Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite Alfred Hitchcock cameo: “I had an awful time thinking it up”
Many directors have developed a habit of inserting themselves into their films for cameo appearances, but no matter how many follow in his footsteps, it’s hard to believe anyone will do it better, or more often, than Alfred Hitchcock.
The ‘Master of Suspense’ popped up in more than three dozen of his pictures and never said a word. What began as a quaint gag quickly evolved into a running joke before becoming one of his many signatures, with the filmmaker never stealing the spotlight but placing just enough of it on himself to make sure audiences knew he was there.
That’s the opposite of someone like M Night Shyamalan, who tends to write himself substantial speaking roles for seemingly no other reason than self-gratification, because it sure as shit has nothing to do with his nonexistent acting abilities. With plenty to choose from, Hitchcock might have struggled to settle on his favourite cameo, but he was never in any doubt over what it was.
Almost fittingly, it was one where he didn’t appear in the flesh. He knew that he had to squeeze himself into 1944’s Lifeboat somehow, but because the entire narrative unfolded on the open water, he couldn’t rely on his usual trick of placing himself in the background of a shot. He put his thinking cap on, and finally, cracking it helped make his blink-and-you-miss-it guest spot the most memorable.
“That’s my favourite role, and I must admit that I had an awful time thinking it up,” he told Francois Truffaut. “Usually, I play a passer-by, but you can’t have a passer-by out on the ocean. I thought of being a dead body floating past he lifeboat, but I was afraid I would sink. I couldn’t play one of the nine survivors, since each had to be played by a competent performer. Finally, I hit on a good idea.”
Using life to inspire art, Hitchcock was in the midst of strenuous dieting, which ultimately saw him lose over 100 pounds. He was trimmer than he’d been in a long time, and he felt the best way to showcase his new, ever-so-slightly more svelte self was to poke fun at how he’d managed to do it.
“I decided to immortalise my loss and get my bit part by posing for ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures,” he explained. “These photographs were used in a newspaper ad for an imaginary drug, Reduco, and the viewers saw me when William Bendix opened an old newspaper we had put in the boat. The role was a great hit.”
In fact, once viewers cottoned on that the ‘Master of Suspense’ was nowhere near as portly as he used to be, some of them were convinced the fictional weight loss drug was a real thing. “I was literally submerged by letters from fat people who wanted to know where and how they could get Reduco,” Hitchcock laughed. Unfortunately for those looking for a quick fix, there was no such thing, with hard graft and portion control helping the auteur shift his excess poundage.
