though eventually several of the stories collected therein were adapted.Īlfred Hitchcock Presents is well known for its title sequence. Ī series of literary anthologies with the running title Alfred Hitchcock Presents were issued to capitalize on the success of the television series. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked it 18th on its list of 30 Best Horror TV Shows of All Time. The Writers Guild of America ranked it #79 on their list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series, tying it with Monty Python's Flying Circus, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Upstairs, Downstairs. Time magazine named Alfred Hitchcock Presents as one of "The 100 Best TV Shows of All Time". Hitchcock himself directed only 18 episodes during its run.īy the time the show premiered on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades. Between 19 it was renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, Venmo and Crypto.Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, airing on CBS and NBC between 19. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. ![]() If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. NOTE: The 39 Steps and other Hitchcock thrillers can be found in our collection of 16 Free Hitchcock Movies Online, not to mention our big collection, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, Documentaries & More. “There’s a lot to look for in Hitchcock’s films,” writes Spoto, “but watch out for the MacGuffin. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the MacGuffin is that it contains the word “guff,” which means a load of nonsense. The term “MacGuffin” was coined by a screenwriter Hitchcock worked with named Angus MacPhail, according to Donald Spoto in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures. But the principle goes back at least as far as Rudyard Kipling, as Hitchcock explains in this whimsical little film by Isaac Niemand with audio from Hitchcock’s Jappearance on the Dick Cavett Show. ![]() Here, you see, the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all! Well, during the scene at the Chicago airport, the Central Intelligence man explains the whole situation to Cary Grant, and Grant, referring to the James Mason character, asks, “What does he do?” The counterintelligence man replies, “Let’s just say that he’s an importer and exporter.” “But what does he sell?” “Oh, just government secrets!” is the answer. The picture is about espionage, and the only question that’s raised in the story is to find out what the spies are after. My best MacGuffin, and by that I mean the emptiest, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd, is the one we used in North by Northwest. I’m convinced of this, but I find it very difficult to prove it to others. The main thing I’ve learned over the years is that the MacGuffin is nothing. In his 1962 interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock explains: Some of the characters may care about the MacGuffin, but the audience certainly does not. The MacGuffin is always particular - often to the point of absurdity - while the hero’s motivation is universal.
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