Every profession has its own language. Film-makers have some wonderfully odd terms, but none is odder than the MacGuffin—a film-making trope made famous by Alfred Hitchcock that originates from the writer, Angus MacPhail.
MacPhail while a student at Cambridge University helped edit The Granta, the university’s magazine. He, with his friend Ian Dalrymple, also compiled and published a book of limericks for the magazine in 1925. MacPhail becomes a scriptwriter and “scenario editor” (script doctor) and Dalrymple a scriptwriter, director and producer. Both had significant roles in the development of British cinema.
A little unfortunately MacPhail is best remembered for coining the word “MacGuffin” for the film-making trope, than he is for his work. He developed script writing techniques and helped create successful films for Hitchcock and the Ealing Studios (and other studios).
A trope is a film convention used to drive a film’s plot. An example of a trope is the Chekhov’s gun — an object introduced early because it will become important later in the plot. Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, suggested that you should not place a loaded gun on the stage if it isn’t going to be used.
Hitchcock’s favourite plot device was the MacGuffin. He told the story often of what it meant, quoting MacPhail as the source of the explanation:
Two Scottish men are riding on a train when one man asks the other about the contents of a package on the overhead luggage rack.
“It’s a MacGuffin,” says the first man, “a device for hunting tigers in Scotland.”
“But there are no tigers in Scotland,” replies the second man.
“Well then, it’s not a MacGuffin,” says the first.
One of the earliest and most famous MacGuffins is the Maltese Falcon from the film of the same name (directed by John Huston, 1941). The statuette is an object for which the characters are prepared to lie, steal and kill, yet to the audience it scarcely matters.
Hitchcock used this same device in many of his films:
- The 39 Steps (1935) has secret plans for a revolutionary aircraft engine
- Notorious (1946) has uranium ore hidden in wine bottles
- North by Northwest (1959) has government secrets being smuggled out of the United States
Many other directors have used it. In Pulp Fiction (1994) Quentin Tarantino’s MacGuffin is the briefcase the characters are pursuing which we are never told what it contains.
So why is it called a MacGuffin?
MacPhail and Hitchcock never explained where the word comes from other than the lion story. I can’t give you a definitive answer but there are strong clues throughout MacPhail’s biographies.
Angus MacPhail is described as “more inclined to puns and wordplay than to naturalistic dialogue”. This, and his limerick publishing, his love of slapstick, and his reputation for contributing the humour to Hitchcock’s films, points to a man who understood words and loved to play with them.
The word “MacGuffin” is made up of three parts. “Mac”makes it Scottish and therefore references both MacPhail himself and the highland Lion from his story. “Guff” a word for a laugh, originally a puff of wind (and consequently flatulence) related to “guffaw” of Scottish origin for laugh. Finally, “-in” is a suffix making it a diminutive.
If this was a cryptic crossword clue it could give us the answer “a little Scottish joke” (or something a little more vulgar, certainly not out of the question for a lover of limericks). And that, I think, is the answer as to why Hitchcock (and MacPhail) enjoyed their MacGuffin so much—the lion catching device is not the joke the word is.