I don’t know what the etiquette is on celebrating a dead guy’s birthday, but Alfred Hitchcock would’ve been 114 today, and as fat and prolific as ever, if renal failure hadn’t taken him in 1980 (what am I, a doctor?). In honor of his birthday, here’s a supercut of every Hitchcock cameo, from 1927’s The Lodger on through to Family Plot, from 1976. That’s, like, 86 years of cameos, if my math serves.
Hitchcock’s rep has taken a hit in recent years, with him basically being portrayed as a creepy rapist in The Girl, but it’s hard to deny that he basically invented the concept of the “easter egg,” the winky special treat for fans, with his cameos. Though I’m on the fence about whether that’s a good thing. Easter eggs are fun when Edgar Wright does them, because it’s subtle enough that it doesn’t detract from the scene, but every time some fanboy erupts in applause at one of Marvel’s Stan Lee cameos to prove that he indeed knows who Stan Lee is, I want to open up his neckbeard with a pen knife. But hey, what do I know, I’m just a guy who likes stabbing people in the neck.
[thanks to ThePlaylist for the heads up]