Of all the motifs considered here, this is the one which smacks most heavily of cliché. Hitchcock has his characters wear spectacles for a limited number of reasons, almost all of them familiar from a thousand other films. For both men and women, there are six or so broad types who wear spectacles, although the types are somewhat different for each of the sexes. For men, a wearer of spectacles is either:

• 1. highly intelligent, e.g. the psychoanalyst Dr Brulov in SPELLBOUND, the nuclear scientist Professor Lindt in TORN CURTAIN, or

• 2. comically absent-minded, e.g. Robert's lawyer in YOUNG AND INNOCENT, Dr Greenborough in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, or

• 3. kindly, well-meaning, but somewhat ineffectual, e.g. Alice's father in BLACKMAIL, Charlie's father's friend Herb in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, or

• 4. financially grasping, e.g. Cousin Bob in MARNIE, who complains to Lil about Mark's extravagances, or

• 5. a nuisance, e.g. Mr Fortesque in STAGE FRIGHT, who keeps approaching Eve in the pub to impose himself on her when she is trying to attract the attention of Det. Insp. Smith, or

• 6. sinister – which covers a range of characters, from the dentist in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934) to Mr Drayton in the remake, and includes some of Hitchcock's more colourful villains, such as the soft-spoken Freeman in Saboteur and Thorwald in REAR WINDOW. A visual effect Hitchcock sometimes uses to emphasise bespectacled villainy is to reflect the set lights in the lenses, so that the character's eyes are masked by a battery of reflections: for a good example, see the scene between Freeman and Barry at the dam.

Although there is a range of representations here, only the intellectuals are viewed reasonably positively. Otherwise, the characterisations tends towards the comic or the sinister, and – apart from the villains – these are usually minor characters. Occasionally, Hitchcock will mix two categories. Thus, at Isobel's dinner party in SUSPICION, her brother Bertram, a Home Office pathologist – whose spectacles make him look sinister – entertains the other guests with a story of traces of arsenic in a body as he carves into a quail, so that the juxtaposition of his appearance, his actions and his story has a comic effect.