In explaining this obsession, Hitchcock never tired of telling the story of how, when he was a young boy who had misbehaved, his father sent him down to a London police station with a note asking the desk sergeant to lock him up to teach him a lesson.
Hitchcock’s favorite plot is often summarized as: the Innocent Person Wrongly Accused. From Cary Grant in “North by Northwest” to Ingrid Bergman in “ Notorious,” his characters were often blameless but seemed guilty from a certain point of view. In explaining this obsession, Hitchcock never tired of telling the story of how, when he was a young boy who had misbehaved, his father sent him down to a London police station with a note asking the desk sergeant to lock him up to teach him a lesson. Years later, Hitchcock said that on his tombstone he wanted these words: You see what can happen to you if you are not a good boy.