One more MacGuffin

I missed this one. From Hitchcock/Truffaut (1985):

My best MacGuffin, and by that I mean the emptiest, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd, is the one we used in North by Northwest. The picture is about espionage, and the only question that’s raised in the story is to find out what the spies are after. Well, during the scene at the Chicago airport, the Central Intelligence man explains the whole situation to Cary Grant, and Grant, referring to the James Mason character, asks, “What does he do?”

The counterintelligence man replies, “Let’s just say that he’s an importer and exporter.”

“But what does he sell?”

“Oh, just government secrets!” is the answer.

Here, you see, the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all!

I must note: Phillip Vandamm, James Mason’s character, was not an importer or exporter of table luxuries.

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Egg MacGuffin : All OCA Hitchcock posts (Pinboard)