Explanation; Plants His Clues With Igenuity People who have watched an Alfred Hitchcock production for the third or fourth or fifth time—and that's nothing to a genuine Hitchcock fan—report that for the first few showings they are absorbed by the story and the action, that then they indulge in picking up sly bits they had missed in the earlier views (crumbs from the feast, so to speak), and that finally the business resolves itself into settling back and contemplating with an open mind and mouth, the master's technique—watching the direction as much as the picture, so to speak.
The Hitchcock touch is a sly and elusive thing, defying explanation. Steady customers aver, however, that they are beginning to wise up to some of the directors magic. It's done with mirrors, they insist—mir-tors into the human soul, revealing strange paradoxes.
They refer, whether he knows it or not, to Hitchcock as a psychologist. The pleasure in watching this director as weaver of mystery and adventure tales lies in trying to catch him in the act of slipping in a clue—in his casual, offhand fashion—or in planting the elements of suspense. Sometimes they catch him, Sometimes they don't. It's fun either way.
fair sample of the Hitchcock method of sneaking in an important clue is furnished in his newest production, "Rebecca." In an early sequence, the heroine, played by Joan Fontaine, while chasing her dog, suddenly stumbles upon a boathouse and a stranger, a half-wit inarticulate beachcomber. His mumblings fright ten her and awaken an unnamed terror. There is something prophetic and sinister about the scene. The|: reaction of the cognoscenti will be "Warning! Hitchcock at Work. They will advise you, too, to remember the dog. He may be important. Watch him.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.