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| Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1934) |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 75 |
| Public Rating: 7.00 (5 votes) |
Director: Alfred Hitchcock |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Action/Mystery/Thriller |
Year: 1934 |
| Writer(s): Edwin Greenwood (scenario), A.R. Rawlinson (scenario), Charles Bennett (story), D.B. Wyndham-Lewis (story), and Emlyn Williams (additional dialogue) |
| Distributor: Delta Expedition Releasing Company |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, made in 1934 during his British period, has the typical Hitchcockian pleasures: spy plots, kidnappings, government intrigue, colorful antagonists, tightly wound set pieces, and unexpected reversals. Unfortunately, the limited budget is evident everywhere, from the threadbare sets, including an egregious example of a snowbound set, to the awkward, clumsy staging, that suggests a director forced to work quickly (if efficiently), with little prep time and multiple takes kept to a minimum.
The Man Who Knew Too Much follows an upper-middle class British couple vacationing in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna West), a British Nick and Nora Charles, and their adolescent daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam) as they become enmeshed in a plot by a foreign government to assassinate a visiting head of state in London. In St. Moritz, Jill displays her talent with a rifle (she enters a sharp shooting competition and narrowly loses), and almost strays into the arms of a Frenchman, Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay), while her husband watches nearby with a hint of mild disapproval. Jill's flirtatious behavior is suitably punished by Bernard's death. With his dying breath, Bernard has whispered information related to the assassination attempt to Bob. Only moments later, by a soft-spoken foreigner, Abbott (ably played by Peter Lorre, in his first English-language role) obtains their silence by kidnapping Betty and spiriting her away to London for safekeeping.
The Man Who Knew Too Much hinges on the resolution of a stark dilemma: two lives hang in the balance, but only one can be saved. Lawrence attempts to save his daughter himself, with ineffectual, occasionally hilarious results (a visit to a dentist with questionable working methods leads to a confrontation heavy on the slapstick) and later, he finds himself inside a pagan temple that doubles as the front for an international ring of spies. The Man Who Knew Too Much has two climaxes, one for each character in jeopardy, the first a dramatic confrontation at the Albert Hall, and the second, equally dramatic, if only adequately staged, set on a rooftop as a central character struggles with a would-be assassin as the police and bystanders watch from below.
Hitchcock enjoyed manipulating the audience, deftly juggling comedy, suspense, and violence (or the threat of violence). There are one or two (or more) comic moments that quickly turn murderous, from the opening sequence as Lawrence attaches knitting to a potential rival as he dances with Jill, the moment of hilarity stretched for several minutes, then cut off by a gunshot as the humor reaches its peak, to the "good" spy apologizing for the inconvenience before he dies, to the protagonist in the dentist's chair turning the tables on the dentist, to a brief dialogue scene between two police sharpshooters preparing to confront the spy ring in the climax (again punctuated by gun shots). It's also worth noting that, by contemporary standards, the sound effects have been poorly designed and executed. For example, gunshots sound more like firecrackers or popguns that actual guns.
With a brief, seventy-five minute running time, The Man Who Knew Too Much will likely leave contemporary audiences unsatisfied. Besides the stiff performances, occasionally awkward staging, and functional dialogue, Hitchcock and his battery of writers, Edwin Greenwood (scenario), A.R. Rawlinson (scenario), Charles Bennett (story), D.B. Wyndham-Lewis (story), and Emlyn Williams (additional dialogue), barely tap into the potential inherent in the material. The plot moves quickly from set piece to set piece, but with insufficient complication. Back in England, the protagonist finds the spy ring with relative ease, and with no misdirection to heighten tension or suspense (the protagonist is helped, of course, by a talkative villain willing to share key expositional information with him).
Dissatisfied with The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock remade his own film in the mid 1950s, with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day playing the husband and wife couple dragged into the plot to assassinate a visiting head of state. The remake, while critically underappreciated, boasts high production values, shot composition, and fluid camerawork, all improvements on the original film. Thematically, the remake shows an Americanized Hitchcock, well versed in the patriarchical conservatism of the Eisenhower decade. The protagonist, although ineffectual (who, more appropriately, should have been called The Man Who Knew Too Little) is an exemplar of the fifties-era male: financially and socially successful, but neurotically possessive (of his beautiful wife, who gave up a successful singing career in exchange for domesticity) and ridden with self-doubt and anxieties about his social status.
Ultimately, The Man Who Knew Too Much is best recommended for Hitchcock completists, or viewers interested in a comparison between Hitchcock's original film and his own remake, made twenty-two years later.
© Mel Valentin, 6th May, 2004
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