In a stimulating discussion of objects in Hitchcock, Susan Smith uses the circulation of the wine cellar key in NOTORIOUS as a major example. Alicia takes it from her husband Alex's key-ring, gives it to Devlin, and he uses it to explore the wine cellar, where he finds the MacGuffin (a mysterious ore in a wine bottle). But Alex then notices its absence from and subsequent return to the keyring, which alerts him to what has been going on and exposes Alicia as an American spy. Smith points out that the key is used both as a structuring device throughout the sequence (Smith 2000: 97) and, together with other objects (the champagne bottles; the wine bottle containing the ore), as a mechanism to generate suspense (98).

In this example, Susan Smith looks at significant aspects of Hitchcock's use of one key in one film. A fuller consideration of keys in Hitchcock's films opens up a much broader set of concerns. Not only is there more to be said about the circulation of the cellar key in NOTORIOUS, it may also be related to other examples of the motif in Hitchcock's films. In discussing these, I also want to include a consideration of handbags in Hitchcock. Handbags complement keys: both in the ways that they function in (some of) the films and because, in Freudian terms, they are as familiar a female symbol as keys are a male symbol. In addition, handbags in Hitchcock are the subject of an excellent article by Sarah Street (1995-96: 23-37), whose ideas I also wish to discuss.

KEYS

In the British films, there are several examples in which the locking and unlocking of doors is given dramatic focus (e.g. through close-ups), but it is not until NOTORIOUS that keys in Hitchcock function as an elaborated motif. There are, in fact, two sets of keys in the film (the first is the house keys) and both only become an issue after Alicia has married Alex Sebastian. The keys in Notorious may then be linked to those in UNDER CAPRICORN, where the house keys are in effect symbols in a power struggle between Hattie, as the nominal mistress of the house, and the housekeeper Milly, a power struggle which is ultimately over Hattie's husband Sam.