Two cameos?

[nextren]

I noticed something odd in the train shot where the trainmen check tickets (when Thornhill is hiding out in the men's room). Look at the little old lady whose ticket the trainmen spend time checking.

No, she has no visible big belly, but I seriously think it's Hitch.

Look for yourself. In Truffaut's book, there is a picture of Hitch in drag which you can use for comparison. Look at the train lady's face and facial expressions. She *even looks at the camera and shrugs for the audience at the behavior of the trainmen* (just after they leave her). When "she" (?) did that, I experienced a tremendous frisson: there was Hitch, hidden until now!

If you've seen a lot of Hitch in documentaries etc. (not rehearsed presentations), you'll see he had a certain boyish manner especially when interacting with other people, listening to them speak. The train "lady" has the same manner.

I may be daft, but look for yourself. If it is Hitch, North by Northwest may be the only sound movie in which he makes TWO cameos. (His first in NBN is of course when he fails to catch a bus during the titles.)
-- David Rowlett

[george kaplan]

I haven't had a chance to confirm or deny this find, but Rope also has a dual cameo.

[Leif Bugge]

I think David Rowlett are right: the big belly is not visible, but I seem the hands are too big for the old "lady".
(look at 43:50 on the region 2 disc!)

N.B. there are a picture of Hitch dressed like a lady in the late edition of Truffaut/Hitchcock from 1985)

[siriami]

Oh, I love all this detective work! And I'm sure that Hitch will be chuckling away up there........
Will have to check my copy of NBNW this morning.
This is what makes this website so great - new discoveries!

[Vincent]

Thanks for encouraging us to watch this again last night. It really does look like him. As s/he is on-screen for quite a long time and performs a modest but important 'acting' role, its surprising nobody has suggested this before. Everybody watching the film this last 40 years will have seen the old 'lady', it certainly wasnt a hidden appearance. We know he liked to be imaginative in his cameos so I like to think it was him. Maybe Hitch-spotters relaxed after his more obvious appearance early in the film.

Vince

[george kaplan]

The makers of a documentary on the recent Optimum DVD of Last Year at Marienbad make the case that the film is in one sense an homage to North By Northwest. I'm not so sure myself, but it is worth noting that Hitch makes a "cameo" in Resnais's film at about the 11:08 point. Funny, when you start looking for AH's cameos, you start noticing them in the strangest places.

[nextren]

I haven't had a chance to confirm or deny this find, but Rope also has a dual cameo.

Cool! Where is the second cameo? I know the first is the neon sign on a distant building.

[george kaplan]

I haven't had a chance to confirm or deny this find, but Rope also has a dual cameo.

Cool! Where is the second cameo? I know the first is the neon sign on a distant building.

Man walking by on the street during the opening titles.

[nextren]

Davep should add this second cameo in "Rope" to his Cameos Article

Also, he should add the second cameo I found in "North by Northwest" (if he confirms it...it doesn't take very much staring to see it, though one might look a bit like this if one stares for too long: )

[Davey P]

Do you know, I'm 60% convinced it is Hitch!

Click on these for larger versions:



I'm sure one of the Hitchcock biographies mentions that Hitchcock would sometimes dress up as a woman for a laugh when they were entertaining friends at home.

The only reason I've got 40% doubt is that no-one else has mentioned it before - you'd think that one of the cast or crew would have spilled the beans before now?

[Tomshat]

Just checked it out, I am almost certain it is Hitch. Well spotted.

[nextren]

Davep,

Does the shooting script of NBNW still exist? (I saw a page of it, maybe two, in the DVD documentary.) A scholar might use it to find the precise date on which this sequence was shot, and then clues might follow from that! For example, is there a tell-tale line on the shooting script for that day - a cryptic note re makeup? Hitch listed as a player? a costume dept. notation? anything?

The Truffaut book's Hitch-in-drag photo might also hold clues. When EXACTLY was this photo taken (day, month, and year)? Early 1959, perhaps? To what time period do anecdotal reporters assign most of their stories about Hitch in drag? More stories from the late 1950s than from the 1930s? Perhaps one could, from such patterns, identify a "drag period" in Hitch's life? Although that's certainly pushing things a bit beyond the edge!

Just some avenues to pursue to get at a corroboration.

[Davey P]

Here's the page from a shooting script dated 18/Aug/1958:



...the "elderly woman" still had a speaking role at that point.

[Davey P]

It looks like some of the images were lost when the site was moved to it's new web server, so I've taken some more shots and added them to the wiki:

http://www.daveyp.com/hitchcock/wiki/Hi ... cret_Cameo

[JamesBW]

Among the uncredited rôles in Under Capricorn there is a Mrs Riggs, who appears briefly in the ballroom scene.

Some rather poor screenshots here

The sequence is about 75 minutes into the picture and it is a speaking rôle. Evidently a British character actress and not the man himself, though ten years on, could she have been in NxNW over the pond?

I think this actress has a bigger nose than Hitch, though it's easy to add inches in that area.

Most intriguingly, just before she arrives on the scene, her profile appears, projected on the dress of another guest. For a fleeting moment we see a more rounded profile like the trademark shadow he used on the telly shows.

Any more of this and I'll begin to feel like the bloke in Blow-Up, only without benefit of orgy.

[Davey P]

It's all very intriguing!

We know from some of Hitch's biographies that he wasn't averse to dressing up as woman for the amusement of guests at his house. Also, one of the central themes of NbNW is that nobody is who they seem to be.

I asked my partner Bryony to have a look and she reckoned it was Hitchcock -- she thought the wrist watch and shoes gave it away that it's not a woman playing the role.

On the other hand, surely someone involved in the film would have spoken about it?

Either way, whenever I watch the scene, I do feel that the character has some minor importance or significance to Hitchcock. Many actors and actress who worked with Hitchcock in the early days turn up in his later films e.g.

Tom Helmore (The Ring / Vertigo)
Elsie Randolph (Rich and Strange / Frenzy)

[Matewan]

Mrs Riggs in Under Capricorn is not AH. But she is a man. Ronald Adam, to be exact.

[Capt. Lesgate]

I have to see this to believe it.

[Davey P]

Wow -- the story has been picked up by a national newspaper today:

Did Alfred Hitchcock make a secret cameo appearance in drag? (Telegraph)

I'm kinda curious to see if any other papers pick the story up and also will anyone actually figure out if it is Hitchcock? I'll be honest now and say that I already know exactly who it is, but I wouldn't want to spoil the party!

[george kaplan]

Slow news day at The Telegraph?