This book has been in print for twelve years. I am astonished that no one has yet reviewed it. Michael Walker has done lovers and scholars of Hitchcock's movies a great service by assembling a mass of detailed research into a coherent, interesting presentation; Amsterdam University Press has done an equally excellent job in producing this book in a handsome, well-bound edition. After stating from the start that he attempts no division between "motifs" and "themes" in Hitchcock's films, Walker divides this study into two parts: "Hitchcock, Motifs and Melodrama"; and "The Key Motifs" (28 in all, alphabetically arranged, that include, with subdivided investigations, such topics as "Blondes and Brunettes," "Cameo Appearances," "Confined Spaces," "Doubles," "Food and Meals," "Guilt and Confession," "Heights and Falling," "Homosexuality," "Mothers and Houses," and "Staircases"). The book concludes with three appendices: the recurrence of these motifs in television films directed by Hitchcock; articles on Walker's subject; and a compendium of cinematic definitions.
This volume merits high praise for many reasons. First: it is through, covering all the director's works from "The Blackguard" (1925) through "Family Plot" (1976). Second: it is accurate. In almost 500 pages I caught only one contestable claim (p. 358: "[In "Vertigo"] we never see [Galvin Elster] on the main level [of a building he occupies]"—but can we be sure of his elevation at Ernie's and in his meeting at the San Francisco club where he meets Scottie to discuss the case?). Third: the book is well illustrated with b/w stills (only one of which, I believe, [on p. 142] has been flopped in the wrong direction). Fourth: the book is helpfully indexed, arranging the collection of recurring motifs in every film. Fifth and for me most important: while conversant with a broad range of the past sixty years of Hitchcock scholarship (no mean feat, that), Walker is firmly concentrated on "the primary texts": the films themselves. This is not a commentary on other commentaries: it is an original, insightful synthesis of an aspect of the director's films often mentioned but rarely examined. Walker has written the definitive treatise on the subject for the foreseeable future, and all his readers are in his debt.
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