Hitchcock actually made two movies called The Man Who Knew Too Much. This first one from 1934 starring Peter Lorre is known as the British version, coming a full 22 years before the lavish Hollywood remake starring James Stewart. This is an excellent movie, very fast paced and full of wit.
A couple has their child kidnapped in order to prevent them divulging any information that a dead spy has told them. Can you see the theme of regular people facing extraordinary circumstances seeping out? Hitch again makes it compelling to the average viewer because we are the star, putting ourselves in the position of the leading characters.
The great part of this movie is that you never scream at the characters for what they should be doing. The bad guys are very bad and do not commit any stupid mistakes, although you can see the appropriate ending coming as the mother, a famous sharp-shootist, saves her daughter. There's always a reason that they don't shoot on sight, in order to keep the others from prying. And Peter Lorre, who did not know English at the time and had to learn the part phonetically, was extremely scary. That sneer of his made it possible for him to explode at any time. Hitch contains it until an explosive final confrontation.
This movie receives a major recommendation as I believe it sets some cinematic foreshadowing of movies to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment