The Man Who Knew Too Much [VHS]

This is on of my favorite Hitchcock movies.

It's 1956, and the McKenna family of three, Ben, Jo and Hank, are American tourists on a bus traveling from Casablanca to Marrakech, in French Morocco. On the bus, they meet the strangely curious Louis Bernard, and agree to see him later for drinks and dinner.That doesn't work out so well, and Jo (for Josephine) is very suspicious of Louis. But they do meet a friendly British couple, Lucy and Edward Drayton. They are un-strange and have bad hair, which made me suspicious.The next morning, the McKennas join the Draytons at the outdoor market. They are transfixed when bartering is interrupted by the sight of gendarmes chasing two miscreants through the market. They are astonished when one of the pursued Arabs approaches, and it turns out to be a disguised Louis! Not only disguised, but dying from a knife in the back. With his last breath, the desperate Louis whispers a secret in Ben's ear.On the way to the police station to make their statement, Jo asks Ben, "Why do you suppose he turned up in a Arab outfit and wearing makeup?"Ben: "More important, why was he killed?"Jo: "Maybe he was a spy or something like that. What were you writing? What was he telling you?"She's not the only one who wants to know. The McKennas have a nightmare in store for them.I had seen this 1956 movie on TV years ago but didn't really remember it. I am expanding my Hitchcock DVD library, and viewing this DVD was like seeing the movie for the first time. It is presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1. Now owned by Universal Studios, it has been digitally remastered for this "An Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece" edition, published in 2006.This is a good movie, though not my favorite Hitchcock. It feels a little dated during the Ben and Jo's intertwining actions and reactions when they get back to the hotel after leaving the police station. The whole scene bothers me. If my husband sedated me before telling me our kid had been kidnapped, I don't know that I'd forgive him. But then, there are a couple lines beforehand, which indicate that Jo had used, and maybe overused, tranquilizers before.Overall, Hitchcock does his usual masterful job of showing a good man under stress and an intelligent woman under duress. In particular, the later action in Albert Hall gave me pause. If you could stop an assassination, but you'd been warned your child would be hurt if you did, I can imagine I'd be paralyzed as Jo was. She went to the scene, but she just couldn't take that last step. Desperate to speak and terrified to speak. Masterful acting and directing.DVD Bonus Features:1. "The Making of The Man Who Knew Too Much" (33 minutes) This is an enjoyable special. Commentators include Pat Hitchcock O'Connell (Hitch's daughter), Herbert Coleman (associate producer), John Michael Hayes (screenwriter), Henry Bumstead (production designer) and Steven C. Smith (Bernard Hermann biographer). It also has Jimmy Stewart on set, but it's excerpts from the theatrical trailer included in Bonus Feature #3.Steven Smith says that "music is almost a character in 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'.... Hitchcock needed a song for the film, because after all Doris Day was in the movie and Paramount wanted a song..... Hitchcock met with [the song-writing team] and told them very frankly that Paramount wanted a song more than he did in the movie. And he said, 'I don't know what kind of song I want in the movie, so go write me a song.' "And that's how we got "Que Sera, Sera", which won an Academy award for best song and became a huge hit for Doris Day. I was a baby when the movie and song came out, so though I knew Doris Day sang this song, I had no idea it came from an Alfred Hitchcock movie - you could have blown me away with a feather! That sweet song and Hitch?! But it worked and the juxtaposition is perfect.2. Production Photographs. This is a slideshow of posters and rehearsal stills. Some of the posters are foreign, such as "Der Mann, Der Zuviel Wusste".3. Trailers. The first is the original theatrical trailer.The second is a Re-Release trailer. Ten years after any had come out in theaters, five films were re-released: "Vertigo", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "Rope", "The Trouble With Harry"(Shirley MacLaine's 1st movie role) and "Rear Window" (one of the best of the best!).4. Production Notes: A few screens of background information. This film followed Jimmy Stewart in the hugely successful "Rear Window" (1954).5. Languages. You can listen in English or French.Subtitles are available in English and SpanishHappy Reader

Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, how could you miss. The Plot was terrific, full of suspense and Jimmy Stewart magic, with a happy ending. Wonderful Classic movie, everyone should see it.

Another of Hitchcock s better films

I'm reviewing Universal 61125506, the Blu-ray version of Hitchcock's 1956 remake of "TMWKTM." As one comes to expect from Blu-ray the colors are vibrant in both studio interiors and exteriors, and of the latter there are many. The exception would be the scenes in London, which are gray (as, depending on the season, one would expect). Image clarity is much improved over my old DVD version. Nothing seems to have been done to improve the audio; neither are there improvements or additions to the bonus features, which are sparse. One disappointment: ever since DVD issues of this movie have come accompanied with original trailers, I've been wanting one from 1956 that includes the title-card overlays, wiped on and off, of the the movie's excerpted images. That's still missing here. Either the folks at Paramount (who originally produced and released the film) or Universal (who now owns it) never finished their homework, or those original elements are lost to us forever. One feature missing from this Universal release that they delivered for "Rear Window" (1954)," "Vertigo" (1958), and "Psycho"): the inability to upload the film onto VuDu or your personal computer's iTunes or other media source, for convenient streaming sans disc.As for the movie itself: I consider it first-tier, second-drawer Hitchcock—not one of the director's masterpieces, but certainly one of the best pictures issuing from his extraordinary run at Paramount (1954–60): a notch above "The Trouble with Harry," several notches below "Rear Window." The cast is perfect, from the stars down to the smallest supporting players. In terms of suspense, there's a structural flaw in the storyline that the talented screenwriter John Michael Hayes could not overcome. No one else could have, either: the film's real climax is the Royal Albert Hall concert, which is one of Hitchcock's grandest set-pieces. Really, the movie should have ended there, save for the inconvenient fact that the American parents, played by James Stewart and Doris Day, must be reunited with their kidnapped child. That takes almost another 25 minutes to resolve, and, while necessary, causes a sag in tension. That said, if you don't own "TMWKTM," love Hitchcock, and do not own this movie, I highly recommended it at what (at this writing) is a bargain price for Blu-ray.

I like Alfred Hitchcock's attention to detail and ability to build suspense, and no one can deny his enormous influence on cinema as an art form. The Lodger from the 1920s, Rope (1948), Psycho, The Birds, and Frenzy (1972) are all either very good or great. But some of his movies from the mid-century Hollywood Codes era are completely unwatchable to me.Doris Day is absolutely insufferable as a 1950s shrew of a Karen, belting out her pop hit Que Sera for no apparent reason between constantly complaining about everything and being racist to Arabic people. Along with Jimmy Stewart, they proceed to act like entitled rude Americans all around Morocco, making jokes about how Stewart's character's patients' illnesses paid for their vacation and gifts. I hate these people, I hate them so much I'm indifferent to some plot to kidnap their son and take their money.And maybe that's Hitchcock's point - perhaps his pitch black sense of humor is to victimize obnoxious people like the married couple in The Man Who Knew Too Much or the tiresome white-bread family in 1943's Shadow of a Doubt. But I can't sit through it. Sorry.

For a mere mortal to write a review of any of Hitchcock's masterpieces feels embarrassingly presumptuous and inappropriate; suffice it to say that none of the above five stars was awarded idly.Nearly everything this man directed is worth a look. Yes, there are a few mis-firing “Hitch” pictures: the lackluster Topaz and the one-joke Trouble With Harry (oddly, the latter was one of the master's favorites) but this picture belongs to Div. I of the American period. It's a remake of one of his earliest black-and-white talkies, and features a classic Jimmy Stewart performance. (He plays opposite Doris Day, pictured.)Here, as so often, Stewart plays a man with a lot of surface confidence who is liable to fall to pieces (à la Vertigo) under mental strain. That is supplied in plenty as a child gets kidnapped and spies seem smarter than the local coppers in two different continents.Brilliant stuff, with one of the few (if not the only) on-screen appearances by Bernard Herrmann, the director's middle-to-late period composer (North by Northwest; Psycho). Oddly the most important part of the score is supplied not by Herrmann but by the Australian Arthur Benjamin (with lyrics by D.B. Wyndham-Lewis). The performance of this piece, the Storm Cloud Sonata, provides the basis for one of Hitchcock's most audacious, theatrical, funny and terrifying set-pieces.A must-see.

This film has a timely relevance in the terrorist atmosphere of 2017. Only the flippant ending jars with the carefully plotted story of a naive American family getting mixed up in a terrorist ring in 1950s Marrakesh. The two stars, James Stewart and Doris Day, bring surprising gravitas to their roles and the whole concoction does not seem as far fetched as it did in the fifties when it was made. The award-winning song Que Sera Sera has a crucial role in the plot development which only Hitchcock could manage so grippingly and so entertainingly. The DVD transfer was serviceable but not as vibrant as an old video version I have.

I am a fan of Hitchcock, but this film is complete rubbish. A silly plot combined with hammy acting from some characters made it nonsensical. If there had been a NO Star rating, that's what I would have given it. I could have better spent the time viewing it by going into my garden and watching the grass grow.I urge people not to waste their money buying this film.

Alfred Hitchcock made quite a few remakes of his earlier films- for Saboteur see North by Northwest for example- but in film title he only did it once. And that was this 1954 effort The Man who Knew too Much. James Stewart and Doris Day shine here as a wealthy travelling American family in Morocco whose son is kidnapped. Let the adventure begin. This is much more polished and mature than Hitchcock's original 30s film.The climax at London's Royal Albert Hall has been hailed as one of Hitchcock's greatest scenes, but as a Hitch devotee I found it dragged out- and does not have the same impact it perhaps had back in the 50s.A very good movie nonetheless- but Stewart would do far better for Hitchcock, with Vertigo and Rear Window.

I bought this as I am a Doris Day fan, so I am very pleased to have it in my collection. It is however a film that would have been filmed with much more realism today. This is meant to be a serious film and so does not us the Day comic timing or her singing voice. The Hitchcock tension is however maintained but sometimes with strain. The sights of London in the 50's are very nostalgic and full of the immediate post-war conditions. The story is well told and well acted.