My huge thanks to Don Larssen for his post yesterday - which Mike Frank 
doesn't appear to have properly read - surely clearing up the mystery of 
what Hitchcock is carrying in his VERTIGO cameo where he is seen outside 
Gavin Elster's shipyard.

Mike, not only did Don refer us to a clip on YouTube to refresh our 
memory ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35goZXhEUrk

... but he then referred us to another film-discussion site where (I 
would say) the mystery is finally and definitively solved ...

http://mubi.com/topics/4242

In response to a question by Dr Frank P. Tomasulo, who is writing a book 
on Hitchcock, another correspondent on the same site, Ben Simington, has 
convincingly  identified the object that Hitchcock is carrying as ... a 
fog-horn case (with illustration provided).

Which of course makes perfect sense.  VERTIGO has several references to 
the famous SF fog (even to Madeleine's wearing a grey suit to suggest, 
according to Hitchcock, that she has just materialised from said fog).

I, for one, am thrilled that this particular Hitchcockian mystery is now 
solved!

Btw, Mike, note that the YouTube clip shows the 8mph sign in the 
background which you once (on another site) speculated 'must mean 
something' - and which I was able to  point out was always part of a 
standing back-lot set at Paramount (you can also see it in Frank 
Tashlin's 1956 HOLLYWOOD OR BUST, starring Martin and Lewis).

- KM
http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/news-home_c.html

----
For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives:
http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html