Hitchcock's "Magumuffin"

(McGuffun or Magaffun) is a plot device that motivates the characters and and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story.


Alfred Hitchcock; "We have a name in the studio, and we call it the McGuffin.It is usually the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories, it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers".