Movie Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre

(Note: This is my submission in the Fabulous Films of the 30s Blogathon, Hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association.)

Happily married Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) are on a winter holiday at a European ski resort with their young daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam). While there, they laugh and dance and intermingle with all kinds of interesting new people, from the suave Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) to the strange, funny Mr. Abbott (Peter Lorre). But their vacation suddenly turns into a living nightmare one night when Louis falls to the ground, shot by an unseen enemy. It turns out that Louis Bernard was in fact a government agent and before he dies, he passes on a vital secret to the Lawrences. The secret is an imminent assassination in London, one that threatens to start a second world war. But before the couple can act on the information, the assassins, led by the ever-smiling Abbott, kidnap young Betty. This forces the couple to keep their mouths shut, even as the danger draws closer. However, they refuse to give up and instead, choose to search for Betty on their own. Bob and his trusty brother-in-law Clive (Hugh Wakefield) take to the back alleys of England, hunting down leads that range from the weird to the truly bizarre. Still, Abbott is onto them and so are the rest of the assassins. The family will have to find the strength and courage to save Betty and somehow do it without betraying their own country. It's a battle of wits and wills and there's no telling what could happen...

For someone who likes to introduce herself as an Alfred Hitchcock super-fan, to the point that I wrote my college admissions essay on him, it's taken me an amazingly long time to catch up with this film. It's strange, but while the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much was ridiculously easy for me to catch on TV during the periodic Hitchcock marathons, its older (and thoroughly British) sibling from 1934 has been elusive. The experience of finally seeing the original film however, gave me a renewed understanding for why both movies are so inextricably paired together in critical discussion. Comparing them is irresistible but deciding between them is very difficult. The two films are such a perfect encapsulation of their respective decades and countries, with all the attending strengths and weaknesses, that preferring one to the other seems to be less of an aesthetic judgment and more like an epicurean deciding which tickles his palate. They're equally delicious.

Both films tell the tale of a more-or-less ordinary married couple who stumble into a dangerous world of espionage and assassins. Despite their naivete and seeming helplessness, the couple find new reserves of strength and determination when their own child is kidnapped to keep their mouths shut about an impending assassination.
 
In the 1934 film, the Lawrences are a sophisticated English couple vacationing at a Swiss ski resort with a young daughter. The husband is well-off and contented; the wife is flirtatious and happens to be a crack shot. In the 1956 film, the McKennas are a cheerful but sometimes hapless American couple traveling through Morocco with a freckle-faced son. The husband is a blunt, guy-next-door doctor who doesn't quite fit into his foreign surroundings any more than his long legs fit under Moroccan tables. His wife is a famous singer who gave up her career for the sake of her marriage. In both films, it's the husband that takes the active role in searching and fighting while it's up to the wife to use her great talent (sharpshooting and singing, respectively) to save the day. And in both films, it's the couple's very unassuming ordinariness that causes the ruthless villains to fatally underestimate them.
 
The great dividing line between the 1934 film and the 1956 remake is the tone. In the brightly colored and much more expansive remake, Hitchcock gives us a fresh-faced American couple, so complacent that they can crack morbid jokes over the various patients whose ailments funded their vacation ("You know what's paying for this three days in Marrakesh--Mrs. Campbell's gall stone"). He then proceeds to torment them 'til they crack. The fact that all of this is happening to James Stewart and Doris Day, two beloved Hollywood superstars, puts the frantic emotions of the couple front and center. All of this even while Hitchcock dazzles the eye with exotic settings and amazing set pieces. Everything is so immense that even Stewart and Day can unravel without anyone noticing. The 1956 movie sort of takes the  rotten-apple-core mentality of Shadow of a Doubt, in which another innocent American goes up against ruthless villainy and pairs it to the giddy visuals of something like To Catch a Thief.

The 1934 film on the other hand, is like the speedy little roadster next to the 1956 cruise ship. It's a much compacter version of the same tale, clocking in at a mere 75 minutes. It also is much sharper in the twists and turns of its moods, careening from lightweight comedy to tense thriller and back again. It doesn't linger nearly as much on the parents. To a large extent, Leslie Banks and Edna Best are just there to keep the story moving along. They keep the stereotypical stiff upper lip to the point that even when Banks reunites with his daughter, in the middle of a group of assassins, he tries to make light of the entire situation. The one government representative we meet is coolly annoyed with the couple's secretiveness, barking at them to put their country first. And in the end, the film's most memorable character is not the couple nor any of their friends. It's the villain. 

For all those who like to harp on Hitchcock's onscreen infatuation with his blonde leading ladies, I say that Hitchcock was just as enamored (in a cinematic way) with his villains. Peter Lorre, playing the kidnapping assassin Abbott, sets a template for the charming villain that Hitchcock would repeat again and again with actors like James Mason, Ray Milland and Robert Walker. 

The story goes that Peter Lorre had to learn his lines phonetically in order to play the mysterious Abbott. Not that anybody cared because, after his indelible performance in M, they were eager to get him. Lorre's acting here is really a marvel of assurance; it's a complete 180 degree turn from his cringing, desperate performance in M. Abbott is smooth and confident, with one of the most beautifully beaming smiles you could ever hope to see. When you put him up against the bluff, so-very British Leslie Banks, Lorre almost looks like the mischievous schoolboy tweaking the nose of the headmaster. He's the guy who tosses in a Shakespeare quote as a threat ("A long, long journey 'from which no traveler returns'") and then caps it off with the deadpan aside, "Great poet." 

And yet, I think the key to Lorre's brilliance in the role is his unpredictability. Just when you think you've gotten used to Lorre as the impeccably polite villain, he turns the tables and gives you moments of sadistic menace or even, in a startling scene, genuine grief. When his creepy female accomplice dies in a shootout, Lorre holds her and looks, for a moment, like a brother holding the body of his sister. And then the moment's gone. We never learn what they were to each other. We never really understand Abbott, who smiles innocently in moments where he should threaten and looks angry in moments when everything's going his way. But Lorre is so good in the role that he eclipses everyone else. Because of him, the film ends up less as a tale of two ordinary people up against evil and instead, becomes a briskly unsentimental film which sets up scenes and knocks them over like dominoes. This is pure suspense, with no more character development than absolutely necessary.

In comparing the 1934 film and the 1956 remake, it's quite striking to see how the role of the wife evolved over the course of two decades. In the first film, Edna Best carries on in the tradition of the sprightly, sophisticated wives of '30s films. There's something a little Nora Charles-ish about her in the way she sails through rooms, cheerfully flirts with other men (in the full confidence that her husband is watching and smirking) and shoots down clay pigeons with cool panache. 

However, once her child is kidnapped, Best is pushed to the side of the story. Her own grief at the loss of her child is relegated to one scene, in which Best staggering with the news of the kidnapping, turns glassy-eyed and spins into a faint, while Hitchcock briefly cuts to a whirling POV shot. From there, her husband's off to do the work of tracking down their child, with the brother-in-law along as the trusty sidekick. Best is benched for a good chunk of the movie from then on; she reappears for the famous Albert Hall sequence and then for a final shootout with the assassins. It's in those final moments that Best seizes her own action-hero moment, grabbing a rifle and delivering the shot that will save her daughter. Even if you could see it coming (Why else establish the wife as a crack shot?), it still comes off as an exhilarating bit of physical heroism, all the more so because none of the characters treat it as anything odd.

The 1956 film, by contrast, knows it's got Doris Day and a star gets a star part. Day's emotions are given much more depth and attention than Best's. The British film treats Best's motherly anguish as so much inconvenient baggage, with the government man basically snapping at her and husband for being so unpatriotic as to, you know, care more about the life of their child than the life of a statesman. The 1956 film by contrast has a prolonged, deeply uncomfortable scene of James Stewart drugging Day to calm her; the chin-up-old-girl spirit of the original has turned into cruelty. Day's torment during the Albert Hall concert scene is also drawn out much more than Best's. In addition to being a more openly emotional character, Day's housewife is a famous singer whose ambitions have been subtly snuffed out in favor of marriage. The irony is that, despite the fact that she seems, on the surface, like a much more retrograde archetype than the earlier Best character, Day does in fact use that same powerful voice to save both her child and the statesman. She's so much more repressed than Best's action hero and yet, because her film pays more attention to her, she comes off as much more heroic.

Now that I've finally crossed the 1934 film off my list, I can say with confidence that it's a sparkling, smart movie in its own right. It's the work of a young filmmaker just discovering the full range of what he can do and the mesmerizing shifts of tone, the charismatic villain, and the quirky bursts of humor all come together perfectly. Really, when I think about it, the experience of watching both versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much is like visiting their respective locations. The 1956 film is a trip through a dazzlingly colorful, overcrowded marketplace. The 1934 original is like a trip down a snow-covered mountain. Cool, exhilarating and all over in a rush.

Favorite Quote:

"You know, to a man with a heart as soft as mine, there's nothing sweeter than a touching scene. Such as a father saying goodbye to his child. Yeah, goodbye for the last time. What could be more touching than that?"

Favorite Scene:

The scene in which Edna Best is dancing with the spy. Her husband, playfully pretending to be jealous, takes her knitting and turns it into a unraveling bit of thread that quickly entangles her and her dancing partner. It's all light and romantic. And then in one of those perfect bits of Hitchcock turning on a dime, her partner falls down, mortally wounded, and the light thread that entwined them together has suddenly become a trap. It's really the ultimate metaphor for the Hitchcock movie. 

Final Six Words:

A champagne bubble balanced on knives

Movie Review: Death Takes a Holiday

Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
directed by Mitchell Leisen, starring Fredric March, Evelyn Venable

(Note: This is my entry for the March in March Blogathon, hosted by Jill at Sittin' on a Backyard Fence)

Our film begins on a moonlit night, as a group of reckless, laughing aristocrats race their cars down a winding mountain road. They are on their way to the villa of Duke Lambert (Sir Guy Standing). But as they round the corner, they realize that a dark shadow is following them. And not metaphorically. Trying to escape, they end up crashing into a flower seller's cart and as the petals rain down on them, they realize to their shock that everyone is alive and unharmed.

The guests reach the Duke's villa and go to bed. But then the Duke is awakened by that same mysterious shadow that chased the car. And when the shadow draws near, the Duke realizes that he is talking to the Angel of Death himself (Fredric March). Death tells the Duke how tired he is of being misunderstood and feared. So, in order to find out why men fear him so, he has decided to take human form for three days. He instructs the Duke to present him as Prince Sirki and not to tell the other guests what he really is.

And so, Death's holiday begins. He quickly charms and intrigues the Duke's guests, most especially the three young women, Rhoda (Gail Patrick), Alda (Katharine Alexander), and Grazia (Evelyn Venable). Rhoda and Alda, two sophisticated women of the world, vie for his attention but it's the sensitive, dreamy Grazia who seems most in sympathy with him. However, Grazia is already engaged to the Duke's son Corrado (Kent Taylor). Under the advice of Baron Cesarea (Henry Travers), Death tries his hand at gambling and pleasure-seeking, all without figuring out what life really means. He becomes convinced that love must be the answer to his question. If a woman could love him as he really was, look upon his true face without fear, then he will have what he wants. But is there such a woman? And if there is, does Death have the right to take her?

Well, if you are going to make a movie that posits that the meaning of life can be found by spending three days in the homes of fabulously glamorous aristocrats, Paramount would be the studio to do it. But pithy remarks aside, Death Takes a Holiday is one of the most unusual of that studio's glossy romances. Taken from a 1924 Italian play, the film is a modern-day fairy tale that examines what happens when the Reaper is tempted to put away his scythe. It's little surprise that the play was attractive to a post-World War I audience, still grappling with the question of how to pick up their lives again, with the specter hanging over them. The 1934 film is a little more distanced from this context, but it's still present and gives a lot more weight to the characters and their musings on the Great Beyond. There's an urgency behind all that glitzy partying.

While the film does toy with the fantastic possibilities of Death's vacation (people mysteriously pick themselves up after falling off building, flowers bloom in autumn, armies can no longer battle), it's more interested in how Death learns to interact with people. He is there as a student, finding out why these puny humans cling to life so desperately.  The fact that it's taken Death all of earthly existence to finally get around to answering this question does suggest our fatal angel is a little slow on the uptake, but no matter. It's a fable after all.

Director Mitchell Leisen has been steadily climbing his way up the auteur ladder these past few decades and Death Takes a Holiday makes a strong case for his talents. Leisen has a visual facility that can veer from lushly romantic to whimsical and strange with ease. The film's opening, with the racing cars, the pursuing shadow, and the falling flowers is a fantastic moment and sets the film's tone perfectly. The way Leisen uses that moving shadow (a surprisingly good visual effect for that time), letting it move in and out of the light, is brilliantly unsettling. And the way he films the set-piece of the villa gives it a grandeur and mystery straight out of Midsummer Night's Dream. Anything can happen here. 

Leisen's direction is interesting enough to make me wish he had jettisoned some of the play's more redundant speeches and concentrated even more on the visuals. Compare Death Takes a Holiday to Jean Cocteau's Orphée and it shows clearly how the image of a man stepping through a mirror can say much more than five speeches on the meaning of life and death. But that's a fault of the original script, not Leisen, and it's his talents, both with visuals and with actors, that carry this film.

Death Takes a Holiday  rests on the shoulders of Fredric March, who must convey Death, both as a concept, and as a sympathetic hero. The film's creators must have taken a close look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when casting March, because his role here draws on the same elements: the combination of dark, inhuman menace and painful longing. In his first appearance, Death is shown only as a floating black specter; March does a lot here with just his voice and it's surprisingly brilliant. Instead of the deep, booming tones you might expect for the Angel of Death, March sounds surprisingly light and cordial as he explains to Duke Lambert why he want to be human. When he suddenly reminds us of his inhumanity ("What could terror mean to me, who have nothing to fear?"), he's all the more unsettling. 

In fact, I'd have to say that it's March's vocal performance I was struck with the most; he has the ability to switch from imperious to humorous to distant to pleading. Few actors of 1934 could sound so convincing as they argue just why they want to lead a beautiful young woman to her grave. Nobody is as lonely as Death after all. March's physical mannerisms are stiffer and less interesting (I'm going to go on record here that unless you're Erich von Stroheim, a monocle never does an actor any favors) and having to tear through many weighty, philosophical speeches is a stumbling block even for his abilities. But it's still a tribute to March that he manages to make Death a person without turning him into a human being.

As Death takes on the mysteries of life, he asks Henry Travers for a little advice. "I came here looking for a game worth playing," he tells him, "but what you do with yourselves still seems so very futile and empty." "There are only three games," Travers tells him. "Love, money, and war." Is it any surprise to a Hollywood audience that Death decides to find meaning in love? (Although a movie in which Death discovers the meaning of life through winning the stock market or blowing people to bits sounds pretty entertaining as well.) In the quest for that love and in true fairy tale fashion, he tests each of the three young women of the house in turn. It makes the romance feel more distanced and abstract than we might want it to be but it also gives the film a nicely creepy tone. What exactly does it mean for a young woman to fall in love with Death?

Evelyn Venable, whose sweet, regular features look like they came straight out of a Victorian postcard, is best remembered as the voice of The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. Here, as the love interest Grazia, she's quite convincing as an innocent, dreamy girl who seems to be yearning after something bigger than what life can bring her. She uses that beautiful, fluting voice of hers (a little like Eliza Doolittle, post-education) to great effect in her scenes with March, giving Grazia an out-of-the ordinary quality that makes his interest and her fate believable. Her character's attraction to Death can be taken as a sign that love can cross all boundaries. Or it can be seen, disturbingly, as a metaphor for a beautiful, sensitive girl being slowly drawn to suicide. The film leaves it open to be interpreted either way, but the suggestion of tragedy to the Grazia character gives the film a fascinating new element (not surprisingly, the modern remake made her a much more straightforward love interest).

The film's compressed storyline (only 79 minutes and much of it told through abstract speeches) means that most of the other characters fail to resonate strongly. This is a pity because it's quite a talented cast, including Henry Travers as a loveable mentor, Gail Patrick as a sharp, funny romantic prospect (her battle with Katharine Alexander for March's attention is one of the film's comic high points), and Sir Guy Standing as the world's most harried host. It's really a missed opportunity since if Death is going to spend his precious three days in one place with the same group of people, we want these people to be truly memorable and exciting.

A while back, in my New Year's meme, I asked people to name a classic film that deserved a remake (Judging by most people's response to the question, I might as well have asked if Pearl Harbor was this generation's Casablanca). I make no secret of the fact that I support remakes, when they're done with a spirit of affection and creativity. And Death Takes a Holiday is just the kind of classic I was thinking of when I asked that question. It's an irresistible premise, a modern-day fairy tale that can be taken in whatever comedic, fantastic, or romantic direction its director wants. Here, under Mitchell Leisen's direction, it becomes a fascinating, uneasy blend of stage comedy and dark fantasy, a classic with just enough flaws to warrant reinterpretation. No wonder Martin Brest would lavish three hours on the Brad Pitt remake, Meet Joe Black. And no wonder the original play has been retooled into a musical; the rambling, philosophical characters were halfway to bursting into song already.

So far however, no remake has really come around to knock the original out of first place. The Brest film is more conventionally romantic, the musical is more openly comedic, but the original film remains the most daring and beguiling of the three. Helped in no small part by the commanding performance of Fredric March, it's a movie that lingers in the memory. Right down to a conclusion that is either comforting or horrifying, depending on your point of view. By all means, go check it out.

Favorite Quote: 

"I wish that we may never meet when you are less beautiful and I must be less kind."

Favorite Scene:

For me, the moment which best encapsulates the film is the love scene between Death and Alda. Alda is a smart, attractive woman and her Cheshire Cat grin speaks for a pretty satisfactory life. But the mystery of this handsome, foreign prince has completely overwhelmed her and she goes to him and offers love. Death warns her that she would turn away from him if she knew what he really was. "Try me?" Alda offers. (In spite of her limited screen time, Katharine Alexander manages to convey a sense of real intelligence and yearning in Alda that makes you want her to succeed). "Look into my eyes," Death snaps at her, holding her close. "I will you to know what I am!" March's features darken and blur into something sinister. The love slowly drains from Alda's face and her voice rises in utter terror. "No, no, I want to live!" she screams, running away from him to throw herself into a friend's arms. Alda can't explain what has happened to her but something in her, some instinct of survival, has revolted. With the best intentions in the world, she's still only human. The film never quite answers the question of whether Alda's fear or Grazia's willing surrender is the right response to Death. But we can make up our own minds about that.

Final Six Words: 

Glittering, troubled tale of fantastic redemption

Final image credited to Old Hollywood Tumblr

Movie Review: Stingaree

 Stingaree (1934)

directed by William Wellman, starring Irene Dunne, Richard Dix

Back in 1876, the Australian gentility lived in fear of the dashing criminal rogue known as Stingaree (Richard Dix). Stingaree and his sidekick Howie (Andy Devine) cause mayhem wherever they go. One day, they encounter Sir Julian Kent (Conway Tearle), a famous composer on his way to hear the singing talents of Mrs. Clarkson (Mary Boland), the richest woman around. Stingaree briefly takes on Julian's identity and when he goes to the Clarksons, he discovers that the real singer is not Mrs. Clarkson, but her lovely servant Hilda Bouverie (Irene Dunne). Hilda dreams of being a famous opera singer, but the jealousy of her employer threatens that dream. Charmed by Hilda's voice, Stingaree abducts the girl and vows to make her dream come true, no matter what. It doesn't take long before Hilda and Stingaree are kissing in the moonlight, vowing eternal love. But Hilda will have to choose between her love for the outlaw and her opera career.

Stingaree is one of those movies that promises wackiness. You don't go into a story about the forbidden love of an outlaw and an opera singer expecting restraint or taste. The problem, however, is that Stingaree never seems to be having any fun. It doesn't take itself seriously enough to be unintentionally funny, but the actors and director never cut loose enough to make it intentionally funny either. The only one that seems to be enjoying himself is Walter Plunkett, whose dress designs for Mary Boland defy any laws of beauty, style, or sanity.

In spite of its thunderous title song during the opening credits, it's debatable whether Stingaree is really about Stingaree at all. The movie starts out as an outlaw story, swings into Cinderella territory, lurches into romance, veers in and out of being an Irene Dunne musical, before a climactic dilemma that seems straight out of a traditional "women's picture." It's like a swashbuckler that borrows a little from everything except other swashbucklers.  The messiness of this film is one of its more endearing qualities, but it isn't enough to recommend it.
 

 

Part of the problem must rest on the shoulders of Richard Dix, an actor whose dubious fame rests on the 1931 Best Picture winner Cimarron. Whenever critics try to sum up Dix's appeal, the adjectives "sturdy," "masculine," and "dependable" crop up at an alarming rate. Give him credit for being a leading man who survived the crossover from silents to talkies, but there was a heaviness to his acting that never goes away. Here, he telegraphs everything. In a scene where Stingaree waltzes into the local bar disguised as a humble music box salesman, his eyes dart to the side whenever someone questions him. When he tries a disarming grin, it's like a man trying to forget how constipated he is. This is the kind of performance that makes you realize the necessity of an Errol Flynn (and he was Australian dammit, he would have been perfect for this material if he'd been around at the time).  It isn't all Dix's fault since the screenplay shows an astonishing lack of interest in its titular character, letting him cool his heels in prison for a good part of the movie so it can focus on Irene Dunne's opera career.

 

This movie could also stand as a demonstration of why Irene Dunne's popularity has survived and Dix's hasn't. Her role is ridiculous, a servant who never seems to provide much service and has the voice of a trained opera singer, a woman who spends the first half of the movie pining for a career and the second half pining for Richard Dix. Yet, Dunne does convey a kind of sparkle and intelligence in Hilda's earlier scenes that make it plausible (movie-plausible at any rate) why Stingaree would elect himself her manager. There's a nice, short scene where Dunne, fed up with Mary Boland's bad singing, vents her frustration in private by singing a mocking rendition of Boland's song and throwing the sheet music at the wall. Her character might be a Cinderella, but Dunne conveys the weariness of someone who knows she's smarter than her competition and doesn't want to be coy about it. 

However, once Dunne has to make the switch into Stingaree's lady love, her performance and the film, turn into a soggy mess. Because the movie doesn't make any attempt to involve us in Stingaree and Hilda's passion (there have been parking tickets more passionate than their mid-movie clinch), Hilda's mooning over her lost love feels pointless. To make matters worse, the movie keeps throwing up misty flashbacks every few minutes to make sure we understand that Hilda misses her beau. 

  

Stingaree is one of the RKO Six, one of the famously lost films of the RKO studios, the rights of which went to King Kong producer Merian C. Cooper. After a legal battle far more exciting than anything that happens in this movie, TCM acquired the films and they are currently available in a DVD collection. If for no other reason, Stingaree has value as a piece of movie history and the loving attention given to it and the five other films in the Lost and Found RKO Collection is enough to warm the most jaded old-movie lover's heart.

In the end, this film is less than the sum of its parts. Those who go into it without any expectations can take some pleasure in its more deranged aspects. If you ever had a burning desire to hear Andy Devine attempt a Scottish accent, if you ever wanted to see a Movie Outlaw whose true passion was songwriting, if you ever wanted to see Walter Plunkett dress up Mary Boland in costumes that look like an overexcited first-grade arts and crafts lesson, then Stingaree is the movie for you. But be warned. This is the kind of film you clean the house to, rather than the kind for which you stay up an extra hour.

Favorite Quote:

"Well after all, my dear, you can't expect a man to be always risking his neck for you."

Favorite Scene:

Mary Boland's "audition" scene for Sir Julian Kent. She goes to such Herculean efforts to make her dubbed singing look as bad as possible, in order to contrast with Dunne's, that you have to love the actress for being the only one to provide some much needed fun. In fact all of her scenes stand out as the best parts of the film.

Final Six Words:

Confused, half-hearted swashbuckler musical mess