Number 13
Hitchcock has many scenes which exploit people's superstitious response to the number 13. The number shows up several times in his movies as an apartment number, room number or house number. For example, in Psycho, when Marion checks into the Bates Motel, Norman reaches first for room 3, then room 1. In addition, the number on the license plate that she drives adds up to 13. Another example is at the car dealership when Marion trades cars the number on the dealership adds up to 13. Each incidence of the number 13 provides an opportunity for her fate to change in this film.
Number 13 is also the title of an unfinished Hitchcock film early in his career.
Read more about this topic: Themes And Plot Devices In The Films Of Alfred Hitchcock
Famous quotes containing the word number:
“[The] elderly and timid single gentleman in Paris ... never drove down the Champs Elysees without expecting an accident, and commonly witnessing one; or found himself in the neighborhood of an official without calculating the chances of a bomb. So long as the rates of progress held good, these bombs would double in force and number every ten years.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)