"What's The O Stand For"? "Nothing!"

Barrie Maxwell looks at the storied career of David O. Selzneck, who produced a few little-seen low budget art house films during his career in Hollywood: King Kong, A Star Is Born, and The Third Man. Oh, and Gone With The Wind.

He also helped import Alfred Hitchcock to the United States to helm Rebecca in 1940. Hitchcock would eventually chafe at Selzeck’s power, and once free of it, Hitch would plant a variety of in-jokes in his films at Selzneck’s expense: that’s why Raymond Burr’s hair is white and curly in Rear Window, and Selzneck’s self-applied middle initial was the basis of the seeming throwaway line by Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill character to Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest.