What's your favorite Macguffin?

The Maltese Falcon... the stuff that dreams are made of

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I used to be partial to the occasional Egg MacGuffin in the morning but I've not had one in a number of years now. Can't even remember the last time I went in a Maccie D's tbh.

Well....and I always thought that MacGuffin was the leader of a bagpipe band.

I had no idea either. Isn’t there a term in golf like this?

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

maybe :/

I don't know about golf, but apparently, it's an old term used by script writers who are completely aware of using them in movie plots. I think Alfred Hitchcock used the term as well as the plot device, so it's been around for quite a while.

Hard to compete with the mcguffinness of the Maltese Falcon (with Spade presenting it in-film as the ultimate mcgufffin), but still, I'm partial to books. Books are magnificent mcguffins. I love any lovecraftian story revolving around the necronomicon, I love The Evil Dead for it, and I for wish more movies à la 9th Gate. Books are under-used as mcguffins.

Failing that, microfilms. Cleverly concealed microfilms. The world balance depending on a microfilm. Perfect for Cold War tension, intensity, mystery and triple-crossing (can't really beat that setting), with the delightful contrast between the macro and the micro. Geopolitical stakes on a time stamp, sometimes quite literally.

The digital age deprived movies of microfilms (and phone booths). How will cinema survive this ? Badly, I say.

There's always a mcguffin waiting in the wings. In keeping with the technology, I guess that, at least some of them will be digital, but even something like the password to the missile launch codes, written on a fortune cookie slip by a dying spy could become a new Maltese Falcon. The absurd ending is when all of these political operatives, seeking out the password in the cookie, do something like fight over it, drop it in the river and the ink fades and all that's left is a soggy cookie.

In a metaphysical sense "Rosebud" was kind of a Macguffin for Kane.

When someone goes undercover and they're out in public and some random person, who wasn't even friends with them and hasn't seen them since high school, recognizes them and makes a scene in front of the person they're trying to hustle.