Themes and plot devices in Hitchcock films Clift at a dinner party around the filming of "I Confess" (1953) to swallow a carafe of brandy, which caused the actor to pass out almost immediately. In "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz", brandy is defined more closely as cognac. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is offered a brandy by Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), and after being attacked by the birds, drinks the brandy offered by Mitch (Rod Taylor). In "Rear Window", Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) is "just warming some brandy". In "Frenzy", Richard Blaney is sacked for supposedly stealing brandy, and can be seen in several sequences to be drinking brandy.
Alfred Hitchcock by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In "The Birds" (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself from a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in "Frenzy" (1972) has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in "Strangers on a Train" hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in "Notorious" has a clearly conflicting relationship with his mother, who is (rightly) suspicious of his new