Hitchcock's McGuffin story possibly derived from a story about an imaginary mongoose

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Sat Oct 30 22:41:12 UTC 2010


It appears I was somewhat careless in my reviewing previous posts and
missed the point where Garson had already posted the link to The Writer
(and it /is/ Schauffler's piece, identical to the 1925 one). But my
interpretation is radically different. I /don't/ think this is something
that was bounced around Schauffler's "family" and I /do/ believe
Hitchcock would have had access to this source just at the time when he
was developing his directorial skills.

     VS-)

On 10/30/2010 4:04 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> Going through 6000 or so GB records that provide hits for various
> possible spellings of McGuffin is a chore. And I am far from having
> completed it. But I did come across something that might be of
> interest in connecting Schauffler's use and Hitchcock's. Given the
> usual GB date tag proviso, not long after Schauffler put the term in
> circulation, it ended up anonymously in The Writer magazine.  Now,
> consider the string "1926, The Writer, Hitchcock".
> ...

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list