Hitchcock Week: The Man That Knew Too Much

Back again Hitchcock fans and I apologize for the delay but family emergency has been met and things are scoping very nicely.  I felt this next film is a bit of a lost gem.  A diamond in the rough as it were; many of you no doubt are familiar with its 1956 remake; I felt we should explore the original and see it for what it was.  So grab your seats, enjoy your beverage and movie snacks.   This is The Man Who Knew Too Little.

 

Now dear, we're English, so no emotions.

You know, to a man with a heart as soft as mine, there’s nothing sweeter than a touching spoiler.

Take everything that you know of the remake with Doris Day and James Stewart and toss it right out the window because other than the title, the original’s tone, setting and plot details are vastly different.

Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks of The Most Dangerous Game, The Fire Raisers, Red Ensign, Wings of the Morning, Cyrano de Bergerac and Henry V) and his lovely wife Jill (Edna Best of Tilly of Bloomsbury, The Calendar, South Riding and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) are an English couple on vacation in Switzerland with their daughter Betty.  Jill is partaking in a clay pigeon shooting contest when they are befriended by a Frenchman Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay of Marius, Fanny, Street of Shadows Le Duel,  Justice is Done and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) who happens to be staying at the same hotel as they.  Louis and Jill are dancing and Jill sees Louis assassinated before her eyes.  Before passing on he gives them both some imperative information to be delivered to the British Consul.    

The diabolical dwarf and dunderhead.

However before the Lawrences can deliver these documents the lead assassin Abbott (Peter Lorre of M, High and Low, Mad Love, Crime and Punishment, Secret Agent, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca) kidnaps the couples’ daughter to ensure their silence.  Unable to go to the police, they return to England and run down leads only to discover the assassins have a head of state to liquidate during a concert.   Now how many of your parents would try to thwart an assassination and come looking for you?   Let’s face it; some of our parents have left us at the store by accident.  

Moving right along I have a few tidbits about the film.    Studio locations were the order for filming in the Alps could get pricey so Switzerland was actually Lime Studios of Lime Grove, Shepard’s Bush, London, England, UK.   A studio made famous as the building blocks of Hitchcock’s first major motion pictures as well as the studio for the comedy Steptoe and Son and Doctor Who.  The scenes of the assassination attempt in Royal Albert Hall were most definitely the Real McCoy. 

I say, old boy it is a trifle nippy out.

While the plot lines are very similar in both versions, I felt Lorre’s performance compared to Daniel Gelin’s was more disturbing and sinister overall.  His idle comments had great undertone coming from a man that had no qualms about killing a young girl and that just sent chills up and down my spine.   I believed Lorre would follow through with his implied threats more so than Gelin’s version.   Both films are equally enjoyable but I must say I do fancy the original.