Confined spaces is a loose term. I wanted a designation which covered two sorts of setting in Hitchcock: on the one hand, small private rooms such as bathrooms and toilets; on the other, a variety of public spaces, from jails to telephone booths, which enclose the characters in more or less claustrophobic ways. There are also more elaborate examples: the action of LIFEBOAT is entirely confined to the lifeboat itself; that of ROPE to the increasingly claustrophobic apartment of the two killers. But my concern here is with small rooms and with ‘boxed-in’ spaces such as booths, bunks and trunks, where the sense of confinement functions in two broadly contrasting ways: either as a retreat/hiding place from the world or as an imprisoning cage. Although there may seem to be little connection between a bathroom and a telephone booth, my argument will be that, if we look at how they are used across the films, a pattern emerges.

Bathrooms and washrooms

Only occasionally are bathrooms and washrooms in Hitchcock's films used purely for conventional purposes, such as taking a bath (as in THE LODGER). More often, something else is going on. In particular, they occur repeatedly in the spy movies. In THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), there is a minor example: Bob finds the MacGuffin hidden in a shaving-brush in Louis Bernard's hotel bathroom. In SECRET AGENT, the bathroom scene is much more significant. Shortly after Ashenden and Elsa have first met, Hitchcock stages a long scene between them in their hotel bathroom, in which Ashenden reads Elsa a decoded message and they discuss both the terms of their fake marriage and their forthcoming mission. The General enters during this, and he becomes so upset that Ashenden has been ‘issued with’ a wife and he has not that he assaults a toilet roll, an act which Hitchcock must have been delighted to have got past the censors. Throughout the scene Elsa has been putting on her makeup, but when she presents her beautified face for Ashenden's approval, he is so rude that she slaps him, prompting him to slap her. ‘Married life has begun,’ she comments, tartly.