The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

[I worked with Sandy Salmon for many years over at American Film Gazette but when times became hard as they did, and are doing on the print publishing business and not just newspapers which is what you hear about most in the media we had to let him go. He landed on his feet here. When Allan Jackson brought me over at a time when I saw the writing on the wall at the Gazette Sandy and I were reunited which I think we were both happy about. Here is where things are sometimes funny thought. Soon after Allan brought me over there was a huge internal fight (2017) the result of which Allan had been ousted and I was selected by the newly established Editorial Board which was to oversee all the work to be the new site manager. Sandy was in line to take the legendary Sam Lowell’s place as he retired to emeritus status until the Board and I decided that departments and department heads was the cause of too much in-fighting in a profession already rife with such goings-on. This profession is not for the faint-hearted as Sandy would be the first to tell you. So I got a job I wasn’t looking for and he didn’t the he wanted. Blame the exiled Allan Jackson for both those conditions. Greg Green]

By Sandy Salmon

The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart, Doris Day, directed again (first time 1934) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1956   

People, historians, especially counter-historians, often speculate if one little fact was changed then history would have taken a decisive turn the other way. You know stuff like if Hitler had been killed at the beer garden in Munich in 1923 or if Lenin could not have gotten back to Russia on that passage through Germany train in the spring of 1917. That idea runs to the personal side of life as well, sometimes with strange results like being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the protagonists in the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s off-beat remake of his 1934 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much. So just like with great historical figures and events we can play the same game here what if Ben, played by Jimmy Stewart, Jo played by Doris Day and their young son had not been heading from Casablanca to Marrakesh on some dusty woe-begotten bus and run into a French intelligence agent whose dying words talked of an assassination plot against a big shot foreign dignity in bloody England.      

But, of course, they were and the chase was on from there ruining a perfectly respectable little family vacation and putting Ben and Jo on the edge-to speak nothing of their son who will eventually be kidnapped just because Ma and Pa knew too freaking much. Once the conspirators know they know that young son’s life isn’t worth much, maybe. He is kidnapped to insure Ben and Jo’s silence. But they trace the party to London where the action gets hot and heavy and the conspiracy to kill the foreign big wigs in full gear. Except through keen analysis and some luck Ben and Jo figure out that the plot is going to be hatched, that dignitary is going to be killed while attending a symphony concert at Royal Albert Hall (where else). The long and short of it is that Ben and Jo discover where the kidnappers have taken their son, they struggle to get to him and eventually find out about the Royal Albert caper. They are able to foil the plot by a timely scream from Jo who sights the paid assassin as he attempts his dastardly work. After much ado their son is recovered and they can go on about their average American family life.

But let’s say that big wig was killed maybe there would have been another Sarajevo, 1914. There’s a little history in the conditional for you. See this one it is better that the 1934 version which as Hitchcock himself is quoted as saying was the work of an inspired amateur and the 1956 was done by a master artist, a pro. And that is right.  

The Last Time The World Turned In On Itself-Alfred Hitchcock’s "Foreign Correspondent" (1942)-A Film Review

The Last Time The World Turned In On Itself-Alfred Hitchcock’s "Foreign Correspondent" (1942)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Foreign Correspondent, starring Joel McCrea, Phyllis Baxter, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1940  

With the headlines today blaring about building Chinese Walls along democratic borders, wars, endless wars, pestilence and many people on the planet without a passport, in short a world of nations turning in on themselves it is hard to realize that not so long ago, less than one hundred years ago now, the same kind of phenomenon plagued the world before brutal World War II and its ravages sorted things out in a very messy way. Normally a retrospective film, like the one under review here Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 classic black and white Foreign Correspondent  merely reflects on a slice of life of given long gone time but the storyline here is as fresh as today’s headlines mentioned above. And although it was rather heavy-handed particularly toward the end with a win patriotic message for America to break away from its isolationist policies and help bring down the bad guys that overall message rings true today. (Of course Brit Hitchcock was pitching for the US of A to stop sitting on its hands and given isolated and fighting it alone Greta Britain a helping hand.)  

See how this sounds. A New York newspaper owner during early 1939 is mad as hell to get an idea of what was happening in Europe as the clouds of war were gathering and the night-takers were on a roll. He wanted a new set of ears from the bum reporters who were soaking up gin and tonics overseas and mailing in no-where government ministry hand-outs with even the pretense of a re-write. New blood was needed, a new slant by a young guy, a crime beat reporter who was still hungry to get to the bottom of the story-war or not war on the horizon. Enter one Johnny Jones (who will use an alias in Europe), played by Joel McCrea. The owner persuades Johnny to go dig up the dirt on those troubling war clouds- is it bluff or for real.

Johnny hits London running. His first job is to see what the peace organizations are thinking, see which way the wind is blowing so he starts following up leads on meeting Fisher, the head of the key peace group. But along the way he runs in unknowingly at first a Dutch diplomat who has just help conclude a treaty with a secret clause that some nation, eventually determined to be the bloody Germans were extremely interested in.

The diplomat become the central pawn in what now turns into an international spy thriller. The diplomat disappears mysteriously then seemingly turns up in Amsterdam and shot by some nefarious character. That turned out to be ruse, the guy killed was an imposter. The real diplomat had been squirreled away in a windmill remember Amsterdam is in Holland. Who was behind all this subterfuge is what intrigued Johnny, oh, and Fisher’s well-turned daughter as well. Naturally the romance will be a thread that goes through the film.       

Here’s the play though old upper-crust gentile Englishman peace-nik is really a German spymaster running an operation to gather information for the Reich using the peace organization as a front. They were trying to squeeze information out of the diplomat that might help them. No go as Johnny and a pal grab the good old Dutch diplomat from that endlessly rotating windmill the buggers flee like rats. Eventually the game is up though as World War II, the non-American part blows across Europe, begins and Fisher tries to flee to America on a trans-Atlantic clipper along with daughter, Johnny and his pal. In some kind of poetic justice a German destroyer shoots the plane down and in the melee old Fisher gives up his wretched life to save others from the plane. And the daughter? Well she and her Johnny will go arm and arm telling whoever would listen that the world is a small place and if they bad guys win there will be no place left to hide in the sand. Sound familiar?     

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart, Doris Day, directed again (first time 1934) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1956   

People, historians, especially counter-historians, often speculate if one little fact was changed then history would have taken a decisive turn the other way. You know stuff like if Hitler had been killed at the beer garden in Munich in 1923 or if Lenin could not have gotten back to Russia in the spring of 1917. That idea runs to the personal side of life as well, sometimes with strange results like being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the protagonists in the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s off-beat remake of his 1934 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much. So just like with great historical figures and events we can play the same game here what if Ben, played by Jimmy Stewart, Jo played by Doris Day and their young son had not been in heading from Casablanca to Marrakesh on some dusty woe begotten bus and run into a French intelligence agent whose dying words talked of an assassination plot against a big shot foreign dignity in bloody England.      

But, of course, they were and the chase was on from there ruining a perfectly respectable little family vacation and putting Ben and Jo on the edge-to speak nothing of their son who will eventually be kidnapped just because Ma and Pa knew too freaking much. Once the conspirators know they know what was what that young son’s life isn’t worth much, maybe. He is kidnapped to insure Ben and Jo’s silence. But they trace the party to London where the action gets hot and heavy and the conspiracy to kill the foreign big wigs in full gear. Except through keen analysis and some luck Ben and Jo figure out that the plot is going to be hatched, that dignitary is going to be killed while attending a symphony concert at Royal Albert Hall (where else). The long and short of it is that Ben and Jo discover where the kidnappers have taken their son, they struggle to get to him and eventually find out about the Royal Albert caper. They are able to foil the plot by a timely scream from Jo who sights the paid assassin as he attempts his dastardly work. After much ado their son is recovered and they can go on about their average American family life.

But let’s say that bigwig in the gunsights had been killed maybe there would have been another Sarajevo, 1914. There’s a little history in the conditional for you. See this one. It is better that the 1934 version which as Hitchcock himself is quoted as saying was the work of an inspired amateur and the 1956 was done by a master artist, a pro. And that is right.  

Before The Fall-Before The Garden Of Eden Fell Into Disrepair-Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess” (1953)-A Film Review

Before The Fall-Before The Garden Of Eden Fell Into Disrepair-Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess” (1953)-A Film Review    

DVD Review

By Lenny Lynch

I Confess, starring Montgomery Clift,  Anne Baxter, directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1953

I admit, freely admit that I am a lapsed, very lapsed Catholic of the Roman persuasion although that is no factor in the how or why of drawing this review of an Alfred Hitchcock minor classic I Confess set in Catholic Canada, French-Canadian Canada, Quebec, which is actually a separate country or could be if the Quebecois wanted such an outcome as many have demonstrated for in the past, where my good friend and mentor Josh Breslin’s people came from a couple of generations back. What does factor in is the still scarred, scary, bizarre ritual (ritualistic cleansing at least) memoires of facing the inquisition in the confessional box in the person of the parish priest, one Father Lally who was one son of a bitch on dragging out every last sin out off his charges and pronouncing high dungeon penance that would make many a knee weary down at the blessed altar rail. (Many years later it came out, came out during the scandalous cover-ups and then exposes of the sodomites in the pulpits in the Boston Catholic diocese that good old Father Lally was giving absolution gratis for his favored boys who confessed to all kinds of sexual fantasy sins that the bastard then made them pay for scarring at least one of maybe two generations of innocent boys. He died before any of them got any satisfaction of seeing his crimes exposed and sent prison bound. Money will never wash away the crimes against humanity that Father Lally inflicted on this troubled world. As least for believers there is the satisfaction that he will burn in hell for eternity and maybe a few can get some solace from that.)

But all that has nothing to do with the plot of the film except that the sanctity of the confessional, the so-called penitent-priest confidentially plays a big role in this film. A rather extreme way that the privilege which after all is a legal privilege in a court of law and no something church ordained although maybe it had its roots in that way back when which can be looked at. Penitent X (I don’t want to violate that sanctity even as a lapsed, very lapsed Catholic) has committed murder, maybe not murder one but murder nevertheless and maybe murder one if X had done it in the act of a robbery which would make it felony murder. He and his wife work for Priest A, played by Montgomery Clift, at the rectory and after he committed the dastardly crime he confessed in the confessional to Priest A. He is home free or at least he thinks he is since he has some kind of understanding that Priest A will not snitch on him to the coppers, and he doesn’t.

Where things get dicey is that way back when before he was ordained, before he got “religion” after being in the military during World War II he had a torrid affair with a woman who subsequently married somebody else but was still in love him. Why that matters is that she and Priest A were seen together the night of the murder and he can’t explain where he was at the time of the murder. Looks like the big step-off for a guy just doing his job. Things get a little better after a trial in which the good priest is found not guilty although that standard is not the same as innocent and the festering parishioners are ready to nail his ass to the wall over the romance stuff. Before they can get the tar out though Penitent X’s wife tells all her husband was the murderer and for that act of sanity he kills her and then runs like a bastard to get away. No way will he do so though as the coppers nab the bastard and he buys nothing but six feet of hard dirt for his troubles. Yeah, nothing here made me want to jump back on the priest-ridden bandwagon as much as I hate to see an innocent guy, a straight-laced priest with a sullen past come close to the big step-off.      

When The Winds Of War Do Get Stirred Up- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent” (1940)-A Film Review

When The Winds Of War Do Get Stirred Up- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent” (1940)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

Foreign Correspondent, starry Lorraine Day, Joel McCrea, Herbert Marshall, directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1940

Seth Garth and Alden Riley have already gone over in some detail the Sir Alfred Hitchcock problem, no, the problem of heavyweight male movers and shakers in all walks of upscale life, here cinema, and their sexually predatory and in some cases criminal practices toward the women, the professional women, they work with. The problem of placing in some cinematic perspective the relationship between the cultural importance of their work and their gutter-worthy personal lives as they affect other members of the human race. What I want to address is a different Sir Alfred Hitchcock problem, the problem of using his films in the immediate pre-World War II period and beyond, a problem that also affected the extreme bachelor coupling of Sir Sherlock Holmes and Sir John Watson in the same period, of mixing cinematic values with low-rent propaganda for the Allied, no, the British side in that epic war. The film under review could stand alone as a good piece of cinema but is marred toward the end with some “speeches” that could have been written by Sir Winston Churchill’s speech writers in Britannia’s darkest hours.

That is all I have to say about that aspect of the film, Foreign Correspondent, except that looking backward on the plotline the whole thing reeked more than a little as a rebuff to the American Firsters like Charles Lindberg and Homer Martin in order to get America on board the European fiasco. The start is pretty straight forward in a time when commercial newspapers were a major source of news about the greater world and not fighting the culture wars over “fake news,” social media and Everyman’s opinion disguised as reportage. The editor and owner of the New York World     

wanted to know more about the impeding war clouds in Europe than the hand-outs from the various embassies which his current crew of so-called correspondents were spewing forth between cocktails at five. Enter Johnny Reporter, it could be any name, played by winsome Joel McCrea, hungry, raw and ignorant of any of the play in Europe except he had a nose for grabbing some serious news and riding it out like with a storm.    

Assignment one, which our boy Johnny never got past since this turned out to be his Pulitzer moment, find out what some old- time peacenik diplomat thinks is going to happen and what the terms of a peace alliance were all about. No problem as he runs into the guy he needed to see minute one. Except that meeting started a whole series of turns and twists which will lead him on a merry, merry goose chase. See the dippy diplomat got himself “killed” while attending, or going to a attend a world peace conference sponsored by a British national who is running a peace party operation, or so the general naïve public think since there is plenty going on which looks very suspicious after Johnny and another holy goof reporter working his own angel angles and a naïve if attractive daughter of said peace operative trace things to a windmill in the boondocks of Holland, in the outback of the country where the whole fight for peace is taking place.

That dippy diplomat was not killed but had been taken hostage to get a phrase from the secret peace agreement which might just have averted the war. (Ho hum, we have been down that road before when nations are hell-bent on war.) Taken hostage by forces unknown except they all seen to speak German when given a chance and so the chase in on. The twists and turns going running round like some second generation running kind until it becomes inescapable that the peace operative (with that naive but attractive daughter) is pulling all the strings-is an agent of the unnamed fascists like a good many other well-bred and snobbish English gentry who saw Hitler and Mussolini as the saviors against those troublesome workers who were always asking for something or other. Kept order and trains on time not necessarily in that order.   

Here’s the beauty of the whole charade, and the political baloney part as well. Once exposed as a treacherous agent of the night-takers swarming over Europe like vultures our good English gentleman with the nice manners flees London and with naïve if attractive daughter in tow heads to, where else, neutral America, once war is declared on a great looking airplane which seemed like the lap of luxury. Also on board are the dogged Johnny R, and his buddy intrepid reporter. Out in neutral waters the airplane is fired upon by a German destroyer and goes down in the briny drink, the Atlantic. Among the survivors Johnny, Intrepid, Attractive Daughter and Traitor Blue Dad. As a gesture of his suddenly found “patriotism” Traitor Blue Dad slips himself into that briny deep, the Atlantic when the wing of the plane they were floating on couldn’t handle the weight. So that gesture, fake unlike all the stuff he did for the Nazis and their ilk, gets him a pass on the traitor list. Baloney, double baloney.            

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart, Doris Day, directed again (first time 1934) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1956   

People, historians, especially counter-historians, often speculate if one little fact was changed then history would have taken a decisive turn the other way. You know stuff like if Hitler had been killed at the beer garden in Munich in 1923 or if Lenin could not have gotten back to Russia in the spring of 1917. That idea runs to the personal side of life as well, sometimes with strange results like being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the protagonists in the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s off-beat remake of his 1934 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much. So just like with great historical figures and events we can play the same game here what if Ben, played by Jimmy Stewart, Jo played by Doris Day and their young son had not been  heading from Casablanca to Marrakesh on some dusty woe begotten bus and run into a French intelligence agent whose dying words talked of an assassination plot against a big shot foreign dignity in bloody England.      

But, of course, they were and the chase was on from there ruining a perfectly respectable little family vacation and putting Ben and Jo on the edge-to speak nothing of their son who will eventually be kidnapped just because Ma and Pa knew too freaking much. Once the conspirators know they know that young son’s life isn’t worth much, maybe. He is kidnapped to insure Ben and Jo’s silence. But they trace the party to London where the action gets hot and heavy and the conspiracy to kill the foreign big wigs in is full gear. Except through keen analysis and some luck Ben and Jo figure out that the plot is going to be hatched, that dignitary is going to be killed while attending a symphony concert at Royal Albert Hall (where else). The long and short of it is that Ben and Jo discover where the kidnappers have taken their son, they struggle to get to him and eventually find out about the Royal Albert caper. They are able to foil the plot by a timely scream from Jo who sights the paid assassin as he attempts his dastardly work. After much ado their son is recovered and they can go on about their average American family life.

But let’s say that big wig was killed maybe there would have been another Sarajevo, 1914. There’s a little history in the conditional for you. See this one it is better that the 1934 version which as Hitchcock himself is quoted as saying was the work of an inspired amateur and the 1956 was done by a master artist, a pro. And that is right.   

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Paradine Case”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1947 Alfred Hitchcock film, The Paradine Case.

DVD Review

The Paradine Case, starring Gregory Peck, Anne Todd, Alida Valli, Louis Jourdan, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Selznick International Pictures, 1947

Okay, okay I ‘ll back off a little on my remark that on the basis of two recently reviewed Alfred Hitchcock films, The Wrong Man and I Confess, apparently the late thriller director had less that total admiration for the cops, the New York City and Quebec City cops anyway. Yah, the cops, the London cops, got it right, got it right up to the big step off as they collared their man, oops woman, wrapped it up tight, and let the long arm of justice take its course. But see there was dame involved, a femme fatale to boot so you can hardly blame a guy like me (or Hitchcock’s London cops for that matter under other circumstances) for not seeing what was clear as day in front of us. But it was a close thing anyway before the end, and some pretty big time lawyers, oops, barristers got egg on their faces before it was all over.

I better explain (and explain fast before some irate cop gives me, poor me, the third degree for complaining about their police procedures). See this mysterious woman, thisfemme fatale there is no other way to call it discreetly, was married to a mucky-mucky blind (age and infirmity blind) English rich gentleman named Paradine who wound up very, very dead one night having ingested a poisoned drink. Naturally his ever-loving wife, Mrs. Paradine (played by Alida Valli), young, fetching, restless, of indeterminate background, and, oh yah, a femme fatale, if I didn’t mention that before was the easy choice to step off for the caper. Mrs. Paradine though was not without financial resources and could and did hire the best up and coming criminal defense lawyer around town, oops again, barrister, Tony Keane(played by Gregory Peck), a very, very married barrister by the way. Married to an upper crust woman (played by Anne Todd) who was perhaps just a bit too stiff upper lip and earnest when all is said and done.

Naturally when a femme is on the prowl every guy within ten miles is fair game and, of course, Tony forgets every law 101 thing that got him to where he was including taking a big fall for Mrs. Paradine once she got her hooks into him. Those hooks included Tony, against all reason and evidence, trying to set up Colonel Paradine’s valet, Andre, as the fall guy (played by Louis Jourdan).That proved to be Tony’s undoing as Mrs. Paradine, turning out to be a good femme, or my idea of a good femme, won’t hear of letting Andre take the fall, especially after Tony has grilled Andre on the stand in court and as a result Andre commits suicide. That knowledge unravels Mrs. Paradine who admits in open court, against all reason since that all male jury was also swayable, that Andre was her lover and that she, and she alone, murdered her husband to run off with him.

Build those gallows high, very high indeed. Naturally the very earnest Mrs. Keane took her Tony back, or wanted to but you can see, see as clear as day, how even big time lawyers, oops once more, barristers could have gotten thrown off course when a femme is in the room. So what do expect of poor amateur like me who was secretly pulling for her just like I do for every femme, good or bad. But that too was a close thing.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess”- A Film Review

DVD Review

I Confess, starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Brothers, 1953

Apparently the late British thriller film director Alfred Hitchcock did not have a high regard for the capacities of the police to do more than cursory investigations of crimes, pick a suspect at random, a nearby suspect, frame him (or occasionally her), let the chips fall where they may and go out for coffee and crullers, oh, yah, after giving that suspect, that nearby suspect, the third degree down at the station house just for chuckles. At least that is the way it seemed to this reviewer after having recently reviewed Hitchcock’s 1956 B-film thriller The Wrong Guy, oops The Wrong Man, where a totally innocent citizen of New York City, a second-rate musician named Manny, was framed, signed, sealed and delivered, for a series of armed robberies around the neighborhood and only got off, barely, because the real wrong-doer, the real wrong gee, was found out up to his old tricks. That same sloppy police work is at play here, except this time the nefarious police work is done up in La Belle Province, up in Quebec City.

Here is the lay of the land. A post-World War II German refugee (maybe Nazi, maybe no, but his demeanor and actions said that was at least a possibility) who landed up in Quebec working as a handyman at a church rectory with his housekeeper wife can’t live another day seeing her youth fading away doing hard labor so he plans to rob a sleazy lawyer about town who had some off-hand dough laying around using a priest’s cassock as disguise. Things went awry, as they sometimes do with amateurs in over their heads, especially those eaten up with rage about wifely faded beauty, and the lawyer winds up dead, very dead. Said handyman in remorse, maybe, decided to confess his sin to one of the parish priests, Father Logan (played by Montgomery Clift), in the privacy of the confessional. That act created the drama of the film since it is well known that such confessions cannot be divulged to anybody, not even the law, the cops, you know the priest-penitent rule.

That is where the nifty police work comes in, comes in the in person of one pug-nosed pugnacious (is that combination possible?) anglo detective, played by Karl Malden, who while investigating the murder came up with the bright idea that a priest did the deed, end of story. Well, not quite, because he had to figure out which priest in 1950s Gallic old-style Roman Catholic priest-ridden Quebec with a church on every block did the deed. And so he grabs onto the nearest priest, Father Logan of course. And the good father is made to order for the frame because, as we find out by a series of flash backs, it turned out that his pre-priesthood old flame, his married, very married old flame, Ruth (played by fetching Anne Baxter) confessed to the cops (in order to give Logan an alibi) she was being blackmailed by the sleaze lawyer (and that she was still in love with her good-looking priest friend), she had sought the good father’s help, and so his actions on her behalf took on a sinister note. And don’t forget that old confession rule.

So beat daddy cop Karl had a slam-dunk and could join the other guys down at Chez somebody’s for coffee and crullers. Father Logan took the heat like a man, went on trial for murder, and just barely avoided stepping off the big step by a jury (all men) who seemingly figured he was fooling around with the good madame the night of the murder. Not guilty he might be legally but not innocent according to the town’s mores as his alleged unpriestly actions were over the top and in reaction they threatened him as he came out of the courthouse. The murderous handyman’s fading beauty housekeeper wife (who also knew of her man’s act but who would have pled the married exception against her husband in court I guess if it came to that) broke down and declared the good father’s innocence. The handyman, further unhinged, shoots her, runs away and then later dies in a shoot-out while still looking for the good father’s forgiveness as he dies in his arms. Here is the beauty of the tale though that lying handyman was the star witness against old Father Logan and so the cops took his word for everything right down the line, without a murmur. Yah, Alfred, your right, cops.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Before Jimmy Stewart Knew Too Much- Alfred Hitchcock’sOriginal 1934-“The Man Who Knew Too Much”-A Film Review

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/The_man_who_knew_too_much_1934_poster.jpg

 Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the original 1934 version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.

 DVD Review

The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring Peter Lorre, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1934

Yes, there were men who knew too much before actor Jimmy Stewart came on the scene in the1950s version of the film under review, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. While there are many differences between the versions (color versus black and white, known actors, known by me, in the latter, stiff upper American lip rather than British) the main idea is still there, nefarious people are afoot in the world trying to unseat the democratic ideals (1930s fascism, 1950s red scare cold war) and ordinary citizens had better be prepared to act when necessary to thwart such evil designs against the peace. Especially when given cryptic, very cryptic last words by professional spies who, in fact, do know too much and are subject to an off-hand assassination for their efforts.

And that thread is what this film hangs its hat on. Ordinary people (well, not really ordinary but rather from good families) can be made ready to do battle for king and country even in appeasement 1930s after the blood-letting of World War I left many things still unresolved in Europe (and the, uh, colonies) when provoked. And provocation is very easily stirred when the bad guys (led by 1930s arch-villain Peter Lorre and his lumpen henchmen working under cover of some dockside London sun-king cult) decide to insure that quiet for their deeds by kidnapping that quintessential proper English family’s daughter. Yes, thems fighting words.

Of course after some arch posturing and so-called humorous aside moments the villains are unearthed and the proper authorities are called to provide a little off-hand firing power to subdue them. Daughter saved. From an archeological point the most interesting part of the film is when the bad guys decide to go boom-boom and the then gun-less on principle Bobbies have to round up guns and ammo from a gunsmith. By the 1950s Jimmy Stewart is able to call on half the armed forces of the world to prevent murder and mayhem from thundering down on Europe. That is progress, right?

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin –Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window

DVD Review

Rear Window, starring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Paramount Pictures, 1954

Most of us who live in the city, and maybe many who live in the suburbs as well, do so to be somewhat anonymous or to escape from the prying old childhood neighborhoods when everybody knew everybody else’s business, or wanted to know it. Especially when some mother’s Johnnie or Janie did something better than your mother’s Johnnie or Janie. Harmless stuff. City or suburb though most people who want to have their privacy can have it, if they determinedly fight for it. But let’s say one is stuck in one’s urban abode (New York City urban abode, Greenwich Village urban abode to boot), one has a set of binoculars, and a very vivid photo-journalist’s (played by Jimmy Stewart) imagination (or ability to put two and two together occasionally). Then you have the plot line for an Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller like the one under review, Rear Window.

Oh, yes, throw in drop- dead beautiful model for a girlfriend (played by Grace Kelly) to help with the heavy lifting you are unable to do and you are off to the races. Oh yes, as well, throw in a nefarious evil-doer, a wife-murderer (played by Perry Mason, oops, Raymond Burr) seen across the court yard from the rear window of your confined abode and anything can happen, or almost anything. The trick is to use your strong sense of investigative powers, your Dick Tracey taught ability to put clues together and an unforgivable, yes, unforgiveable habit of putting that fetching girlfriend in harms’ way and you have an A-One film. Throw in some wit by a world-wise nurse (played by Thelma Ritter) and a skeptical police officer (played by Wendell Corey) and well that is that.

Note: Forget all that stuff about helpful girlfriends (okay, okay fiancés) being put in harm’s way by photo-op crazed journalists I have a small bone, no, a very large bone to pick with one Jimmy Stewart. Why on this good green earth would anyone in their right mind, much less a hubby-to-be, allow anyone to touch one hair on the head of one Grace Kelly. I was too young to appreciate her beauty when I was kid as I was strictly into women (oops, girls) with stick shapes and winsome toothy smiles but some women in this world are just not built for the rough stuff of city life (or suburban life for that matter). I probably just balled all of this up so let me put it this way as I have on other occasions when dealing with Grace Kelly films. One story had it that her husband, Prince Rainer of Monaco, a man not known to show much public emotion, openly wept at her funeral. Now I know why.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin –Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder.

DVD Review

Dial M For Murder, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly. Robert Cummings, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Brothers, 1954

Hey, we are all adults here, right? So why would one ex-tennis bum, Tony (play be Ray Milland), who in the course of his professional tennis career probably had more love affairs at the courts with an off-hand wealthy matron or two than one can shake a stick at, take umbrage when his wealthy wife, Margot (played by Grace Kelly), had a little dalliance of her own. A dalliance with an off-hand smart crime novel writer a la Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, Mark (played by Robert Cummings), to boot just in order to muddy up the waters.

Well that is the plot line here in the film under review, Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder, as an ill-disposed hubby Tony finds out about the little illicit tryst and plots revenge, revenge big time. Oh no, not like some smart guy, tennis bum or not, would do by raking dear wifey through the 1950s divorce courts with good old boy Mark as correspondent. No he had to go for the big M, Mas in murder. So naturally he needed to over-plan some nefarious plot by bringing a ne’er do well (English version, naturally) in to bungle the damn thing. Bungle it big time as Margot wound up killing said unjust assassin in self-defense.

But that little turn of events became our boy Tony’s opening as he framed said wifey big time, or almost. The line-up of circumstantial he led the peelers to was just too perfect, almost. On the evidence even a half-baked lawyer should have been able to get Margot out of a murder one charge and a hard look at the gallows but it took old Mark and his dime store crime investigative skills to set things right in the end.

Note: Forget all that stuff about evidence, about wifely adulterous affairs, about a cad named Tony, and a house-wreaker named Mark. Why on this good green earth would anyone in their right minds touch one hair on the head of one Grace Kelly. I was too young to appreciate her beauty when I was kid as I was strictly into women (oops, girls) with stick shapes and winsome toothy smiles but some women in this world are just not built to face the cruel executioner’s noose. I probably just balled all of this up so let me put it this way as I have on other occasions when dealing with Grace Kelly films. One story had it that her husband, Prince Rainer of Monaco, a man not known to show much public emotion, openly wept at her funeral. Now I know why.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Merry Widow Murderer- Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow Of A Doubt”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow Off A Doubt.

DVD Review

Shadow Of A Doubt, starring Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Thornton Wilder, Universal Pictures, 1943

Sometimes landing on your head or some other traumatic incident when young can have serious consequences later in life. Or at least this is the stated premise, or half premise, behind this Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Shadow Of A Doubt. The mental state angle may be a bit awry and a bit too pat as the draw to pull us in and suspend our disbelief that good old Uncle Charley (played by Joseph Cotton) is the villain of the piece and is the serial killer of rich widows but there are some interesting psychological moments as we see how this villainous man meets his inevitable just desserts. Of course the max daddy of all Hitchcock thrillers, Psycho, set the standard by scaring every pre-teen, teen, and maybe a few adults half to death by NOT showing us what happened when that serial killer was about his mad man work. This one doesn’t really come close by as I say it has a few interesting points.

Needless to say any screen play written by Thornton Wilder (Our Town) means that small town Americana with everybody normal going about their everyday normal business is sure to be in play. Certainly the town is not suspecting that a mad man has just descended on them an event that should have caused every widow in town to check her insurance coverage. And it, late 1930s Santa Rosa (California) is here as the backdrop for Uncle Charlie’s timely visit (timely for him as he as just lammed it out of the East just in front of the law) to rekindle the old family relationships. But see dear Charlie is not the boy of old small town ambitions but of master race certitudes and scorn of the small town rubes. And to cap that scorn he is not above offing a rich widow or two in the process. And that quirky tendency is what drives the film, drives the law men in pursuit and drives one devoted niece, Charlie (nee Charlotte played by Teresa Wright) half-crazy with suspicion and disbelief before she tumbles to the facts of dastardly Uncle Charlie ‘s life. Almost too late.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Handsome Johnnie’s Revenge –Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion.

DVD Review

Suspicion, starring Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, RKO Radio Pictures, 1941

Everybody knows, well, knows since Dorothy Parker uttered the words, that gentlemen don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses. Period. Well, period, except hard up ne’er-do- well besotted, benighted, be-, well, bedeviled and be done with it, handsome Johnnies gents who are slightly arrears on their rent or I.O.U. obligation to their bookmakers. They glasses, four-eyes, six-eyes, hell, threes eyes are in play then especially if they are well brought up love-starved country gentry daughters with a little dowry, or hopes of one. And especially when that certain girl, woman, when she takes off said glasses is well, by the ugly duckling turning camera magic, fetching. And that in a nutshell is the lead-up to this early Alfred Hitchcock classic under review, Suspicion.

A few details will help to tell why there is suspense in Suspicion (although not as much as in say the later Psycho, etc. when Hitchcock went over the edge and started to scare the bejesus out of every brave pre-teen and teen boy and girl on the earth by NOT showing us what evil lurked in the hearts of men). Johnnie, well-mannered but broke Johnnie (played by Cary Grant, who else would fit as the downwardly mobile British gent), “courts” one plain jane (don’t be deceived like I was at first by the glasses) country house gentry (meaning in those days running after foxes, et. al) daughter Lina (played by Academy Award-winning Joan Fontaine), wins her over and they are married. He has no illusions in what he is doing (mainly male gold-digging in order to maintain a studious avoidance of anything that smacks of work and anything that doesn’t smack of making a sure thing bet on race day) she, intelligent enough although not really world-wary has more than a few.

Up until that point, and somewhat beyond that point, this film is basically a comedy of manners in the old fashion sense. But eventually Johnnie’s gambling debts and thefts start to crowd in on him, and her. And a whole series of events occur that make Lina, well, suspicious that dear old bean Johnnie boy might just get under from under his obligations by putting her under, under the ground. Murder, murder and nothing else is surly in the air. The problem, or really two problems, though are no way, no way in hell can one make playboy Johnnie out as a murder one guy, and problem number two no way, no way in hell, once you take the glasses off, is fetching Lina slated for an early visit to the morgue. Like the title says suspicion, nothing to it but suspicion as the lovers reconcile.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Just Like Farley Granger- Strangers On A Train- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train.

DVD Review

Strangers On A Train, starring Farley Granger, Robert Walker, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Brothers, 1951

Hey, I always used to like to ride trains, passenger trains, the scenic way to travel through the hills and dale of the great American landscape. I even used to like to ride a freight car once in a while back in those old time hitchhike day when the feet got weary and a railroad track beckoned to put some miles between me and, whatever, in the search for the great American West night. But after watching the film under review, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Strangers On A Train, I am re-thinking that position. Maybe the private passenger car, or those weary feet are a better bet.

Here is why. Guy (played by one Farley Granger), a tennis star with marital problems is, well, accosted on an East Coast train (not by chance), by Bruno (played by Robert Walker), a rich kid with a little problem. He is psycho (before Psycho); the kind of guy who would pull the wings off a butterfly as a kid just for kicks. Beyond that, surprise, surprise our Bruno has a bigger problem, he hates his father, murderously hates his father. To cut to the chase Bruno has an idea. Criss-Cross- murders. See Bruno will take care of Guy’s marital problems quickly, and finally. Guy, as a return favor will do away with Bruno’s father. No problem.

The plot revolves around the central problem here though. Bruno did his part, no problem. But Guy, see Guy has some scruples, and has no intention in hell of doing Bruno’s bidding. The problem is that Bruno does not, how to put it kindly, know how to take no for an answer. Guy definitely did the wrong thing- he tried to welsh on the deal. Bruno is not one to be crossed. No way. That little tic, and a fateful cigarette lighter get us through this classic Hitchcock thriller. So you see where I am a little wary of making reservations on Amtrak right this minute. And also am cautious about lighting somebody’s cigarette, just in case. Or riding merry-go-rounds for that matter.

The Battle For Britain?

DVD REVIEW

Foreign Correspondent, Alfred Hitchcock, 1939

This is an early black and white political suspense classic by the master of the genre, Alfred Hitchcock. What makes this film somewhat different from his other later classics like The Birds or Rear Window is its evocation of up front patriotism at a time when Europe was getting set for war in the late 1930's. The Foreign Correspondent Johnny Jones(for an American newspaper, of course) in this case (played by boy next door Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe to get the facts, and nothing but the facts, about what was happening there-namely was war really in the offing or was it merely a European-based imperial ploy.

Along the way he runs into people and organizations (the leader of one played by arch-British gentleman Herbert Marshall) whose sole purpose is to agitate for war -for the benefit of the other (unnamed but we know, right?) side. As McCrea and later a British correspondent (played by George Sanders) dig deeper they figure out the real deal and try to each single-handedly try to crush it.

Of course, along the way there is a little off-hand romance involving McCrea (with Marshall's daughter- the girl next door- Larraine Day) but not to worry `justice' will out in the end. A rather interesting point is that the traitor Marshall in the end finishes up heroically. Well, I guess we have to remember this was still a time when the British Empire, at least formally, held sway in the world so that even scoundrels, as long as they were British scoundrels, had to keep a stiff upper lip and do the right thing for old John Bull. As a thriller this film is interesting. As a political statement it is much too ham-handed.