( 4 Votes ) The McGuffin was a key technique of Alfred Hitchcock's films, but what exactly was it? Look at his famous films and see how it works.

Alfred Hitchcock is the undisputed master of suspense, yet what makes a Hitchcock film so special? What is the Hitch in a Hitchcock film? What is it that puts that creepy feeling on the back of your neck? Would you believe nothing? Hitchcock built some of his most suspenseful films around what he called ‘The McGuffin’ which was, in effect, nothing.
Over the years, the McGuffin has come to have a description formalized as: ‘ A device or plot element that catches the viewer's attention or drives the plot. It is generally something that every character is concerned with.' The McGuffin is essentially something that the entire story is built around and yet has no real relevance. Take the 1946 film Notorious, the story of an American agent who sends a woman to spy on her former lover (who happens to be a Nazi) as it is suspected they are plotting something sinister.

What the Nazis have discovered is the power of uranium. Looking at the film closer, the McGuffin is uranium which itself is only a peg on which you can hang the real story of two men who love a woman and the lengths that each of them will go to to prove their love. In fact, the uranium element was a last minute throw in by Hitchcock, he had originally envisioned the Nazis being involved in diamonds (which they would use in munitions building). The switch from diamonds to uranium is a clear indication that it wasn't important exactly what the McGuffin was, as long as it served its purpose. The McGuffin itself was not important to Hitchcock, he only was concerned that ‘it be, or appear to be, of vital importance to the characters' (Hitchcock/Truffaut 1983). In Notorious the idea of the uranium is important to the characters but it is, but the actual uranium it's self holds no importance. This is a slight distinction but an important one. With the McGuffin (uranium) clearly in focus, we can see that one of the great spy films of all time is actually less about the intrigue of spies and more about the machinations of love.

As Hitchcock progressed through the years, his use of the McGuffin grew to a more refined and yet elaborate sense. In North by Northwest (1959) Hitchcock blatantly places the McGuffin in front of the viewer and yet he himself acknowledges that what you see is ‘his emptiest, most nonexistent McGuffin'. The plot of the film concerns espionage and a man's (Cary Grant) mistaken identity as a spy. Halfway through the film, Grant is at an airport and finally has the opportunity to question a Central Intelligence Agent about what is happening to him:

Grant: ‘What does he (the lead villain) do?'

Agent: ‘ Let's just say he's an importer and exporter.'

Grant: ‘But what does he sell?'

Agent: ‘Oh, just government secrets.'

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