Hitchcock got it wrong.In addition to being dangerous, cranking a large engine such as that on an M is very strenuous exercise. In fact, if you watch a lot of film comedies from the 'twenties and 'thirties, you can identify a rather common comic type: the big, powerful liveried chauffeuer who is just about to pound the daylights out of W. C. Fields, Laurel and/or Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon ("Harry Langdon?"), etc., when he is at the last moment restrained by the mild-mannered little old lady who employs him. The reason this joke was played so often is that chauffeurs had to be BIG to crank that Locomobile, Peerless, Packard, Biddle, Rolls Royce, Pierce Arrow, etc., etc., in the event the battery ran down. Now, the engine in an M is nowhere near as big as the one in an Hispano-Suiza; but it is big enough to be VERY difficult to turn over, especially if the compression is good.
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