The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

1934 - Dir: Alfred Hitchcock - 1 hr 17 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st March, 2012

Following the dismal failure of his first and only musical, Waltzes from Vienna, Alfred Hitchcock gratefully accepted a five-year deal with Michael Balcon's Gaumont British studios. The Man Who Knew Too Much, released in 1934, was the first in a series of increasingly confident pictures which would make his name worldwide, and lead ultimately to his departure for Hollywood in 1939. The film's theme of ordinary people caught up by chance in a grand conspiracy is one that Hitchcock would rework throughout his career. He even remade The Man Who Knew Too Much in Hollywood (in 1955), with James Stewart and Doris Day replacing Leslie Banks and Edna Best, in a version which is certainly slicker but arguably inferior to the original.His mastery of visual terror is becoming evident. The images are graphic rather than explicit and the dramatic black and white photography is worthy of the silent era German expressionists. Hitchcock achieved a casting coup in attracting the German actor Peter Lorre to play the villain. Lorre was passing through Britain on his way to Hollywood, where he would find new fame in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Lorre and Hitchcock shared what has been described as “an unusual sense of humour”…..