The Cool Channel DVD Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Posted by J.D. Dunn on 08.17.2006
Hitchcock finds his new style with a new studio.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) D:Alfred Hitchcock W:Edwin Greenwood and A.R. Rawlinson Starring:Leslie Banks, Edna West, Peter Lorre, Nova Pilbeam and Frank Vosper. MPAA: NR Runtime: 75m.
The Film:
What a difference a year and a new studio make. After the disappointing "Number 17," Hitchcock returned to the genre with a project he was actually excited about making, and the film became one Hitchcock's three most-recognized thrillers (along with "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes") from his British period.
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" also marks the beginning of a new, brief chapter in Hitchcock's career. If we consider his origins from "The Lodger" all the way to "Number 17" as the first chapter (those directed for Gainsborough & British International Pictures), then this newfound era of creative freedom with Gaumont Studios certainly carries him through the rest of the 1930s. It also marks the first in a long line of spy capers, the genre that would epitomize the first half of Hitchcock's career.
Bob and Jill Lawrence (Banks and West) are on holiday in Switzerland with their daughter Betty (Pilbeam). It's all fun and skeet shooting until their new acquaintance is assassinated while dancing in Jill's arms. He whispers some vital intelligence information to her before he dies, making the Lawrence family a target of the terrorists. In order to keep Mrs. Lawrence quiet, the ring of spies led by cold-blooded Abbott (Lorre, in a stellar early English-language performance) kidnaps Betty and holds her hostage.
The film turns into a race against time — Bob Lawrence's attempts to find and recover his daughter and British Intelligence's attempts to thwart the terrorist plot. It climaxes with an assassination attempt at Royal Albert Hall and a rooftop rescue operation that's too trite for its own good.
Freedom
With this, his first project outside the confines of British International Pictures, Hitchcock made what could arguable called the first "Hitchcock film." Gaumont certainly invested a lot in the Hitchcock name, giving him a bigger budget and the freedom to select the stars he wanted, like Peter Lorre, who was making an international name for himself thanks to a chilling performance as a child murderer in "M."
Hitchcock clearly admired the spy genre and its conventions of double-crosses, hidden agendas, and shady clandestine techniques. He exploits that to the hilt here, perhaps to the point of cliché. There's a hidden message inside of a shaving cream brush, a dentist who's really a spy, a church that isn't a church and a sniper who's instructed to kill at the sound of a gong during a musical performance. Yes, this one certainly touches all the bases.
Even more than the fun spy techniques, though, Hitchcock was drawn to the morality of the spy game, and its "ends justify the means" attitude. From "The Skin Game" all the way through "North By Northwest," Hitchcock subtly indicted war as a concept. In all of Hitchcock's spy films, you see a government organization (FBI, CIA, or British Intelligence) that sees the world in such a macroview that they don't realize (or, more likely, don't care) that innocent people get hurt through their actions. In 'Notorious," a woman is prostituted by the CIA to track down Nazis. In "North By Northwest," an innocent man is left to fend for himself against Soviet spies because it would be inconvenient for the CIA to step in.
The intelligence services in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" are in a similar position. One of their spies died while transporting information that could prevent an assassination. Of course, to them, and to the impartial observer, it's only a matter of numbers. Either the terrorist target lives or Betty lives, and Intelligence would certainly rather have the terrorists thwarted in the grand scheme of things. However, the Lawrences don't have the luxury of seeing things in numbers. It's their daughter's life on the line and, though it may hurt the cause of freedom, they are going to save their daughter.
Flaws
Just because Hitchcock finally had the freedom to do what he wanted doesn't mean he was the "master of suspense" just yet. There are a few flaws of the film that keep it from being among Hitchcock's absolute best work.
A chair-tossing brawl in the church between the protagonist and spies teeters on the edge of parody. It seems like something out of an old, silent western rather than a serious thriller, but it's also not so far over the top as to be broadly comic if Hitchcock wished it to be comedy relief. So there is sometimes a problem with tone.
Pacing is another problem, as the first 50 minutes of the film are pared down to a breakneck pace with the assassination happening immediately, the kidnapping happening less than five minutes later, and Bill's search for his daughter occupying the next 30-40 minutes. However, when we reach the climax of the film, Hitchcock slows things down considerably, hoping to wring every drop of suspense out of the assassination and rescue attempt. I would say that it's not so much a case of the finale being drawn out as the early parts of the film not being given enough time to take the viewer on that emotional rollercoaster ride that Hitchcock was so famous for.
The 411: Hitchcock begins the second chapter of his career with a film that, while not up to his later standards, is head-and-shoulders above what his contemporaries were doing. Yes, the film does suffer from flaws, but they're hardly fatal flaws. "The Man Who Knew Too Much" still stands as a must-see for any fan of Hitchcock or the spy genre. B+
