C.A.L. "Alfred Hitchcock and His Work: On 'The Set' and Off. A Contrast", The Observer (17 November 1935)
• "C.A.L." was more usually known as C. A. (Caroline Alice) Lejeune who began her career on The Manchester Guardian and was film critic of The Observer (1928–1960). Identified under the headline as being "By Our Film Correspondent" with her monogram at the end of the text. Lejeune visited the set of Secret Agent while the film was in production. Her wikiquote article has a section on the director's early British period.

[Hitchcock quoted] "I'm on a diet. And I don't do crazy tricks in my pictures any more. You know what a good time I used to have in the old days, with violent cuts and dissolves and wipes, everything in the room spinning round, standing on its head, all that sort of thing. But I've stopped all that. I haven't time to waste any more on technical tricks. I like my screen well filled, every corner used, but I've no fancy theories I want the cutting and continuity to be as inconspicuous as possible. All I'm concerned with is to get the characters developed and the story clearly told, without wasting any footage. I've turned technical ascetic, kid, without either fun or luxuries."

— C.A.L.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[Hitchcock quoted] "I'm on a diet. And I don't do crazy tricks in my pictures any more. You know what a good time I used to have in the old days, with violent cuts and dissolves and wipes, everything in the room spinning round, standing on its head, all that sort of thing. But I've stopped all that. I haven't time to waste any more on technical tricks. I like my screen well filled, every corner used, but I've no fancy theories I want the cutting and continuity to be as inconspicuous as possible. All I'm concerned with is to get the characters developed and the story clearly told, without wasting any footage. I've turned technical ascetic, kid, without either fun or luxuries."" in the context of "C.A.L. "Alfred Hitchcock and His Work: On 'The Set' and Off. A Contrast", The Observer (17 November 1935)
• "C.A.L." was more usually known as C. A. (Caroline Alice) Lejeune who began her career on The Manchester Guardian and was film critic of The Observer (1928–1960). Identified under the headline as being "By Our Film Correspondent" with her monogram at the end of the text. Lejeune visited the set of Secret Agent while the film was in production. Her wikiquote article has a section on the director's early British period." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Alfred Hitchcock" (Quotes about Hitchcock) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Alfred Hitchcock

About Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. He is a well-known man and an award-winning director. He directed and produced three of the American Film Institute Top 100 Films, Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and North by Northwest (1959), two psychological thrillers and a suspense film. Additionally, Vertigo was rated as the best film of all time in the 2012 British Film Institute Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time.