In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
Alfred Hitchcock directed 69 movies over the course of his long career, but only once did he remake one of his own: The Man Who Knew Too Much, which he made first as a black and white film with the Gaumont British Picture Corporation in 1934, then as a color version for Paramount Pictures in 1956. The later version is probably better known among the American public, and it certainly has a higher degree of Hollywood glitz and gloss, but I prefer the version where no one sings “Que sera, sera” or wears blackface makeup.
That would be the 1934 British version, of course, starring Edna Best, Leslie Banks, Nova Pilbeam, and Peter Lorrie. All were well-known stage actors, which is one of the things I like best about this version of the film—it makes the most of a relatively small budget by the excellence of the performances and the creativity and resourcefulness of the director, who made the simplest narrative scenes visually interesting.
The plot of The Man Who Knew Too Much centers on an ordinary British family (Bob and Jill Lawrence and their daughter Betty, played by Banks, Best, and Pilbeam respectively) who planned on nothing more than a pleasant vacation in Switzerland only to find themselves entangled in an international intrigue. After their friend Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) is shot, he manages to whisper to Edna to take a brush from his room and take it to the British Consul. It turns out tha Louis was a spy, his shaving brush has a hollow handle with a piece of paper rolled up inside, and the message on that paper is the film’s MacGuffin that sets the plot in motion.
Some of the characters pursuing the MacGuffin are an unsavory lot. These include Ramon Levine (Frank Vosper; his character’s surname is not spoken in the film, probably for political reasons), a contract killer with a job coming up, and Abbott (Peter Lorre), who is the brains of the operation. In an attempt to keep the Lawrences from delivering the message to the British Consul (it contains clues about the planned assassination of a foreign dignitary in London), they kidnap Betty, then send Bob a note threatening to harm her should he deliver the message. All this pipe is neatly laid by 15 minutes in, which leaves the film’s remaining hour for the race to stop the assassination and get Betty back unharmed.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a tightly written thriller credited to four writers: Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis for the screenplay, Edwin Greenwood and A.R. Rawlinson for the scenario. Too many cooks didn’t spoil the broth, however, as the story unspools like clockwork while salting in clues that are more obvious on repeat viewing. We learn early that Ramon knows his way around a rifle, for instance, since in an early scene we see him winning a skeet shooting contest, and that Abbott has a chiming watch with a tendency to go off at inopportune moments.
The screenplay also allows Hitchcock to make full use of his visual sensibilities, including a practical joke that creates pandemonium in a hotel ballroom, creepy goings-on in a temple of sun worshippers, a nightmarish scene in a dental office (whose trade is announced by a gigantic set of teeth over the door), and a tense scene set in Royal Albert Hall (echoed in The Godfather Part III). It all leads to a shootout partly based on the Siege of Sidney Street that probably includes more shots than the Metropolitan Police Department fired in all of 1934, but that’s movies for you. Even the story’s opening location is cleverly revealed via a stack of travel brochures while the transition from Switzerland to London is accomplished quickly via a simple fade incorporating stock footage. There’s plenty of humor also, often based on double-entendres, undergarments, or Hitchcock’s favorite theme of the innocent who is not believed. Finally, Hitchcock also makes great use of diegetic sound, as a means both to convey information and to conceal it. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 643
Technical details: 75 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.33:1; English.
Edition reviewed: DVD (1 disc)
Extras: 2012 audio commentary by film historian Philip Kemp; 2012 interview with Guillermo del Toro, a great admirer of Hitchcock and of this film; 1972 TV program featuring interviews with the director by Pia Lindstrom and William K. Everson; excerpts from the 1962 interview of Hitchcock by François Truffaut discussing this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much; featurette about the restoration of this film. The Criterion website mentions an essay by Farran Smith Nehme, but the booklet was missing from the library copy I reviewed.
Fun Fact: Peter Lorre learned his lines phonetically, as this was his first English-language film (or his second, if you count the multiple-language version of M from 1931). He was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a family of German-speaking Jews and had a thriving career on both stage and screen in German-language productions until the rise of the Nazis forced him to flee; he also acted in one French-language film. My point being that I think we can cut him some slack regarding his accent, plus his odd pronunciation of English not only identifies him as definitely not British but also gives him a slightly sinister air that is perfect for the role.
Parting Thought: Hitchcock has been quoted as saying that this film was the work of a “talented amateur” while the 1956 version was the work of a “professional.” I think he was having us on, but what do you think?
