The glass booth’s supposedly shatterproof panes splintered, cutting her cheek, and Hedren suggests the sequence was part punishment for her rejection of him. She repelled his advances, she writes, and alleges he took his revenge the next day when they filmed the famous telephone booth scene in which birds break in to attack the star. Hedren, mother of 1980s film star Melanie Griffith and grandmother to Dakota Johnson, the star of last year’s Fifty Shades of Grey, claims that during location filming of The Birds, Hitchcock gave her a ride to her motel in his limousine and tried to kiss her while others watched. Taylor and a fellow Hitchcock expert, Tony Lee Moral, author of Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie and The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds, both argue that Hedren’s claims are not supported by others who worked on the films, or by the shooting schedules and other documents in Hitchcock’s archive at the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles. Taylor said that in previous interviews for his book, republished in paperback in January, Hedren said the director had taught her all she knew about films, even allowing her into script meetings for The Birds. She was a New York fashion model when he spotted her in October 1961 in a diet drink commercial. Hedren, the director’s archetypal cool screen blonde, also starred in another Hitchcock thriller, Marnie. She is, I would guess, elaborating memories she feels bitter about but, as Hitchcock’s friend, I resent the way her story has changed over the years.” You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, Venmo and Crypto.John Russell Taylor, author of Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock, said: “In a way I don’t blame Hedren, who I got to know in the late 1970s when I was researching my book. ![]() 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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