Someone assembled this montage that runs a little under four minutes. It's Alfred Hitchcock's cameos in most of the movies he directed.
To the horror of many film buff friends, I've never been a huge fan of Hitchcock movies. I walked out on The Birds and I've often thought that if the exact same film had been made by Roger Corman, everyone else would have joined me. Psycho was a tremendous disappointment…but then by the time I got around to seeing it, it had been so overhyped and oversold, it couldn't have lived up to its reputation. Some of his later films, like Frenzy, really annoyed me…but even most Hitchcock fans can't stand his later films.
I liked some of his earlier films (Rope, to name one) and North by Northwest….but not to the extent that I ever understood the esteem in which some held him. It always seemed to me to have a lot to do with personal promotion (such as in the cameos in this compilation) and the fact that he was a colorful, interesting figure off-camera.
By the way, I met Mr. Hitchcock once for, literally, about a minute. In August of 1969 — in one of my first professional assignments and perhaps my peak — I was hired by Universal Studios to write script for the guides who conducted their tour. This is back when the tour was actually a tour of a functional, operating TV/movie studio as opposed to the rolling amusement park ride it is today. Anyway, I spent a few fun days just wandering the backlot, taking notes and trying to figure out what bits of trivia should be pointed out to people who took the tours.
At one point, I was loitering in front of a small building, right in front of a door, and I heard someone behind me. I turned around and there was Alfred Hitchcock, looking amazingly like Alfred Hitchcock, coming out that door and finding me in his way. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be standing there" and scurried to one side. I guess he didn't hear me because he held out his hand, which I shook, and said, "A pleasure to meet you, sir." I said the pleasure was mine and because I didn't know what else to say, I said, "On your way to the set?" He said, "No, I have to go to what I'm sure will be a very boring meeting with a lot of very boring people who will say boring things." Some boring reply came out of me and then he went on his way, waddling off down the studio street. I remember thinking, "Alfred Hitchcock just did a cameo in my life."
Here are most of the cameos he made in his motion pictures. It was a nice, self-promotional gimmick even if it does now make some of his films feel like a Where's Waldo? book.
