|
To Catch a Thief (1955) Production: Hitchcock, PARAMOUNT
Screenplay:John Michael Hayes from the novel by David Dodge
Camera: Robert Burks
Costumes: Edith Head
CAST: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, John Williams,
Jessie Royce Landis, Charles Vanel,
Brigitte Auber, Jean Martinelli 
PLOT: The story concerns former Resistence hero and retired jewel thief John Robie (Grant) who is concerned that a thief working in his style is leading the police to believe that he is still active. With the help of Frances Stevens(Kelly), Robie sets out to catch a thief, which he duly does. He becomes engaged to Frances but is less than enthusiastic to learn that her mother (Jessie Royce Landis) an overbearing woman will be coming too.But love conquers all. 
Cary Grant out to catch the thief who imitates his old style. 
Jesse Royce Landis, Grace Kelly, John Williams at the Ball 
The film is nicely sexy and full of innuendos, and Hitchcock enjoyed working with Grant and Kelly, but, despite the actors , the French Riviera scenic locations and Robert Burk's Oscar-winning photography, The film never really catches fire and vacillates between thriller and comedy without really hitting its target. 
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (Remake of his own 1934 film)
PRODUCTION: Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Bros.
Scenography:
Camera:
CAST: James Stewart, Doris Day, Bernard Miles,
Brenda de Banzie, Daniel Gelin, 
PLOT:
Why Hitchcock decided to make this filmm is everybody's guess. While the 1934 version may be occasionally stilted, its brevity and its wit were remarcable, while the new version is flaccid and overlong.
While James Stewart is his usual professional self, Doris Day as the wife is totally out of place in an Hitchcock film, only too eager to burst into song.("Que sera,sera" won the oscar for best song in 1956 and reached No2 in the US chart)The rest of the cast is also out of place. and the film contains a lot of jarring notes that interfere with the credibility of the story. 
It Was During the mid Fifties that Hitchcock ventured into Television, but only as a producer. (see page at the end) 
|
| James Stewart |
|  |
The Trouble with Harry (1955) Production: Hitchcock,PARAMOUNT
Screenplay: John Michael Hayes, from the novel byJack Trevor Story
Camera: Robert Burks
Music: Bernard Herrmann
CAST: John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn,
Mildred Natwick, Royal Dano, Mildred Dunnock,
Jerry Mathers 
|
| John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine |
PLOT: This whimsical, slight film concerns a rather troublesome corpse, which keeps turning up in a tiny Vermont town. A young boy discovers the corpse and runs to tell his mother. A crusty old seadog (Gwenn) stumbles across it and assumes he must have killed it accidentally while rabbit shooting. The boy's mother (MacLaine), gleefully recognizes it as her former husband Harry, and wonders if the blow she gave him with a milk bottle was fatal. The town doctor literally trips over it, Painter sam Marlowe (Forsythe) sketches it and then helps Gwenn bury it, disinter and bury it again. A spinster (Natwick) confides that she killed Harry with her shoe after he tried to molest her. Eventually, een the slow-minded deputy realizes something is amiss and at the end it is discovered that Harry actually died from natural causes. Whicj leaves time for Forsythe and MacLaine and Natwick and Gwenn to announce their engagements before life resumes its normal, sedate course in Upstate Vermont. 
The Trouble with Harry is the nearest Hitchcock came to make a pure comedy. And here lies the real trouble with Harry; like To Catch a Thief the film is not a very funny comedy or a particularly effective thriller. The film was poorly received in America but had a surprisingly warm reception in Britain.
|
| Shirley MacLaine, John Forsythe, Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Natwick |
The Wrong Man (1957) Production: Hitchcock, Warner Bros.
Screenplay:
Camera:
Music: Bernard Herrmann
CAST: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles,Anthony Quayle,
Harold J.Stone, Nehemiah Persoff,
PLOT: The film is based on the real story of Manny Balestrero, a jazz musician wrongly accused and imprisoned as an arm robber. And the effect that the event has on his family. Even when finally he is found to be innocent, his poor wife is still locked in her own sad world of paranoia. 
The wrong man is aremarkably modern looking film, filmed at the actual locations in a grimy New York City, in stark black and white. It is not an easy film to watch and it is corrosive, burrowing to the very heart of the American dream and Fonda is superb as Manny. Hitchcock even kept his CAMEO to a shadowy prologue, thus enphasizing that what follows is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 
|