|
| Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1956) |
|
  (8/10)
|
Runtime: 120 |
| Public Rating: 7.83 (6 votes) |
Director: Alfred Hitchcock |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Drama |
Year: 1956 |
| Writer(s): John Michael Hayes |
| Distributor: Universal Studios |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
| |
In the mid-1950s, Alfred Hitchcock's commercial and critical success in the United States allowed him a great deal of latitude in developing his own projects. After the success of Rear Window and To Catch a Thief (it was not uncommon for Hitchcock to work on several projects in different stages of production simultaneously), Hitchcock turned his attention to a long-dreamed about project, remaking The Man Who Knew Too Much, filmed in 1934 in England. In his typically self-deprecatory manner, Hitchcock referred to the modestly budgeted, black-and-white film as “the work of a talented amateur.” With more than two decades of experience as a filmmaker, Hitchcock decided to remake his earlier film, marshalling the best resources behind and in front of the camera to accomplish his task.
Hitchcock hired John Michael Hayes, his screenwriter on Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry and To Catch a Thief, to modernize and expand the original screenplay. With a higher production budget, Hitchcock was able to coax Jimmy Stewart, the star of Rear Window to play the lead. For the female lead, Hitchcock picked Doris Day, an actress then (and now) known primarily for her light (and lightweight) romantic comedy roles. Hitchcock convinced composer Bernard Hermann (Citizen Kane, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Taxi Driver) to appear in the film, as the conductor who leads the orchestra in the climactic sequence inside the Albert Hall. Hitchcock offered Hermann the opportunity to compose a new orchestral piece for the Albert Hall sequence, but Hermann demurred, instead preferring to conduct the orchestra in a rendition of the concerto composed by Arthur Benjamin for the original film.
The remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much makes significant changes from the original: the couple at the center of the film are American, not British, their vacation takes them to Morocco, not the Swiss Alps, they have a preadolescent son (instead of a daughter, as in the original), but in other plot details, including setting the majority of the film in London, the two films follow similar paths, story wise. The more significant changes, however, occur at the thematic or subtextual level.
As The Man Who Knew Too Much opens, Ben McKenna (James Stewart), his wife Jo McKenna (Doris Day), and their son Hank (Christopher Olsen) are on vacation, traveling by bus from Casablanca to Marrakech. As the McKennas attempt unsuccessfully to blend in with the other passengers, Hank accidentally removes the veil of a Muslim woman, which leads to an angry confrontation with the woman's husband. An Arabic-speaking Frenchman, Louis Bernard (Daniel Gélin) comes to their rescue. Grateful for his help, the McKennas agree to meet later that night for drinks and dinner in an Arabic restaurant. Jo, however, is suspicious of Bernard's intentions.
Jo, of course, is right: Bernard isn't what he appears to be, but Ben rejects her suspicions, trusting his own instincts and, therefore, his own judgment (judgment that will be proven wrong on several occasions as The Man Who Knew Too Much unfolds. In fact, Ben's neurotic possessiveness is evident from the first scene: before his wife can speak, he makes sure to introduce them as Mr. and Mrs. McKenna (she has no identity beyond wife and mother) and later, when he meets Jo's friends in London, he bristles at being mistakenly called Ben Conway (Jo can take his name, but he can't take hers).
At their hotel, Bernard (and the audience) learns that Jo is actually Jo Conway, a well-known American singer and performer who retired from the stage to marry Ben and relocate to Indianapolis. As this information is disclosed, Bernard notes obvious strains and unresolved issues in the McKennas' marriage. Before they can go to dinner together, Bernard is called away. At the restaurant, the McKennas meet Edward Drayton (Bernard Miles) and his wife Lucy (Brenda De Banzie), a middle-aged, British couple. At the end of dinner, the two couples agree to meet the next day for a trip through Marrakech's busy market place. Their day trip ends abruptly, however, when a man wearing a white cloak, his face hidden under greasepaint, stumbles, bleeding, through a crowd and falls into Ben's hands. The dying man whispers a warning to Ben: foreign agents have planned the assassination of a visiting head of state in London. The dying man gives Ben one clue: Ambrose Chapell.
Ben has literally become the man who knows too much. Before he can share this information with the local authorities, however, he receives a phone call (at the police station no less). His son Hank has been kidnapped, and will remain safe as long as Ben remains silent. Ben agrees, but is now confronted with a difficult proposition: how to tell Jo their son has been kidnapped. In probably one of the most disturbing scenes in a Hitchcock scene, Ben forces Jo to take tranquilizers before he shares any information with her. In short, Ben uses emotional blackmail to manipulate Jo. But this scene also reveals, if not for the first time in the film, then more clearly than anything that precedes it, that Ben's superficial self-confidence hides neurotic self-interest, a character motivated by emotion (and later, near-hysteria) without self-awareness, projecting his own inadequacies and anxieties on to his wife.
Ben's shortcomings become more evident in London, where Ben charges ahead with a badly conceived attempt to rescue his kidnapped son (by finding him and offering the kidnappers money). Despite warnings from Scotland Yard, Ben follows up on the one clue in his possession: Ambrose Chapel. Assuming Chapell is the name of a man, he finds the man's address in a telephone directory. What follows is an almost comic interlude, as Ben and Chapell (there are actually two men with that name, a father and a son), talk past each other. The scene ends in a melee, with Ben barely escaping before the police arrive. Jo, remaining, at least for the time being in a London hotel, has figured out the clue. Leaving a message for Ben, she proceeds to the destination. There, Ben and Jo confront the kidnappers, but Ben's attempt to retrieve Hank again fails (he's nothing if not ineffectual).
Soon separated, Jo proceeds to the Albert Hall, ostensibly to see a Scotland Yard inspector in person. The Albert Hall, of course, is the site for the attempted assassination attempt. The Albert Hall sequence, the longest in the film at twelve minutes (and 124 shots) intercuts wordlessly Jo, the assassin (whom she's spotted), the visiting head of state, sitting in a highly visible, vulnerable box, the oblivious audience, and, of course, Bernard Hermann and the orchestra performing the concerto (the bullet will be fired at a precise point during the performance, a point signaled in an earlier scene inside the kidnapper's lair). The sequence builds slowly, returning repeatedly to Jo, as she struggles between two saving the head of state or saving her son.
Hitchcock, however, doesn't end the film there. Taking advantage of his female star's singing talents, he sets up a second climax, inside a foreign embassy in London, with Jo giving an impromptu singing performance. Jo sings “Que Sera, Sera,” a song written specifically for The Man Who Knew Too Much that went on to win an Oscar that year. It also later became Doris Day's signature tune. Jo's voice serves as a homing beacon calling out to her son, hidden somewhere on the embassy grounds. Ben is, of course, present, taking the active role of searching for their son, but it's Jo's singular talents that provide the opportunity for the search in the first film.
On a thematic level, the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much an Americanized Hitchcock well versed in the patriarchical conservatism of the Eisenhower decade. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, the protagonist is ineffectual, often trusting his own judgment over the advice of others, including his wife, and failing (often miserably). He is, in short, the 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 anxiety about his social status. If anything, the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much points to an awareness, by both Hitchcock and his screenwriter, John Michael Hayes, of the contradictions inherent the nuclear family, at least as constituted in fifties America.
© Mel Valentin, 30th April, 2005
|
 Printable Version
|
Do you agree/disagree with this review of Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1956)? Let your opinions be heard in our forum.
|
Buy the Poster of Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1956) (Click Here)
|
|
|
|
