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December 1996, Week 1

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Subject:
From:
Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 4 Dec 1996 09:31:04 -0600
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Mike Frank wonders:
" a. whether there is any authorized spelling of this peculiar
                hitchcockian term
        b. if so who authorized it
        c. whether hithcock got it from anywhere
        d. whether our only real source is truffaut's transcription of the
                word as it came out of AH's mouth"
 
According to Donald Spoto's biography, THE DARK SIDE OF GENIUS, credits the
phrase to Angus MacPhail, of Elstree studios. It comes from a shaggy dog
story told by MacPhail and often repeated by Hitchcock, without attribution:
        Two men are traveling to Scotland on the train in the same compartment.
One has parcel on the rack above his head. [the dialogue here is from Spoto,
pp. 159-160, Ballantine paperback ed.):
        "What have you there?" asked one of the men.
        "Oh, that's a MacGuffin," replied his companion.
        "What's a MacGuffin?"
        "It's a device for trapping lions in the Scottish highlands."
        "But there aren't any lions in the Scottish highlands!"
        "Well, then, I guess that's no MacGuffin!"
 
Go figure.
 
Spoto, John Russell Taylor and Truffaut all give the spelling as "MacGuffin,"
so I suppose that's pretty definitive. There is, however, a not-too-ggod
movie I haven't seen, called THE DOUBLE MCGUFFIN [sic] from 1979, with
an opening explanation of the term by Orson Welles!
 
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
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