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THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
*** (out of ****)
Starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, and Edna Best
Written by Edwin Greenwood, AR Rawlinson, Charles Bennett, DB Wyndham-Lewis, and Emyln Williams
75 min NR
**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring James Stewart and Doris Day
Written by Charles Bennett, DB Wyndham-Lewis, and John Michael Hayes
120 min PG
As per usual, Hitchcock is not especially concerned with his preposterous plot being completely airtight. More than any other media (or at least equal with TV), films are about “now” – novels are about memories and connections we carry with us and paintings are about a moment of the past forever frozen. But no other art form conveys moment-to-moment-to-moment; so Hitchcock is not interested in HOW his characters get into danger, but simply THAT they are in danger.
Instead, Hitchcock focuses on details, on how a man brushes crumbs off his clothes, on how people smoke, on a suggestive look that implies a universe outside the movie. Similar to “The 39 Steps” and “North by Northwest,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” highlights Hitchcock’s interests in guilt, a world turned against us for little to no reason, and wish fulfillment. In all three pictures, the lead is never someone trained in spy work, but he is always surprisingly nimble and quick-witted, as if part of him invites the mettle-testing of danger. What could be more wish-fulfilling (and “be careful what you wish for,” judging by the look on her face) than the heroine dispatching the man who out-shot her at clay pigeons earlier in the film?
As for guilt – the couple wouldn’t be in this mess if the wife weren’t so flirty with the man who gets murdered on vacation (sometimes we forget that movies of the ‘30s were not as proper as movies of the ‘50s). And, of course, like “NxNW,” the hero may be charming, but the villain is impossibly suave and cool-headed. Here, the great Peter Lorre (fresh from “M” and in his first English role) steals every scene he’s in. It’s not just because he is debonair and soft-spoken about kidnapping and assassinations – and quotes Shakespeare and knows classical music, and doesn’t stop his meal while his colleagues are clutched with fear – but because Lorre lets us glimpse the desperate man underneath.
Often a great performance (like Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane” and “The Third Man,” for instance) will seem like it belongs to the next era and not the one in which it was filmed. More than the stars of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” whose motives are clear, Lorre suggests two halves of a personality struggling side-by-side.
Setpieces include the assassination attempt in the Royal Albert Hall and a surprisingly brutal gunbattle (based on an incident from Churchill’s life!) between the spies and the police. Oh, and it goes without saying that Hitchcock doesn’t care about the politics behind the assassination.
Pauline Kael calls the 1956 remake (remade by Hitchcock as a contractual obligation) “stodgier,” and she’s right. Whereas the original features a “Thin Man”-esque couple of the ‘30s – dapper, flirty, drinking – the remake’s Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day are of the 1950s and all about having another kid. Hitchcock movies are so similar that a straight remake isn’t a bad thing, but the second “Man Who Knew Too Much” is often heavy on its feet, overwhelmed by its locations and scenery, stretched too long, and, remarkably, lacking in much visual inventiveness. My wife likes that the remake gives the couple, especially the wife, clearer motivations, but she also agrees the remake doesn’t serve much purpose. Both versions, however, feature surprisingly human villains, who mourn over fallen comrades and have trouble stomaching child murder.
Finished Saturday, July 28, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night
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