Alfred Hitchcock Tells Dick Cavett About the First Time His Mother Scared Him In a 1972 Interview

In June 1972, the great Alfred Hitchcock appeared on The Dick Cavett Show where he very distinctly spoke of using fright within his films, his fear of police and the time that his mother scared him just by saying boo.

I think my mother scared me when I was 3 months old. You see, she said BOO. It gave me the hiccups. And she apparently was very satisfied.

Hitchcock went on to explain his interpretation of a "MacGuffin", previewed the film The Birds and was rather perplexed by a laxative commercial.

May I say I am very confused by that last commercial. Well, it was a commercial for a laxative. And I wonder why all those people doing sports and all that sort of thing-where they would need a laxative after such vigorous movement all over the place

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