There is nothing very interesting about most of the exits through a window in Hitchcock's films: someone is usually escaping. The motif of someone entering through a window is very different, because almost all the examples are sexualised. (The stress, here, is on someone entering. I exclude examples in which the camera alone enters, which may – the beginning of PSYCHO – or may not – the beginning of I CONFESS – be sexualised.) In the British films, the motif receives a number of different inflections. In THE MANXMAN, before Pete goes abroad, he tries to get Kate to say that she’ll wait for him, a scene which involves him standing on Philip's shoulders in order to reach Kate's bedroom window. Although Pete does not enter the room, this is an embryonic version of the motif: Kate teases him with conflicting responses to his request, but finally gives in and kisses him. Almost immediately, she has second thoughts, but Pete has left, now considering himself engaged. Here the undercurrents to the motif are troubled: Philip's enforced impotence, Pete's insistent pleading, Kate's misleading flirtatiousness.

YOUNG AND INNOCENT provides a different sort of example. After Erica has cried herself to sleep (➢ BED SCENE), Robert lifts the bedroom window and climbs in: exactly as if she has dreamt him up. They embrace, but all seems lost: he says that he is going to turn himself in to the police. However, she has information which gives him fresh hope, and their quest to track down the real murderer recommences. Here the entry through a window leads to a scene which is touching and quietly romantic, in keeping with the tone of the film.

The other major examples in the British films are more elaborate. In WALTZES FROM VIENNA, we are introduced to Schani and Rasi – hero and heroine – as they sing together at the piano. Without their realising, the building has caught fire, and Leopold – Schani's rival for Rasi's affections – climbs up a ladder to the window to inform them.