A short and articulate article on Hitchock recurring themes and plot devices on the dreaded Wikipedia
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Recurring themes and plot devices:

• Birds - Seen in The Birds, the plot revolves around Birds attacking Bodega bay
• Suspense - Hitchcock preferred suspense over surprise in his films. Hitchcock often described it as ""There's two people having breakfast and there's a bomb under the table. If it explodes, that's a surprise. But if it doesn't..."
• Audience as voyeur - In Psycho, along with Norman Bates, we, the audience watch Marion undress through a peephole
• Macguffin -
• The ordinary person - In The Man Who Knew Too Much - James Stewart plays an ordinary man from Indianapolis whose son gets kidnapped.
• The wrong man or wrong woman - North By Northwest - Cary Grant is mistaken for George Kaplan a non-existent CIA agent
• The double - Characters in same situation but with different personalities
• The likeable criminal, aka the charming sociopath - In Psycho, Marion steals money and runs away, only to feel sympathetic and return the money, only to be brutally murdered.
• Staircases - In The Birds - the camera follows Tippi Hedren up the stairs to the attic where suspensefully the birds will silently attack here.
• Trains - Trains are often used as sexual euphemisms, In the 39 steps and North by Northwest, the limitations exposed by the tight train environment further enhances the suspense.
• Transference of guilt - Often sets up a villain with a dark secret. In 'Suspicion', Lina suspects her husband is a murderer, and allows this suspicion to ruin their life, even when he is revealed to be innocent.
• Mothers - Frequently depicted as intrusive and domineering.
• Brandy- Consumption of brandy in many of his films
• Sexuality - Hitchcock films were seen as very sexualised for their time. Often dealing with perverse and taboo situations. Depicted sexuality, through metaphors without being graphic. In Psycho, Norman Bates carries a coversation on with Marion  while one of his hands strokes a dead animal and the other his crotch. Link between sexual feelings and violence?
• Blonde women - Hitchcock preferred blondes, saying audience would be more suspicious of a brunette. He also thought they photographed better in black and white, which was the main medium for a good portion of his career.
• Silent scenes - As a former silent movie director, Hitchcock often preferred to convey narrative through visuals rather than audio. An example of this is the lenghty sequence where Scottie follows Madeleine in Vertigo.
• Number 13 - Many scenes which exploit the superstitious response to the number 13. In Psycho, Marion's numberplate adds up to 13.
• Tennis - Films often mention tennis. For example in Strangers on  A Train, the main character is a tennis player.
• Falling from heights -
• The perfect murder
• Violence in a theatre

Further proof of idea of Hitchcock being an auteur, having signature traits and plot devices he almost signs his work with, along with cameo. Seems films are almost as much about Hitchcock as they are about the plot. Including film posters with prominence of Hitchcocks name and identity, something I'll delve into later with a specific post.






Here's the original more in-depth source:

Birds

There are countless images of birds in nearly all of Hitchcock's films. Some of the most prominent are listed below.
Psycho - The film begins in Phoenix, Arizona and a Phoenix is also a mythological bird. Marion's last name is "Crane." Norman practices taxidermy as a hobby and his favorites are birds. Norman describes Marion's eating behavior as "eats like a bird".
Vertigo - Gavin's last name is Elster, which is German for Magpie.
The Birds - The film's plot revolves around birds attacking Bodega Bay.

[edit] Suspense

Main article: Suspense

Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over the use of surprise in his films. In surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth. Hitchcock was fond of illustrating this point with a short aphorism – "There's two people having breakfast and there's a bomb under the table. If it explodes, that's a surprise. But if it doesn't..."

[edit] Audience as voyeur

Further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty, occasionally making this indictment inescapably clear to viewers one and all, Hitchcock also makes voyeurs of his "respectable" audience. In Rear Window (1954), after L. B. Jeffries (played by James Stewart) has been staring across the courtyard at him for most of the film, Lars Thorwald (played by Raymond Burr) confronts Jeffries by saying, "What do you want of me?" Burr might as well have been addressing the audience. In fact, shortly before asking this, Thorwald turns to face the camera directly for the first time.
Similarly, Psycho begins with the camera moving toward a hotel-room window, through which the audience is introduced to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis, played by John Gavin. They are partially undressed, having apparently had sex though they are not married and Marion is on her lunch "hour". Later, along with Norman Bates (portrayed by Anthony Perkins), the audience watches Marion undress through a peephole.

[edit] MacGuffin

Main article: MacGuffin

One of Hitchcock's favorite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating suspense was what he called the "MacGuffin". The Oxford English Dictionary, however, credits Hitchcock's friend, the Scottish screenwriter Angus MacPhail, as being the true inventor of the term. Hitchcock defined this term in a 1964 interview conducted by François Truffaut, published as Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967). Hitchcock would use this plot device extensively. Many of his suspense films revolve around this device: a detail which, by inciting curiosity and desire, drives the plot and motivates the actions of characters within the story, but whose specific identity and nature is unimportant to the spectator of the film. In Vertigo, for instance, "Carlotta Valdes" is a MacGuffin; she never appears and the details of her death are unimportant to the viewer, but the story about her ghost's haunting of Madeleine Elster is the spur for Scottie's investigation of her, and hence the film's entire plot. In Notorious, the uranium that the main characters must recover before it reaches Nazi hands serves as a similarly arbitrary motivation: any dangerous object would suffice. And state secrets of various kinds serve as MacGuffins in several of the spy films, especially his earlier British films The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, and The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock has stated that the best MacGuffin, or as he put it, "the emptiest," was the one used in North By Northwest, which was referred to as "Government secrets".^[1]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (March 2008)

[edit] The ordinary person

Placing an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances is a common element of Hitchcock's films. In The 39 Steps, the protagonist Richard Hannay is drawn into a web of espionage, after a female spy he meets in a theatre is killed in his apartment. In The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), James Stewart plays an ordinary man from Indianapolis vacationing in Morocco when his son is kidnapped. In The Wrong Man, Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. In Psycho, Janet Leigh plays an unremarkable secretary whose personal story is violently interrupted by a furious psychopath. Other clear examples are Strangers on a Train, I Confess, Vertigo, and North By Northwest. The focus on an ordinary character enables the audience to relate to the action in the movie.

[edit] The wrong man or wrong woman

Mistaken identity is a common plot device in his films.
North By Northwest - Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for George Kaplan, a non-existent CIA agent.
The Wrong Man - Henry Fonda is mistaken for a criminal.
Vertigo - The film revolves around Scottie Ferguson's investigation of the false Madeleine Elster's real identity.
The 39 Steps - Richard Hannay, the main character, is unjustly accused of murdering a woman, a spy by the name of Annabella, AKA Ms Smith.
Frenzy - The protagonist is thought to be the notorious Necktie Killer due the circumstances he finds himself in.
Saboteur - Barry Cane is framed by a saboteur named Frank Fry for an aircraft fire.
Shadow of a Doubt - Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is the real killer of the Merry Widow murders, but the police accuse a dead man from a different state. Only he and his niece (Teresa Wright) know the real murderer.

[edit] The double

Hitchcock often used "the double" in his films as a way to represent the relationship between characters. One representation of "the double" has both characters sharing the same desire however only one them takes action. In "Strangers On A Train", Bruno carries out the plot of murdering Guy's wife, just the way Guy would like to do it. Also in "Rope", Brandon Shaw and Philip Morgan kill an inferior human being just the way their teacher Rupert Cadell would like to do it. In "Psycho", Marion Crane steals $40,000 and plans on running away just the way Norman Bates would like to run away from his mother. These characters are in the same situation but are completely different personalities.

[edit] The likeable criminal, aka the charming sociopath

The villain in many of Hitchcock's films appears charming and refined rather than oafish and vulgar. Especially clear examples of this tendency are Godfrey Tearle in The 39 Steps, Paul Lukas in The Lady Vanishes, Claude Rains in Notorious, Barry Foster in Frenzy, Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt, Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train, Ray Milland in Dial M For Murder, William Devane in Family Plot, and James Mason in North by Northwest. Villains such as Thorwald (Rear Window) and Norman Bates (Psycho) are portrayed as emotionally vulnerable and sympathetic characters.
In Psycho, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals from her employer and runs away to be with her boyfriend, thus making her a criminal for her theft, and immoral for having pre-marital sex. However, the filmgoers are sympathetic to her; she has just decided to return the money when she is then brutally murdered. In Marnie, the title character (Tippi Hedren) is a cunning serial thief.

[edit] Staircases

Images of staircases often play a central role in Hitchcock's films. The Lodger tracks a suspected serial killer's movement on a staircase. Years later, a similar shot appears in the final sequence of Notorious. In Vertigo, the staircase in the church bell tower plays a crucial role in the plot. In Psycho, several staircases are featured prominently: as part of the path up to the Bates mansion, as the entrance to the fruit cellar, and as the site of Detective Arbogast's murder. In Rear Window, an entirely nonfunctional staircase adorns James Stewart's apartment, in addition to the numerous fire escape staircases seen each time we follow Stewart's gaze out of his window. In Shadow of a Doubt, Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) attempts to murder his niece by rigging a staircase to collapse. In Dial M for Murder, a key kept under the stair carpet plays a pivotal role in booking the murderer. Frenzy features an unusual shot which tracks the killer and his victim first up the stairs, then retreats backwards down the stairs alone while the audience is left to imagine the killing which is taking place. One other iconic stairwell shot comes from the movie Suspicion as Cary Grant slowly walks up the stairs to deliver what would have been the poisonous warmed milk to his wife. Hitchcock, the studios and Cary Grant decided his character could not end up as a murderer and that scene becomes a red herring with a new ending added. In "The Birds", the camera follows Tippi Hedren up the stairs to the attic where (suspensefully) the birds wait silently to attack her.
This stylistic interest in staircases is attributed to the influence of German Expressionism, which often featured heavily stylized and menacing staircases, for example in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

[edit] Trains

In Hitchcock's films, trains are often used as a sexual euphemism. Extended sequences on trains feature in a number of Hitchcock films, including

• Number Seventeen
• Shadow of a Doubt
• The 39 Steps
• The Lady Vanishes
• Strangers on a Train
• North by Northwest

In The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, the limitations imposed by train travel on characters' movements enhances the suspense as the lead character is pursued for a crime he did not commit.
Hitchcock's most-extended train sequence is in The Lady Vanishes, where the inability to exit the train except at stations forces the two lead characters to accept that the lady for whom they are searching must still be aboard. The vertiginous excitement of moving around the outside of a moving train is exploited in Number Seventeen and The Lady Vanishes.

[edit] Transference of guilt

As related in articles by Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and others in the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema -- and in Chabrol and Rohmer's book Hitchcock (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1957) -- Hitchcock often sets up a villain/antagonist who has a dark secret. In the course of the film, Hitchcock, through the screenplay and the filming, makes it clear that the hero/protagonist somehow shares in this secret or guilt. Examples include:

• Suspicion (1941): Lina (Joan Fontaine) suspects her husband (Cary Grant) as a murderer, and allows this suspicion to ruin their life, even when he is revealed to be innocent.
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943): after Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is revealed as a murderer, his niece, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright) says she will kill him if he doesn't leave the household.
• Lifeboat (1944): the Allied shipwreck victims attack the German captain (Walter Slezak) after several days, in what amounts to a lynching.
• Strangers on a Train (1951): Guy (Farley Granger) goes along with Bruno (Robert Walker) because Guy does want to kill his wife.
• Rear Window (1954): Jeffries (James Stewart) spies on his neighbors, hoping to catch a murderer (Raymond Burr), leading to dubious tactics to catch the criminal
• Vertigo (1958): Scottie (James Stewart) follows Madeleine (Kim Novak) and unwittingly accepts the story of Madeleine's life from her husband, indirectly causing her death.
• Psycho (1960): in a reversal of the usual pattern, a character who appears to be the heroine, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), commits a crime, is murdered, and the audience's sympathy is transferred to an ambiguous character Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

[edit] Mothers

Mothers are frequently depicted as intrusive and domineering, or at the very least, batty, as seen in Rope, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, and The Birds.

[edit] Brandy

Hitchcock includes the consumption of brandy in many of his films. "I'll get you some brandy. Drink this down. Just like medicine ..." says Scottie Ferguson to "Madeleine Elster" in Vertigo. In a real-life incident, Hitchcock dared Montgomery Clift at a dinner party around the filming of I Confess (1953) to swallow a carafe of brandy, which caused the actor to pass out almost immediately. In Torn Curtain and Topaz, brandy is defined more closely as cognac. This element is also present in Dial M for Murder where the main characters of the film consume brandy throughout the entire film. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is offered a brandy by Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), and after being attacked by the birds, drinks the brandy offered by Mitch (Rod Taylor). In Rear Window, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) is "just warming some brandy". In Frenzy, Richard Blaney is sacked for supposedly stealing brandy, and can be seen in several sequences to be drinking brandy. In Saboteur, Harry Kane offers Mrs. Mason some brandy to calm her nerves. In Murder! the main evidence in the murder case is a bottle of brandy. The identity of the killer is later confirmed by a bottle of brandy seen in his dressing room.

[edit] Sexuality

For their time, Hitchcock's films were regarded as rather sexualized, often dealing with perverse and taboo behaviors. Sometimes, the prudish conventions of his era caused him to convey sexuality in an emblematic fashion, such as in North by Northwest, when the film cuts abruptly from two aroused but visually chaste lovers to a train entering a tunnel.
Hitchcock found a number of ways to convey sexuality without depicting graphic behaviors, such as the substitution of explicit sexual passion with the passionate consumption of food. In a particularly amusing scene in Psycho, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) carries on a conversation with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) while one of his hands strokes a dead animal and the other hand lingers on his crotch. Sexual feelings are often strongly associated with violent behavior. In The Lodger and Psycho, this association is the whole basis of the film. Biographers have noted how Hitchcock continued to challenge film censorship throughout his career, until he was allowed to show nudity in Frenzy.

[edit] Blonde women

Hitchcock had a dramatic preference for blonde women, stating that the audience would be more suspicious of a brunette. Many of these blondes were of the Grace Kelly variety: perfect, aloof ice goddesses, who also have a hidden red-hot inner fire.
In Vertigo James Stewart forces a woman to dye her hair blonde. One of Hitchcock's earliest films, The Lodger (1927), features a serial killer who stalks blonde women. Blonde actress Anny Ondra famously starred in Hitchcock's first sound film Blackmail (1929).
Hitchcock said he used blonde actresses in his films, not because of an attraction to them, but because of a tradition that began with silent star Mary Pickford. The director said that blondes were "a symbol of the heroine". He also thought they photographed better in black and white, which was the predominant film for most dramas for many years.^[2]
In Family Plot, Karen Black plays a kidnapper who wears a blonde wig and sunglasses as a disguise. Other notable blonde women include Tippi Hendren in The Birds, Dany Robin in Topaz, Barbara Leigh-Hunt in Frenzy, Janet Leigh in Psycho, Grace Kelly in Rear Window, and Kim Novak in 'Vertigo.

[edit] Silent scenes

As a former silent film director, Hitchcock strongly preferred to convey narrative with images rather than dialogue. Hitchcock viewed film as a primarily visual medium in which the director's assemblage of images must convey the narrative. Examples of imagery over dialogue are in the lengthy sequence in Vertigo in which Scottie silently follows Madeleine, or the Albert Hall sequence in the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

[edit] Number 13

Hitchcock has many scenes which exploit people's superstitious response to the number 13. The number shows up several times in his movies as an apartment number, room number or house number. For example, in Psycho, when Marion checks into the Bates Motel, Norman reaches first for room 3, then room 1. In addition, the number on the license plate that she drives adds up to 13. Another example is at the car dealership when Marion trades cars the number on the dealership adds up to 13. Each incidence of the number 13 provides an opportunity for her fate to change in this film.
Number 13 is also the title of an unfinished Hitchcock film early in his career.

[edit] Tennis

Tennis is often mentioned in Hitchcock films. In Strangers on a Train, the main character is a tennis player. In Dial M for Murder, Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) is an ex-tennis player. In Rebecca, the second Mrs. DeWinter (Joan Fontaine) claims to be taking tennis lessons from Max DeWinter (Laurence Olivier). The sport is also briefly mentioned during passing conversation in Rope.

[edit] Falling from high places

In Vertigo, North by Northwest, Saboteur, The Man Who Knew Too Much (both versions), To Catch a Thief and Rear Window, among others, the protagonist, villain, or even a supporting character falls from a height.

[edit] The Perfect Murder

Several of Alfred Hitchcock's movies feature characters who are deeply fascinated with the craft of murder. Murder is often treated as an intellectual puzzle, and several Hitchcock characters seek to establish a definitive "perfect" murder, that is, an undefeatable scientific method of murdering another person that would prevent the police from ever finding the culprit. This notion is a core concept in Rope, Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, and to a lesser extent, Shadow of a Doubt.

[edit] Violence in a Theatre

• The Man Who Knew Too Much (missed shot)
• The 39 Steps (climactic shootout)
• Stage Fright (climactic shootout)
• I Confess (climactic shootout)
• Torn Curtain (escape from theater)
• Saboteur (shootout in movie theater)

[edit] References

1. ^ Truffaut, François (1985). Hitchcock/Truffaut. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-60429-5., pg. 139
2. ^ Patrick McGilligan, pg. 82

• Michael Walker, 2005, Hitchcock's Motifs, Amsterdam University Press"