Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis. John Williams
Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know, I’m not very happy with myself, either. Luckily, tripping over it during a rainy Santa Fe day (they exist, I assure you) on vacation recorded from TCM was something of a coup, as this one is somehow missing from all the Hitchcock collections I can’t help buying.
Did I Like It: Even the master has to have a weak one, right? I start a Hitchcock film expecting it to be a finely tuned plot machine designed to deliver thrill after thrill. That’s just not the case here. Grant and Kelly are nice to look at, and nice to see play off of one another. The locations are the kind of pure movie escapism that usually keep the worst of the James Bond films from being complete bores. But is the movie thrilling? Does it insist you look at the story without blinking for fear of missing something key to set up the surprises that are to come? Is there even that much jewel thievery going on?
The film is charming, but low on thrills. One wonders how Hitchcock got through the exercise, relying solely on the charms of his two leads to get the film over the hump. I would say watch the film, but marshal expectations. Or maybe opt for North by Northwest (1959). It’s got all the charm and all the thrills. You don’t have to settle for one or the other.
And now I would be remiss if I didn’t say a word about motion blurring. As a movie seen at my parents’ house, the movie played less like a Vistavision wonder of the 50s, and more like an Eastern European soap opera shot sometime earlier that afternoon. Normally, I would have made a stink about the matter. I merely asked if they knew about motion blurring, they said they didn’t, and I let the matter lie there. Be nice to your parents, but if they’re not involved, turn off your motion blurring, would ya?