Beginners' Marathon #2: The Man Who Knew Too Much

[Basil]

"Don't you realize that Americans dislike having their children stolen?"

   

[oneaprilday]

Just started watching the British version last night. Peter Lorre is so great. 

[Sam the Cinema Snob]

May watch the British one tonight, depends on when I get home. I'm really looking forward to a comparison between the two, that is assuming most people watch both versions of the film.

[saltine]

I watched the American version last night.  It would take a loaded pistol to make me watch another version of this silly tale.

[pixote]

I watched the American version last night.  It would take a loaded pistol to make me watch another version of this silly tale.

The British version is decidedly less silly.

pixote

[roujin]

I sure hope that's your picture

[Basil]

I really enjoyed this one. It's nice when Hitchcock casts competent actors. I particularly liked Bernard Miles as Edward Drayton, though Brenda De Banzie as his wife didn't really work for me. I couldn't help but be reminded of The Manchurian Candidate during the assassination attempt, though I think Frankenheimer brings a lot more intensity and suspense to his scene.

For some reason I tend to find the exposition the most interesting parts of Hitchcock's films, so I really had a blast watching the first thirty minutes of this. The exotic location, the small talk, and the yet-to-be-uncovered motivations of the characters all sucked me in.

Where the film lost me was in the last third. Jimmy Stewart said (or sang, rather) it best, "It's just another wild goose chase".  That's how everything felt to me after the encounter with Ambrose Chappell the man, simply another turn of the screw that led nowhere but the now inevitable conclusion. I couldn't wait for it to be over at that point, but I still enjoyed what was left.

Overall, there wasn't a whole lot about this film that stood out to me, but it definitely had a lot going for it at one point. I seem to enjoy Hitch's simpler tales, so I'm quite curious how I'll feel about Vertigo.

[Sam the Cinema Snob]

I seem to enjoy Hitch's simpler tales, so I'm quite curious how I'll feel about Vertigo.

Well that's probably his most complex tale. I'm gonna watch the 1958 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much and perhaps will post a comparison between the two this evening.

[Colleen]

I found it interesting how much the characters I'm supposed to identify with got on my nerves.  Normally I can overlook a lot of sexist/racist/whatever crap in a movie and take it on its terms as part of the time it was in. Case in point, the exoticising and stereotyping of the "natives" in the Marrakesh scenes is just a standard part of a 1950s movie and there's no point in getting worked up about it.

However, the interraction between Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day's characters in the sedation scene had me livid.  I couldn't get past it and I couldn't buy how fast Doris Day's character got over it.  I can't imagine not completely despising my husband for forcing me to take drugs and treating me like an idiot child in the whole "how to tell about the kidnapping". I though her initial reaction to realizing what he was telling her and that she was already drugged and helpless to leap into action, and her anger at him were completely realistic.  What wasn't realistic is that she appeared to sleep it off and it is never mentioned for the rest of the movie.  I was so aggravated by that it was hard to keep going.

I know that it was much more okay to be paternalistic and dismissive of women as hysterics in the 1950s but I still think that scene was over the top.  I just wondered whether the viewer was meant to find the good doctor's actions horrifying and offensive or reasonable in the context of the time.  After all, the whole first part of the movie before that point has Doris Day finding a lot of stuff seeming to be fishy and her husband is dismissive.  After the sedation scene, she is never overtly drugged again but holds it together quite well and actually takes the lead again and again in the hunt for the son.  She figures out the correct Ambrose Chappell while Jimmy Stewart makes an idiot of himself.  (Aside: The Ambrose Chappell red herring scene wasn't funny to me at all and ground the movie to a halt.  It could have been a lot shorter and used to ratchet up the tension rather than completely defuse it, if Stewart had more understanding of a short period of time and more angst at realizing that the false lead had burned a lot of time).

On the other hand her "woman's hysteria" nearly undoes her at the climax, while she stands there paralyzed and weeping as she sees the assassination about to unfold and it's Stewart who galvanizes her and charges off to find the police in the theatre.  On the third hand, it's her "hysteria" that saves the prime minister since she shreiks at the sight of the gun about to fire. 

The timing/pacing of the climax(es) was odd.  There was so much winding up of the tension around the concert scene that it felt like the foiling of the plot was THE climax of the movie, yet there was still the real bad guys to find and the kid to rescue.  There's this seemingly endless sag of exposition about who was doing the plotting, let's kill the kid, Jimmy and Doris talk to the prime minister (you are going to hang around to meet the PM while your kid is now in even more danger??) and the cops yadda yadda.  Then it takes forever to unspool what you can see immediately...Doris singing the "special song" is going to get the kid to react and help his own rescue.  On the Netflix watch-it-now feature you can see exactly how long a movie is and exactly how much time is left.  TMWKTM is exactly 2 hours and it was at about 1:57 that Stewart sets off upstairs to the rescue, and 1:59 when the bad guy falls down the steps and then BAM the movie is over.  Does the guy plotting to assassinate the PM get outted/caught?  Who knows?  Does Doris grab up her kid, slap Jimmy, take the next boat home and file for divorce?  Dunno.

I did say to my Gf after it was over, that I was pretty sure if the marriage didn't end one minute after the movie did, then Doris Day's character was definitely one of those women who read Betty Friedan in the 1960s and tossed off the marital bonds.  Given the age of the son at the time of the movie, he was probably a candidate for Easy Rider by 1968 or so....I had a lovely image of he and his mom both ending up in San Francisco while dad mouldered in Indiana drinking Scotch and taking Miltowns....

Yes, I really really disliked Jimmy Stewart's character!

[Sam the Cinema Snob]

I'm gonna write up a review of each film, compare what I've written and then compile a comparison/critique of both tomorrow. That is providing school doesn't consume 90% of my day like it did today!

[ses593]

I only watched the Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day version, and I have to say that this be my least favorite Hitchcock film.  I didn't find the story compelling.  I felt that it went on way too long.  I didn't like that the story had to fit in Doris Day's singing, which was annoying to begin with, and completely unnecessary.  Like
Colleen, I found the sedation scene to be ridiculous.  I really disliked this film to the point where it made me angry, which doesn't happen a lot in films.   

[pixote]

Que sera sera. 

pixote

[oneaprilday]

Que sera sera. 

Arrgh. Thanks for putting that song in my head now.

I only watched the Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day version, and I have to say that this be my least favorite Hitchcock film.  I didn't find the story compelling.  I felt that it went on way too long.  I didn't like that the story had to fit in Doris Day's singing, which was annoying to begin with, and completely unnecessary.  Like
Colleen, I found the sedation scene to be ridiculous.  I really disliked this film to the point where it made me angry, which doesn't happen a lot in films.  

I haven't been able to re-watch the later version yet (saw it years ago and liked it then, but at that point in my life, any movie was a treat  ), and I haven't been able to post my thoughts about the earlier version yet - I liked it quite a bit though, and I'd be curious to hear what you think about that earlier one. I think you might like it better.

[RSCDoug]

I only watched the Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day version, and I have to say that this be my least favorite Hitchcock film.  I didn't find the story compelling.  I felt that it went on way too long.  I didn't like that the story had to fit in Doris Day's singing, which was annoying to begin with, and completely unnecessary. 

Hitchcock did not "fit" in Doris Day's singing...It was part of the remade script.  He needed to find an actress that could actually sing...It was brought in to emphasize the role of marriage...The good Dr. forces his wife to quit what she loves, in this case singing, in order for their relationship to work.  The fact that she is repeatedly recognized and praised for her singing makes Ben's request that much more damaging...

See through the kidnapping and take a look at the role of a 50's marriage as portrayed by Hitch...It's as suspenseful as the movie itself...Dr. Ben treats his no differently than his child for the whole movie, and in the end it is her strength that saves the day...Which emasculates him and forces even bigger problems in an already struggling marriage...

[Basil]

From Top 5 Movies that made you LOVE movies....

3. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

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You need to speak up more often.