The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH         B+                  

USA  (120 mi)  1956  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

The only Hitchcock remake of his own films, this lavishly colorful American version shot on location in Morocco and London (Hitchcock did not believe in ‘Scope) contrasts heavily with the 1934 British version, which the director felt was too amateurish, but was the first Hitchcock film to win acclaim outside England.  From THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934) to NOTORIOUS (1946), Hitchcock led a British film fascination with espionage capers, joined by fellow British directors Michael Powell and Carol Reed, often interjecting comedy into the spy thrills.  A decade later, Hitchcock returned to make several successful spy thrillers, this remake which was Hitchcock’s #9 all-time box office hit, eclipsed later by the success of NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), his #5 most successful film (Alfred Hitchcock Movies-Best to Worst-Including Box Office Results ...).  This is Hitchcock’s third collaboration with James Stewart, coming between REAR WINDOW (1954) and VERTIGO (1958), and his first and only film with Doris Day, who seems to fit the cool blond profile in Hitchcock films, but her ever cheerful nature may not express a dark enough personality, as she is called upon here to utter one of film’s greatest movie screams.  Her voice made the song, the only one in a Hitchcock film and one he detested, introduced in the film here “Que Sera Sera” The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), - YouTube (1:48), a huge hit in both America and England, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Song, becoming her signature song for the rest of her career and the theme song of The Doris Day Show (1968-73).  The film is also notable for returning to Albert Hall, which was featured in the original, but here Hitchcock’s musical composer Bernard Herrmann actually conducts the orchestra in a 12-minute wordless sequence that builds suspense with a lurking gunman in the Hall, supposedly using 124 edits.

Stewart and Day are a happily married American couple from Indianapolis vacationing in Morocco, where she has given up her successful stage career to become a straight arrow mother and raise their 10-year old son Hank (Christopher Olsen).  While Day projects the near virginal, good girl image that perfectly reflects how women were emotionally straightjacketed in the 50’s, Hitchcock allows her to stray from that role, becoming deeply distraught by the end of the picture, turning in a surprisingly complex performance that was rarely, if ever, seen again.  Having spent time in Casablanca during the war, Stewart returns to the area with his family following a medical convention in Paris, where on the bus ride to their hotel they strike up a conversation with a mysterious Frenchman Louis Bernard (Daniel Gélin) who graciously invites them to dinner at their hotel.  Seemingly their only friend and contact who speaks English and French in what was at that time still a French colony, Bernard backs out of his own invite at the last minute after an odd looking stranger apparently knocks on the wrong hotel room door.  They, of course, amusingly fuss over what all this means, with Day suspecting some foul and nefarious activity which Stewart blatantly rejects.  At dinner, they meet a British couple, Bernard Miles and Brenda De Banzie, who fast become their friends, sharing the next afternoon together at the outdoor bazaar, where Hitchcock makes his cameo appearance with his back to the camera on the bottom left hand corner of the screen while a group of street acrobats are performing.  There is a sudden commotion when none other than Bernard, apparently disguised as someone else, is being chased, eventually knifed in the back, crawling towards Stewart and whispering something in his ear before dying on the spot.  As the police wish to question them, the British couple offers to take Hank along back to the hotel, as the trauma of witnessing a murder on the streets could be further exasperated by a prolonged police investigation.         

In something of a sleight of hand move, Hank disappears without a trace along with the British couple, while Stewart receives a call at the police station warning him not to mention anything to the police if they wish to see their son back alive.  In one of the scenes of the film, Stewart grows psychologically agitated withholding the news, becoming the alienated, titled character who is forced to sedate his wife before telling her about the kidnapping and the betrayal of the British couple, concerned she would grow too hysterical.  By the next morning, both are frantically out of sorts on their way to London, following clues offered in the last second confession of Bernard.  Typically, in a Hitchcock film, Scotland Yard barely registers a pulse over the American kidnapping, leaving the couple to search for Hank on their own, where at the height of their most anxious alarm, Hitchcock interjects some British humor, adding several oblivious visitors from Day’s theatrical past, all here to wish her well, completely in the dark that anything’s wrong, even as first Stewart and then Day run off in search of some curiously important business, leaving them alone in their hotel room mixing drinks.  As it turns out, the British couple are spies embroiled in an assassination plot expected to take place that night at Albert Hall, simultaneous to a crescendo clash of the cymbals, where Hitchcock keeps the audience’s suspense piqued throughout Bernard Herrmann’s real time orchestral performance of his “Storm Clouds Cantata” The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock - 1956) - YouTube (10:01), an often imitated sequence, like John Frankenheimer’s THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) or Roman Polanski’s FRANTIC (1988).  Despite several memorable scenes and being one of The Five Lost Hitchcocks, it feels overlong, as there isn’t the tautness of structure, where there is clearly an upper echelon of Hitchcock films that rise above this one for suspense, excitement, depth, artistry, and shock power, though this beautifully illustrates why the 50’s may be the best working decade for Hitchcock.   

BUtterfield 8

BUTTERFIELD 8                                C                                         

USA  (109 mi)  1960  ‘Scope  d:  Daniel Mann

Apparently Elizabeth Taylor initially rejected this screen role, but eventually changed her mind in order to fulfill the final movie of her MGM contract which Taylor claimed made her “MGM chattel” for 18 years, freeing her up afterwards to earn one million dollars in salary for CLEOPATRA (1963).  Despite winning the Academy Award for this performance, Taylor never warmed up to the material, allegedly throwing a drink in disgust the first time she watched it in a screening room.  There are also rumors that Taylor garnered the Academy sympathy vote, as she was extremely ill with pneumonia and nearly died, where many felt she might never work again.  It is true, Taylor had never lowered herself to this kind of trashy and tawdry material before, and despite providing an excellent performance, the film never rises to ever be about much of anything.  What’s kind of interesting is seeing how this role was preliminary material for hurling barbs and playful insults in the bawdy drinking games in her next Academy Award winning performance, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966).  In both films, she works with her real life husbands at the time, providing explosive fireworks with Richard Burton in the latter, while Eddie Fisher is simply her foil here.    

A note of interest, novelist John O’Hara’s name appears in the title credit, something rarely seen, adapted by John Michael Hayers, who wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW (1954), and Charles Schnee, who wrote the screenplay for Howard Hawks’ RED RIVER (1948).  There are some clever exchanges between characters, verbal barbs that pass for veiled insults or sexual banter, but the film eventually deteriorates into near laughable material.  The opening ten minutes or so are wordless, with the camera following Taylor’s every move from the point she wakes up alone in bed, checking out the lay of the land, never uttering a word except a name and a phone number, until she leaves the luxurious New York apartment and hops in a cab.  This sequence features tense and over-anxious music that is completely out of synch with the otherwise quiet and calm demeanor of Ms. Taylor, who plays Gloria Wandrous, a sexually adventurous woman with a history of continually changing partners.  She is in her element getting picked up in bars where the clever one-liners are bitchy, sexually provocative, and highly aggressive, where it appears she can stand up to anyone and match them blow for blow, just verbal sparring where they usually end up in bed together.  The title is her answering service where she carefully screens and selects the men who interest her. 

Something changes, however, when she meets Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey), a filthy rich playboy who keeps a wife and women on the side.  Despite his smug fratboy manner that suggests women are mere collections, something to be talked about in the executive boardrooms, when they meet in a bar they do produce verbal sparks, where she interestingly digs her spiked heel into the toe of his shoe when he grabs her arm, which is sexual stimulation for these two practitioners.  But all the promise in the world can’t hide where this film’s going, despite Gloria’s desperate attempts to gain respectability.  Noted for his role in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), where he plays a brainwashed victim subject to a hypnotic trigger code, Harvey always provides wooden performances, where his character barely registers a pulse.  Here he’s a bit more frenzied and on edge than usual, but simply no match for the emotional volatility from Taylor’s performance, always showing an appealing vulnerability, even playing this kind of trashy role which feels much like a lurid dimestore novel you can pick up at any airport book stall.  If there’s anything all of Ms. Taylor’s roles have in common in her 4 consecutive years of Academy Award Best Actress nominations, culminating with winning the award, it’s her ability to bring down the curtain with such distinguished high drama.  This film is no different, though it’s the least suspenseful, where the director actually adds a feeble addendum at the end that ridiculously shows how far this film has deteriorated, which without Taylor’s performance wouldn’t matter at all.