I Need Help


I missed a couple minutes of this movie and now I'm really confused. I understand that Lois MacFay and Linda Mills are the same person, but is Dorothy Waters also the same person? I thought Lois MacFay was at the house when Nick, Nora, and the nurse arrived. I obviously missed something. Help!

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Lois MacFay/Linda Mills is the adopted daughter of Colonel MacFay. Dorothy Waters was the nurse hired to watch Nicky, Jr.

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That's what I thought but I lost track of Dorothy Waters after they arrive at the mansion. What is her plot line during the rest of the movie?

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Dorothy Waters went with them to the Long Island estate in order to look after the baby. Once the Colonel was killed, she took her things and fled. She had been in prison and was afraid that the police would zero in on her as the killer because she had a record. Dorothy explains all this at the end of the movie once the real killer is revealed. I think the character is present to act as a red herring or MacGuffin in Hitchcock speak.

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No, no, no, this is a complete misrepresentation of what a MacGuffin is. Yes, Dorothy Waters was a complete red herring. But a MacGuffin is not a red herring.

A MacGuffin is an excuse for action/plot, that the characters are very concerned about, but that the filmmaker is *not*. For example, there's a certain film-- I'll not mention the name because I wouldn't want to give away spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen this film-- wherein at the heart of a rather elaborate plot, we eventually find that there are these microfilms containing "secrets", which the bad guys are trying mightily to get out of the country to "the other side" (the soviet union), and the good guys are trying just as mightily to prevent falling into enemy hands. So these secrets are a big deal, in terms of the fact that all of the action hinges on them. Yet they're still just an excuse for a story; they're important to the *characters* but not to the *movie*. The *movie* is much more interested in the *characters* that get wrapped up in this whole mess. Indeed, in the end, we never *do* have a clue just what these secrets are or why they're supposed to be so important. THAT is what a MacGuffin is. The microfilm secrets are that movie's MacGuffin.

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