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Alfred Hitchcock Cameos

Started by Najemikon, April 09, 2009, 11:29:31 PM

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Najemikon

Here's a bit of fun while you run through the Hitchcock marathon. More than any other director, Hitchcock was famous for his cameos, starting in The Lodger for necessity, then he just did them for a laugh. 37 of them in fact. Here are the ones relating to the marathon so see how many you can spot! No cheating... :P

Pictures from hitchcock.tv and descriptions from filmsite.org

[spoiler=The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog] Two appearances: (a) At a desk in a newsroom (with back to camera); (b) As a bystander/spectator in the crowd behind an upper railing, wearing a flat gray cap, watching an arrest taking place below, as an angry crowd tries to beat up the unpopular lodger. 3 and 92 minutes
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Easy Virtue] During a tennis court sequence, he leaves through a side gate where Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) is seated, carrying a walking stick or cane. 15 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=The Man Who Knew Too Much]If you can find it, good luck to you! Rumoured, but no evidence :tease: [/spoiler]

[spoiler=The 39 Steps] As a passerby, tossing some litter away in front of a bus at a bus stop, while Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) and Miss Smith/Annabella (Lucie Mannheim) escape from the music theater commotion.
6 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Secret Agent] (Speculative) Coming down a ship's gangplank (wearing a bowler hat, with a mustache), appearing just before British novelist and war hero Captain Edgar Brodie/aka spy Richard Ashenden (John Gielgud).
8 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Young and Innocent] Outside the courthouse just after Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) has managed to make an escape from incompetent police, posing as a photographer (director!) and holding a camera at waist-level.
15 minutes [/spoiler]

[spoiler=The Lady Vanishes] Walking on the platform of London's Victoria Station (as Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) and Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) return to the city), wearing a black coat and puffing on a cigarette.
90 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Rebecca] Walking past a phone booth occupied by Jack Favell (George Sanders) who made a call to Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson).
123 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Foreign Correspondent] After Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) leaves his hotel in London, Hitchcock - almost directly in front of him, is walking down the street wearing a coat and hat and looking down while reading a newspaper.
11 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Suspicion] Mailing a letter at a village mailbox, in a long-shot, as Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) meets a friend in town.
45 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Saboteur] At a news-stand, standing just behind the saboteur's car (carrying Barry Kane (Robert Cummings)) that pulls up in front of the Cut Rate Drugs store window in New York. Not easily identifiable.60 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Shadow of a Doubt] On the train to Santa Rosa carrying Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), playing a card game (and having a potentially-winning hand - a full house of spades) with a husband-doctor and wife couple, with his back to the camera on the left side of the frame.
17 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Lifeboat] In "before" and "after" pictures displayed in a newspaper ad for Reduco Obesity Slayer, a slimming 'fat reduction' product - a men's corset, on the back side of a newspaper being read by Gus Smith (William Bendix) on the lifeboat.
25 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Spellbound] As Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) enters the Empire State Hotel lobby, Hitchcock is coming out of a crowded elevator, carrying a small violin case and daintily smoking a cigarette.
36 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Notorious] As a guest at a grand party in Alex Sebastian's (Claude Rains) mansion, lifting a glass of champagne to sip at the champagne table, and then quickly leaving.
64 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=The Paradine Case] Disembarking from the train at England's Cumberland Station, carrying a cello case.
36 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Rope] Two appearances: (a) in the opening credits, as a man crossing the street; (b) Hitchcock's trademark silhouette/caricatured profile can be seen briefly but blurrily on a flashing neon sign seen through the apartment window.0-ish and 52 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Stage Fright] Walking by, and then turning back to give a prolonged side-look and stare at Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) on the sidewalk, unconvinced and puzzled by her disguise to pose as Doris Tinsdale - the replacement maid of Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich).
38 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Strangers on a Train] Struggling to board a train with a very large and awkward double bass fiddle (similar in shape to Hitchcock's own rotund body), as Guy Haines (Farley Granger) gets off in his hometown of Metcalf.
10 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=I Confess] Strolling across or along the top of a long flight of stair-steps in Quebec, in a long-shot silhouette filmed at a distance, during/after the opening credits.
1 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Dial M for Murder] On the left side of Tom's class-reunion dinner photograph hung on the wall, turning back and looking up to his right, seated at a white table-clothed table; taken off the wall and shown to Captain Swan Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) by Tom Wendice (Ray Milland), who is across the table from Hitchcock in the photo.
13 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Rear Window] Winding/repairing a clock in the songwriter's/musician's (real-life composer and vocalist Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.) apartment.
25 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=The Trouble with Harry] Walking past a parked-by-the-side-of-the-road limousine of an old man who is looking at Sam Marlowe's (John Forsythe) outdoor stand/exhibition of artwork and paintings. Not easily identifiable.
21 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=To Catch a Thief] Staring straight ahead and sitting motionless to the left of John Robie (Cary Grant) in the rear-seat of a bus; to Robie's right is a woman with a bird cage (containing two birds).
10 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=The Man Who Knew Too Much] Watching acrobats in the crowded outdoor French Moroccan (Marrakesh) marketplace (on the left side of the frame with his back to the camera) just before the murder of Louis Bernard (Daniel Gelin).
25 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Vertigo] In a gray suit walking across the street past Gavin Elster's (Tom Helmore) Mission District shipyard and office in San Francisco, in front of columns and a newspaper rack, carrying a horn case.
10 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=North by Northwest] At the end of the opening credits in a bustling NYC, missing a bus that slams its door in his face, anticipating a similar scene in the countryside near a cornfield when a bus door shuts on Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant).
2 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Psycho] Wearing a large cowboy hat and viewed through Marion Crane's (Janet Leigh) office store-front window, standing on the sidewalk, as she returns to her Phoenix realty company after a lunchtime quickie in a cheap hotel with lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin).
7 minutes[/spoiler]     

[spoiler=The Birds]Leaving downtown San Francisco's Davidson's Pet Shop with two white terriers (Hitchcock's own Sealyham terriers Geoffrey and Stanley on leashes) as elegantly-dressed blonde Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) enters.
2 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Marnie] Entering from the left of the hotel corridor from a hotel room after Marnie Edgar (Tippi Hedren) has passed by with a bellman carrying her things; the director looks guiltily at the camera.
5 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Torn Curtain] In Copenhagen, sitting in the large Hotel d'Angleterre's lobby entrance with a blonde-haired baby in his lap (who possibly wets itself), with his back to the camera; during the brief cameo, the music changes to resemble the famous "Hitchcock theme," also known as the Funeral March of the Marionettte.
8 minutes[/spoiler] 

[spoiler=Topaz]In a crowded LaGuardia Airport scene, seated in a wheelchair as he is being pushed by a nurse under a sign reading "United Air Lines"; he miraculously stands up from the wheelchair, greets and shakes hands with a man, and walks off to the right.
28 minutes[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Frenzy]In the center of a crowd, wearing a black bowler hat; he is the only one not applauding the political speech-maker (delivering a speech about pollution and cleaning up the Thames River); a moment later, he is among bystanders watching as another necktie murder corpse floats ashore.
3 minutes[/spoiler]   

[spoiler=Family Plot] With his widely-familiar but stern silhouette viewed through the frosted-glass door of the "Registrar of Births and Deaths". Hitchcock appears to be arguing with an elderly woman and accusedly pointing his finger.
40 minutes[/spoiler]

Achim

Great topic!

I do believe that for the movies I own I know where the cameos are (not by heart, but when they come up I will know). As a teenager I read a book about Alfred and his films and they detailed the cameos as well.

Additional trivia:
While in his first films the cameo could happen just anytime he eventually moved them to the first scenes of the film. People got distracted from watching the film when they were looking for his appearance.

Najemikon

Not done very well spotting the first couple and it was me who posted the bloody things! Spoilers may not have been necessary...  :laugh: :bag:

Najemikon

At the very end of Topaz, literally just as "The End" appears, I wonder if the portly gent purposefully walking with a friend could be Hitchcock as well? :hmmmm: It's never mentioned, so probably not, but I wonder...

Achim

Quote from: Jon on May 09, 2010, 10:40:54 PM
At the very end of Topaz, literally just as "The End" appears, I wonder if the portly gent purposefully walking with a friend could be Hitchcock as well? :hmmmm: It's never mentioned, so probably not, but I wonder...
In the docu abouit Frenzy they point out that that is the only film where he appears in two shots (within the same scene). So, if that is him, then apparently nobody else (...eoh was involved in the docu) noticed...