Alfred Hitchcock’s British birth, upbringing, and early career were certainly an enormously influential aspect of his life and, consequently, impacted his films. The dark humor that is deeply inculcated in British culture became one of the most recognizable traits of Hitchcock’s personality and thus, of course, found its way into his films. Even in the darkest moments of Hitchcock’s films, there is either an underlying sense of comedy or a blatantly obvious joke that Hitchcock shares with the audience to help break the tension that he masterfully builds up. Hitchcock creates this sense of comedy through sardonic dialogue and many satirical scenes that deserve careful study. His ability to either add humor to an extremely dismal scene or create …show more content…
When Norman Bates launches himself as mother at Marion’s sister, his overall attire is laughably skewed and bizarre. So, though the scene is horrible, the appearance of Norman in the shot really lends an amusing sight to one of Hitchcock’s most disturbing films. Another wonderful example of this macabre humor may be seen in one of his last films, “Frenzy”, where Hitchcock injects humor into an otherwise most unpleasant scene where a murderer attempts to remove a pin from the hand of one of his victims. Thus, he must break her fingers because of Rigor Mortis in order to retrieve it, all the while in the back of a potato truck. “Dial M for Murder” depicts a terrifying attempted murder on Grace Kelly’s character. Ironically, however, and, very appropriately for Hitchcock, she overcomes her adversary through the use of dinky scissors. Some other superb examples are the numerous driving scenes that, while generally distressing, are also incredibly humorous (for example, “To Catch a Thief”, “North by Northwest”, and “Family Plot”). One of the most humorous scenes is in “Strangers on a Train” when the carousel begins to rotate at a wild speed. As the old man goes under the carousel, slowly inching his way to the brake, he pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his nose. This is a truly “Hitchcockian” shot and really breaks the tension for a split