An Alfred Hitchcock film today, this one a remake of a film he’d made 22 years earlier. The Man Who Knew Too Much stars Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, in a rare dramatic role. They are Ben and Jo McKenna, on vacation with their son in Morocco in the 1950s. After a series of seemingly innocent encounters, Ben is given a piece of information that puts the entire family in jeopardy.
Hitchcock is amazing. Even today’s directors don’t hold a candle to his skill. Here we have a mystery with clues flying all over the place as the audience follows Ben and Jo around. But there isn’t enough information to know the good guys from the bad, and the audience is left to try (unsuccessfully) to piece it all together.
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At this point Hitchcock does something that most filmmakers won’t. At just the right time, as the tension is becoming unbearable, he veers from the lead characters’ perspective and gives the audience an additional bit of information. He did it in Rear Window when the audience watches a woman leave the neighbor’s apartment while Jeffries sleeps, sure that she’s been murdered. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock takes us to the kidnappers, where we learn exactly when in a piece of music a man will be killed. He points out which instrument to watch and lets us hear a recording several times to make sure we’ve got it.
Then he drops us back into the lead characters’ lap, where we find our place in the viewing fundamentally changed. We aren’t following them around as they search for clues anymore, we’re trying to lead them around hoping they figure out what we already know in time to stop a murder. Hitchcock has made us active participants, powerless to do anything but watch in horror.
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Jimmy Stewart is wonderful as the clumsy and confused doctor put completely out of his element without the first idea of what to do. It’s an intriguing series of events that leads to the meat of the story, and Stewart is an exceptional choice for getting the audience there without realizing it.
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Doris Day (below) does an impressive job, especially given the departure this was from her usual light-and-fluffy comedies. I wouldn’t call her acting revolutionary, but she’s certainly charming in the role, and especially effective near the beginning when her husband is dismissive of her suspicions.
This is brilliant film making. It’s not my favorite Hitchcock (that still belongs to Rear Window), but still great.
