BEFORE: When I started this blog back in 2009, I don't believe I had every Hitchcock film on the list, simply because I didn't have them all in my possession. I knew I wanted to get them on the list, so I kept an eye on the TCM schedule and recorded them whenever I could. Over the course of three years, I think TCM played most of the big ones, and then I bought a DVD box set of Hitch's early silents and British films (up to "Jamaica Inn"), and I think the last hold-out was "Dial M For Murder", which I had to record off of AMC (shudder...) and then edit out the commercial breaks.
I dubbed the films sort of haphazardly to DVD, two (occasionally three) at a time - sometimes that put two films on widely different subjects together on a disc, but I lucked out and was able to put both versions of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" on the same DVD. That sort of thing, rewarding my OCD, is what enables me to sleep soundly at night.
Hitchcock makes a cameo in the Morocco marketplace. Thank God, because I didn't see another way to directly link between last night's film and this one. (But wait, Shirley Maclaine was also in "Around the World in 80 Days", and so was Alan Mowbray, who appears in today's film. See? I can't help it.)
THE PLOT: A family vacationing in Morocco accidentally stumbles in to an assassination plot and the conspirators are determind to prevent them from interfering.
AFTER: Ah, the ultimate act of repeating himself - Hitchcock re-made his own film! Though he did change quite a bit, moving the first bit from Switzerland to Morocco, changing the kidnapped girl to a boy, and adding a musical number. OK, two if you count both the performance at Royal Albert Hall and then Doris Day singing at the embassy later in the film.
The basic plot remains intact - a spy is shot and relates important information before he dies, and this information cannot fall into the hands of the police, because, well, then they'd be somewhat effective, and we can't have that. So to keep the man quiet, his child is kidnapped. Oh, why does he have to know so MUCH? And the worst part isn't the knowing so much, it's not being able to tell anybody! Gahd, that would drive me nuts, what good is knowing so much if you can't show it off? It's just too bad that "The Man Who Knew Too Much But Needed to Keep His Mouth Shut to Save His Son" just wouldn't have fit on the marquee.
I have to call shenanigans on the assassin being able to time his gunshot with the crescendo of the music piece in order to conceal its sound. The other agent plays the assassin, like, three seconds of the classical work on the record player, and from this the assassin supposed to know when to shoot. Why not play him the whole record, so he can put that little snippet into some context? How else will he know when to start getting ready? Without being familiar with the entire piece (it's called the "Storm Clouds Cantata", by the way, he wouldn't know whether that cymbal crash was coming up in 10 seconds or 10 minutes. So I'm doubing if this is even feasible.
Other than that, the film sort of drags in the middle, and ends rather abruptly.
Also starring James Stewart (last seen in "Rear Window"), Doris Day, Bernard Miles, Brenda de Banzie, Daniel Gelin, and Bernard Herrmann as himself.
RATING: 5 out of 10
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