Hitchcock thriller ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ combines a riveting plot with stellar performances

Made in 1956 during the heart of Alfred Hitchcock’s directing career, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” showcases the director’s style as well as the acting styles of its stars.

While on vacation in Morocco with their young son Hank, Dr. and Mrs. McKenna, played by James Stewart and Doris Day, find themselves in the middle of their worst nightmare. Dr. McKenna, played by James Stewart, receives important information about an assassination plot from a dying French spy whom the McKennas had previously met by chance on a bus. Dr. McKenna’s knowledge of this information causes the assassins to kidnap Hank on the condition that Dr. McKenna tell no one about the information. As the McKennas travel to London to search for their son they unintentionally become involved with preventing the assassination.

Stewart and Day play a married couple from Indianapolis and act like very average Americans. As opposed to the sinister husband and blue-blooded wife from Hitchcock’s “Suspicion,” the married couple in “The Man Who Knew Too Much” act like an average American family.

With a film career spanning from the 1930s to the 1990s, James Stewart became famous for playing the all-American everyman in such films as “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” and “It’s A Wonderful Life.” No stranger to Hitchcock, Stewart starred in classics such as “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.” His acting style is different from those of other actors of his day in its honest realism that feels very contemporary.

In “The Man Who Knew Too Much” Stewart expertly conveys the bewilderment and fear of a father in the precarious situation of having information about an imminent assassination while at the same time trying to find his young son who has been kidnapped by the assassins. The desperation and utter heartbreak of the character come though his voice as he negotiates with intelligence agencies and with the abductors themselves.

Although primarily known as a singer, Doris Day gives a magnificent dramatic performance in this film. Her wonderful onscreen chemistry with James Stewart helps to create the feel of a typical American married couple. Day skillfully portrays a mother living in a nightmare once tragedy strikes. The moment when she learns her son has been kidnapped and moans hysterically for her “baby” is one of the more disturbing moments in Hitchcock films.

Day’s singing talents were worked in to the plot of the film as Jo McKenna often sings to her son Hank. The song they sing together at the beginning of the film, “Que Sera, Sera,” appears later on in a very tense scene. In this second scene, Day lets her intense fear and worry show through her voice as she sings a seemingly happy and carefree song.

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” is actually a remake of a film Hitchcock made in England in the 1930s with the same title. The remake does not follow the original film exactly as the original film opens in Switzerland instead of Marrakech and the child is a girl named Betty instead of a boy named Hank. Hitchcock felt that the 1956 version was of better quality because he had gained experience and become a better director by the 1950s.

If you want to experience a true masterpiece in acting, writing and directing, watch “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” It is available on DVD, Xfinity On Demand and Blu-ray; just make sure that the copy is of the 1956 version in color, not the 1934 version in black-and-white. What is your favorite Hitchcock film? Please comment below!

Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’ a psychological thriller masterpiece

Great acting, cinematography and a disputed ending make Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion a film to remember.

Released in 1941, Suspicion stars Joan Fontaine as a woman who suspects her dishonest husband, played by Cary Grant, of murder. Fontaine won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in this film.

Lina, a young, well-to-do English woman, falls madly in love with a dashing young man, Johnnie, whom she hardly knows. They elope, spend a fairytale honeymoon traveling in Europe and come home to a large English manor. Lina then learns that her husband is dishonest and a compulsive gambler with huge debts. Johnnie begins to psychologically torture Lina frequently. Lina slowly becomes aware of her husband’s evil nature, but her love blinds her from fully accepting the truth.

After the murder of Johnnie’s best friend and business partner and a troubling letter from the insurance company, Lina fears that Johnnie will try to murder her. That evening Johnnie carries a glass of milk that could possibly contain poison up to Lina’s room, but Lina leaves it on her nightstand and does not drink it.

The next morning Johnnie insists on driving Lina to her mother’s house by means of a dangerous road along rocky cliffs. After a sharp turn the passenger door flies open and Lina starts to fall out of the car and off the cliff, but Johnnie pulls her back inside the car. He demands to know why she has been acting so strangely and tells Lina that he did not kill his business partner and that he was going to use the poison to kill himself. Lina, overcome with relief, rides back to the manor house with Johnnie.

Different people interpret the ending in different ways. I believe that Johnnie did everything Lina suspected and that he lied to her about his motives and actions in the final scene as he had lied to her throughout the film. My friend who watched the movie with me thinks that although Johnnie was a monster of a person he had enough moral sense left in him to not want to commit murder.

Interestingly this ending was not what Hitchcock originally had in mind. In earlier versions of the script Lina dies after drinking the milk that Johnnie had poisoned. The studio, however, did not want its popular leading man playing a murderer and was unsure of how audiences would respond to this atypical casting.

Although Fontaine won the Oscar for her performance, Grant’s performance particularly stands out to me in this film. Cary Grant was one of the most popular movie stars of his day and almost exclusively played charming, worldly and sophisticated leading men. Suspicion takes Grant’s usual on-screen persona and warps it slightly to create a debonair heartthrob with sadistic tendencies. Although the studio originally worried how audiences would react to Grant as a villain, I think that Grant’s acting style lends itself particularly well to this character. Having seen a lot of Cary Grant movies, I consider Suspicion his best performance.

Hitchcock uses light and shadow extensively in Suspicion to convey the isolation felt by Lina. In many scenes shadows of windowpanes make a grid on the walls creating the look of a cage. This juxtaposition of elegant rooms and cage-like shadows shows how Lina’s fairytale marriage has become a prison. The effect is most noticeable in the scene where Johnnie carries the glass of milk up the staircase for Lina – the point in the film where Lina feels the most trapped.

Suspicion is available on Xfinity On Demand as well as DVD but unfortunately is not on Netflix.  Have you seen any Hitchcock movies? Post your comments below!