Talking To The Screen

The Man Who Knew Too Much :1956

I didn't realize when watching this that it was a remake of a 1934 movie of the 
same name.  Only after reading more about it did I find out that both versions 
were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Yet another reason Hitch is so kick-ass.  
Who else would remake their own film twenty years later?

The story is a Hitchcock favorite.  The innocent is whisked into a sinister 
world where no one can be trusted.  This time, the innocent is played by James 
Stewart.  Stewart is one of my favorite actors of the era.  I can't quite put my 
finger on why, I think it has something to do with the sympathy he can evoke 
just by raising his eyebrows while holding his hat between two clenched fists.

The McKenna family is traveling in Morocco where they are befriended by Louis 
Bernard, a man who slowly becomes more and more mysterious, until dying in an 
open air plaza.  Bernard spends his last breath to reveal an assassination plot 
to Dr. Ben McKenna.  The conspirators will stop at nothing to keep their plan 
going according to plan.   

Stop at nothing may be a slight exaggeration.  One omission struck me as fairly 
odd. There are no attempts made on Dr. McKenna's life.

It's been a couple of years since I last saw 'North by Northwest', but I'd love 
to see the similarities of plot and suspense tactics between these two movies.  
There's really no comparison between this version of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' 
and 'The 39 Steps' (the last Hitchcock film I watched).  The tension and use of 
music that makes this film so wonderful is replaced by a mildly comedic string 
of errors in 'The 39 Steps'.  Call me old-fashioned, but I want to be kept on 
the edge of my seat in a suspense flick, not lightly laughing at the misfortune 
of the protagonist.  The laughs in 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' I found to be 
mostly elicited by James Stewart's portrayal of an awkward American in Morocco.

It would be too confused by fog of memory for me to pick between 'North by 
Northwest' and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'.  Suffice to say, both of these are 
canonical examples of the tension and suspense the Hitchcock is known for.