What’s the MacGuffin?

The box everybody is after in Kiss Me Deadly.

Rosebud, of course.

pardon.

Figure out what it’s collard first then teach me.

*called

The triffids in Day of the Triffids, the zombies in the Walking Dead, etc.

The rug in the Big Lebowski

The ATAC (Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator) device in For Your Eyes Only.

The wooden chest in ‘Rope’.

The Solex Agitator in The Man With The Golden Gun.

The ring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy

A lot of people here are missing the entire MacGuffin concept.

You cannot replace the zombies in Walking Dead or the chest in Rope with another object unless you significantly change the stoy.

The ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark could be replaced with the Trojan Horse, Charlemagne's crown, the apple from the garden of Eden, without changing the plot at all.

The Death Star plans in Star Wars

I think the Maltese Falcon pretty much owns this thread, but almost all of the above are good examples (except the Triffids and the zombies).

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

WTF r15?

The decoder thingy in “Sneakers”

r15, you're not doing yourself any favors by spamming the site with that. I'm sympathetic to the message, but you're annoying a ton of people.

R18, remember that scene in 'The Twilight Zone' - 'Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?' where the lids on all the salt shakers suddenly popped off and the women screamed? A distraction perpetrated by the Martian in their midst, because he was trying to distract them away from their efforts to figure out who he was. That's what the anti-trans sock account at R15 is doing on all these threads. It's part distraction, and part rage-fit. He's not getting what he wants.

My favorite MacGuffin would be the four plaid suitcases in 'What's Up, Doc?' (1972).

My favourite is the Money In The Bank briefcase.

Many a homoerotic feud has been waged over that shiny box full of nothing.

Helen Lawson's tree in Valley of the Dolls.

str8 porn and actresses used to get the male actors to suck n' fuck in gay porn.

The Four Element Stones in "The Fifth Element."

Came in to say what R1 said. I just saw that film for the first time and loved it! I want his apartment. And young Chloris Leachman as a lesbian-so good!

The Alamainian Peacock

I like this one. With an orange juice and a hash brown. Egg MacGuffin, right?

The ice Princess

The letters of transit in Casablanca.

The Lektor in "From Russia with Love"

The Infinity Stones.

The Case in Ronin.

The four plaid overnight cases in "What's Up, Doc?"

Aliens in the trunk!

The Pee Tapes in the Trump administration

{quote} What's the MacGuffin?

Egg, bacon and cheese on an English muffin.

Would the National Institute of Mental Health be considered a MacGuffin in "The Secret of NIMH"? It's in the title and alluded to within the film but merely serves as a trigger for the plot.

R36, are they trying to find the National Institute? Or build it? Could it be replaced by another kind of institution, such as a shopping mall or the pyramids without significantly changing the plot? If so it is a MacGuffin.

The MacGuffin is the thing the characters are trying to get. Usually it is an object or substance, but I suppose it could be a building or institution.

In “…NIMH”, the amulet is more of a Macguffin than NIMH itself is.

So, in "The Other Side of Aspen", the lube is the MacGuffin, right?

OP What's the MacGuffin? Your twat, silly.

On Datalounge, the MacGuffin is trans people

The twin clocks in Laura by Otto Preminger

[quote] The ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark could be replaced with the Trojan Horse, Charlemagne's crown, the apple from the garden of Eden, without changing the plot at all.

I lack the imagination how any of the other artifacts would manage to melt the Nazis' skin off their bones.

Isn't, according to The Big Bang Theory, Indiana Jones himself a MacGuffin? He didn't have much of an influence to the outcome of the plot in the end. The Nazis still got their hands on the Lost Ark and opened it.

THE SECRET OF NIMH was inspired by the rat experiments conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (Maryland) in the 1950s-1960s.

The plot of the movie involves a widowed mother mouse of four who needs to relocate the family from their cinderblock home in the farm field, because plowing season is coming. However, her youngest is seriously ill and can't be outside for several weeks or he will die, so the whole cinderblock needs to be moved, as well. She seeks the assistance of a nearby colony of rats who have recently escaped from NIMH and are now highly advanced due to the mysterious experiments performed there. Their leader gives her a magical amulet that is supposed to help her in a time of courage.

As the rats are helping move the cinderblock, two of them go rogue and sabotage the mission, killing their leader in the process. Then they attempt to steal the amulet from the mother mouse, but the two rogue rats get their comeuppance and are killed. The amulet becomes activated when the mother mouse is courageous in the face of the impending plow and manages to magically lift their home and move it to safety. The youngest child recovers, and the intelligent rats of NIMH go off to establish their own utopia.

Does the briefcase in Pulp Fiction qualify as one?

R45, probably, since it was mentioned in the OP

Does the Heaviside Layer in Cats count?

The ruby slippers are not a MacGuffin, because they help Dorothy actually get home at the end.

A true MacGuffin is useless.

The Maltese Falcon wins for me.

But the ruby slippers could be an emerald bracelet for all it matters. And the Maltese Falcon would have been very useful had it been (spoiler) real.

They are both MacGuffins

Also, Dorothy is not trying to acquire the ruby slippers--she is given them early in the film.

The MacGuffin has to be something you are chasing after, like the Maltese Falcon, or the wine bottles filled with uranium in "Notorious."

It’s the wicked witch who is chasing after the slippers. Dorothy’s trying to keep them from her.

R43, the Nazi's skin melting is a detail, not actually integral to the plot. I am sure that it would be possible to invent some way for the he Trojan Horse, Charlemagne's crown, or the apple from the garden of Eden to disable or kill the Nazis

The Birds in "The Birds."

I could totally see a nazi putting on Charlemagne’s crown and then having his face melt away.

Jesse Williams' genitals currently on Broadway in "Take Me Out"

[quote] The Birds in "The Birds."

How are they a MacGuffin?

The dirt in Mommie Dearest.

The big fruit tart I just ate.

You could have replaced it with almost anything, and I’m so bored I would have eaten it.

The Pre-Columbian "Tarascan warrior" statue containing microfilm in North by Northwest.

The Birds is a political allegory about the psychological violence of capitalism and the fear-mongering of the Cold War.

Fear of nuclear attack is apparent when the birds “cover the bay like a white cloud”, suggestive of a nuclear mushroom cloud.

That’s very nice, but it doesn’t make them a MacGuffin

If the MacGuffin is something everyone is looking for I fail to see triffids and zombies and homicidal bird flocks in that category.

According to the Oxford dictionary :

noun: MacGuffin an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.

So it is not an object they are chasing. It is more like a red herring about what the main plot is.

For me, it would the 40 000 $ Marion Crane stole. We think it will be a theft story about that woman who needed money to get married, but the main plot turns out to be completely different.

Well, R61. Go fuck your half-glass-full MacGuffin.

In The Birds (1963), Hitchcock’s primary MacGuffin is hard to identify.

Some argue one does not exist, while others suggest the underlying reason why the birds are attacking is the MacGuffin.

The avian attacks serve as the chief narrative push and the item upon which all the film’s suspense hangs, but the reason for them never becomes clearly defined.

Mike Brady’s lost architecture plans in the amusement park ep of The Brady Bunch

The tiki in the Hawaii ep of The Brady Bunch

Alice in any ep of The Brady Bunch

The word ep in my post

R64, regardless, the birds in The Birds could not be simply replaced by something else.

The Oysters would be a short movie.

R66 how come?

I think the phone booth scene wouldn't work 100% as effectively, for one thing.

R68, thank you for putting the funniest image ever in my brain!

In Hitchcock's Psycho, the MacGuffin is the forty thousand dollars that Marion Crane steals.

R63, by its nature a red herring cannot trigger a plot. It is a diversion from the plot. If it triggered the plot, it would not be a red herring.

If anything, Marion is the McGuffin. Her story is essentially a red herring. Neither her lover nor the money have any impact on the course of the story. She would have been killed even if she was going on a trip to see her grandmother. But the other characters are looking for Marion, and as they do, they get caught up in the Bates Motel.

So if I'm following this correctly, Gene Anthony Ray's black ass must be the MacGuffin in "Fame" because Hillary says she digs it. Am I right?

R64 Thanks for the link about The Birds, and the MacGuffin clarification therein...

[quote]Hitchcock defines the MacGuffin as “the thing which the characters are after but the audience doesn’t care about”

I like that distinction because it's less about the MacGuffin in relation to the story as it is about the MacGuffin in relation to the audience vs. the characters, which I think opens up a more interesting dialogue about dramatic irony.

[quote] Hitchcock defines the MacGuffin as “the thing which the characters are after but the audience doesn’t care about”

By that definition, would in the gay themed movie "Trick" a free and private room to fuck be the MacGuffin?

Great thread. The characters caring vs the audience caring seems to be the key distinction. So I disagree with the poster upthread who said the M cannot be the thing everyone is after--the M most definitely is that. The spies are after the M, but we, the audience, don't really care about the thing itself.

So the classic M is the 39 Steps themselves - the organization of spies that Mr Memory memorized. In the LADY VANISHES, it's the tune that Miss Froy memorized, which contains a secret vital to European security.

The Wikipedia article on M is interesting. It says that R2-D2 is the M in Star Wars, not the Death Start plans. That's so interesting--but I would disagree because I think we, the audience, certainly get invested in R2. When he gets zapped by Jawas and then later when he gets dinged in the attack on the Death Star.

[quote] By that definition, would in the gay themed movie "Trick" a free and private room to fuck be the MacGuffin?

No.

It has to be a thing--not a space, and not a person.

But R71, Marion stopped at the motel because the policeman advised her earlier to do so, when he caught her sleeping in her car by the side of the road. She was on the run. I doubt she would have driven until she was exhausted if she was going to her grandmother. No illegal act triggering her fleeing the police, no Norman Bates on an isolated road.

But thank you for explaining the distinction between the red erring plot and the macguffin.

R77 the story only requires that she go to the motel. Not that she be exhausted. She could stay because her car breaks down, it is raining to hard to drive, or it is a two day trip to grandma's so she needs to sleep.

She does not need to be fleeing the police for the plot to proceed. She just has to be alone and not have anyone know what motel she is staying at.

Why does it have to be tangible?

From the filmsite.org website:

"In this film, Hitchcock's gimmicky device, termed a MacGuffin (the thing or device that motivates the characters, or propels the plot and action), is the stolen $40,000 from the realtor's office. Marion Crane becomes a secondary MacGuffin after her murder."

[quote] Why does it have to be tangible?

Well, it doesn't need to be tangible. For example, the coded message Dame May Whitty whistles in THE LADY VANISHES (and then plays upon the piano at the end of the film) is a MacGuffin, although it is not tangible. It just has to be something the characters are chasing that is irrelevant to the audience but crucial to the plot. For this reason you could not say a secret (or "the truth") is the MacGuffin in a film like THE PRINCE OF TIDES or REBECCA--the secrets revealed matter to the audience.

What is confusing people here is that they want every film to have a MacGuffin, so people are making some very bizarre nominations. But for the MacGuffin to be the MacGuffin, it has to be limited to certain kinds of films: really thriller, like spy films or heist films. Classic spy film MacGuffins would include the bottled uranium ore in NOTORIOUS or the Solex Agitator in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN; in heist films, they can include the emerald dagger in TOPKAPI, the hidden treasure in THE TWELVE CHAIRS, and the titular diamonds in THE PINK PANTHER and THE HOT ROCK.

But there are lots and lots of films that have no MacGuffin. There is no MacGuffin in GONE WITH THE WIND nor E.T., nor PERSONA nor THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS nor MY DINNER WITH ANDRE nor VERTIGO.

Pee Wee Herman's bicycle in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".

Also "The Big W" in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".

The Holy Grail in “Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail”

[quote]...it has to be limited to certain kinds of films: really thriller, like spy films or heist films

R81 Exactly. When you think of the major film genres – Action, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Sports, Thriller, War and Western – for most, a MacGuffin isn't involved, and you'll lose your mind trying to crowbar one in where it doesn't fit.

R63, R77, I disagree with you regarding the MacGuffin in Psycho. If Marion had not stolen the forty thousand dollars, she would not be driving to Fairvale. It's her guilt over stealing the money that leads her to have the conversation with Norman about "private traps.," which in turn leads to her changing her mind and deciding to drive back to Phoenix.

And after Marion is murdered, Hitchcock goes out of his way to show the rolled up newspaper twice -- once immediately after the murder is committed, and again when Norman puts the rolled up newspaper in the trunk of the car.

Furthermore, if she had not stolen the money, the detective Arbogast would not have come looking for her and would not have wound up as the next victim. The pivotal scene is when Arbogast calls Sam and Lila to tell them that he is checking out the Bates Motel, and that's the only way they know to go looking for her there. If he were not part of the story, then they would have no idea of the connection to the Bates Motel.

The money is mentioned again at the end when the psychiatrist says "These were crimes of passion, not profit."

So if she had not stolen the $40,000, then the rest of the plot would not work. The money is the MacGuffin.

Actually, R63, I am saying that I agree with you. It's R71 who I disagree with.

Do the monoliths in 2001 count?

R81 summed it up perfectly.

Thanks R85-86.

We have indeed the same point of view, but you underpins the point more eloquently !

The necklace in Titanic

The cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold, from “Into the Woods”

R91 good one! 👍

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I recently thought of this thread.

I rewatched JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT with Donny Osmond for the first time since it came out when I was a kid, and it occurred to me that the coat of many colors is pretty much a MacGuffin, right?

Serving merely as a trigger for the plot and then being forgotten about until the very last moment when Jacob gives Joseph back his coat but really serves no purpose in the story.

What about the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?

R94, come on!

Dirk Diggler's cock in "Boogie Nights".

What about the shrinking machine in HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS?

Barnabas

As R81, says, films with true MacGuffins are rare. The whole plot in North by Northwest is a MacGuffin—the movie is designed to be one amazing set piece after another. We don’t need to understand anything. In Hitchcock’s more deeply felt movies, such as Psycho or Rear Window, every element counts. In Psycho, for example, we need to deeply identify with Marion and her problems, to see her desperation and remorse over the theft, and therefore be devastated when she’s killed. Marion’s story shows us how easily Hitchcock can draw us into a character’s private world—and he does it all over again by persuading us to empathize with Norman Bates. And then he socks us in the face again, because he’s Hitchcock and he can do that. So nothing is a MacGuffin in Psycho.

I also think that it’s important that the magical device that the Germans are seeking in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the ark of the covenant. It’s the box that held the rubble of the Ten Commandments, so at the climax of the movie, when spirits rise up to take revenge on the Nazis, it’s one of the very few CGI sequences that has emotional meaning.

I

DOROTHY Auntie Em, really -- you know what Miss Gulch said she was gonna do to Toto? She said she was gonna fuck him!

AUNT EM Now, Dorothy, dear, stop imagining beastiality. You always get yourself worked up like a whore in church.

That trench-coat-wearing police dog that wants to "Take a bite out of crime." Officer MacGuffin.

The jockstrap in the gay porn Jock-A-Holics from the early nineties. It gets passed from a store clerk to a football player who buys it, to his brother who has sex with him, to a guy who has sex with him, to a stripper who has sex with him. The jock itself isn't important, but it gets everybody laid.

The Dumb in this thread.

Madame R75, your use of "M" for the subject of the thread lacks dignity.

"M" is Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre.

Plus, worked fingers get less fat.

Oh. No shade.

Elizabeth Taylor’s earring in the White Diamonds commercial.

[quote]It has to be a thing--not a space, and not a person.

It can be a person, ie, Doug the missing bridegroom in The Hangover.

The penmanship medal in The Bad Seed

The emerald dagger in "Topkapi"

The Heart of the Ocean in "Titanic"

The Chevy Malibu with the radioactive materials in the trunk in "Repo Man"

Marvin Acme's will in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

The bicycle in "Bicycle Thieves"

The plans for the Death Star in Star Wars (Ep. IV "A New Hope) and Rogue One.

A MacGuffin is any noun. It can be a person or a place as well as a thing.

The album recording in 'And Then There Were None'.

r111, you have to have characters chasing after it for most of the film's duration for it to be a MacGuffin.

[quote] Elizabeth Taylor’s earring in the White Diamonds commercial.

Again, no. No one is chasing after it. it just shows up at the end of the commercial.

[quote]Elizabeth Taylor’s earring in the White Diamonds commercial.

Not a "MacGuffin"; that's more of an example of "deus ex machina".