Biography
Angus MacPhail (8 April 1903 – 22 April 1962) was a British screenwriter. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he studied English and edited Granta. He entered the film industry in 1926, initially writing subtitles for silent films, and later worked as scenario editor at Gaumont-British Studios and Ealing Studios under Michael Balcon.
MacPhail wrote or contributed to numerous British films of the 1930s and 1940s, including Went the Day Well? (1942), Dead of Night (1945), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) and Whisky Galore! (1949). He collaborated frequently with Alfred Hitchcock, providing the adaptation for Spellbound (1945) and working on The Wrong Man (1956) and other projects. He is credited with coining the term "MacGuffin".
