The man who knew too much (1956)

One of the five "Lost Hitchcocks" that were unavailable for 30 years, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is among the classic thrillers of the 1950's, and an example of the director's most polished work.

The film starts with a scene on a bus ride through Morocco, and supplies viewers with brilliantly compressed characterization and foreshadowing. A well-off American couple, Ben and Jo McKenna (James Stewart and Doris Day) and their only child Hank (Christopher Olsen) sit in the back of the bus as it speeds toward Marrakech. They've been on vacation for many days, throughout Europe and northern Africa, after a medical conference attended by Dr. McKenna, who is a surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital in Indianapolis. What starts the conflict in motion is the boy Hank, who wanders up the aisle and accidentally pulls off the face veil of a Muslim woman. As her angry husband confronts the McKennas, an English-speaking man intervenes. He clears up the confusion, and even suggests places for the McKennas to visit while they are in the exotic city. The scene ends, the viewers aware of the backgrounds of the major characters, as well as of the possibility for danger in this very foreign place.

Here's where the suspense starts. On the way to their hotel, Jo McKenna starts listing the personal information that her husband gave away during the conversation on the bus. The helpful stranger ("Good Samaritan," n'est-ce pa?) is Louis Bernard, played by Daniel Gelin, and he knows a lot about these Americans. To complicate matters more, the McKennas cross paths with an English couple, who are staying at the same hotel and who seem to be watching them. Enter another player, a weasel-faced stranger who knocks on the McKennas' door, supposedly by mistake. The stranger glimpses Bernard, though, inside the room. The scene quickly ends with Bernard excusing himself from dinner with the McKennas; the McKennas proceed to dinner only to become acquainted with the British couple - Mr. and Mrs. Drayton - whom Jo had thought was watching them. Further, Bernard shows up at the same restaurant, accompanied by a beautiful woman!

The action still rising, the McKennas and the Draytons have somehow struck up the friendship of fellow tourists in a distant land. In a public square, they watch acrobats and take in other wondrous sights (and Hitchcock makes his cameo as an onlooker). When the police chase a fugitive through the streets, Mrs. Drayton must restrain Hank from getting too close to the action. Dr. McKenna cannot help it, though, as a man who has been stabbed in the back collapses in the doctor's arms and whispers a last message. It's Louis Bernard, by the way, the makeup on his darkened face coming off in McKenna's hands. The McKennas are questioned by the police, and the doctor receives a phone call: if he values Hank's life, he will not reveal to the police what the dying man told him.

It's only here that the climax begins to build. Following the action from Morocco to England, the viewer hangs on through bits of comic relief and long periods of suspense. Certainly a distinguishing mark of superior films is that they take risks of character and plot, and this one is not afraid to change venues, to endanger the people we care the most about, to mix crisp dialogue with intelligent direction and editing.

Part of what is so engaging about the story is the camera work, of course, as this is a Hitchcock piece. Near the end there's an extended scene - 12 minutes, 124 shots - with absolutely no dialogue, only the music played in the great hall in London. The director does a masterful job of sustaining our interest, as Jo McKenna, and later her husband, watch the unfolding of the bizarre international intrigue. Composer Bernard Hermann is actually the maestro conducting the orchestra: just as his music serves so many other Hitchcock films so well, it literally reaches a crescendo of thrill in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

James Stewart is expert at tempering his seriousness with good humor. Tom Hanks has been appropriately compared to Stewart, as both have shown remarkable versatility in dramatic and comic acting. In the scene in the Marrakech restaurant, Stewart does a charming short shtick with his long legs, unable to fit them comfortably under the low table. Bumbling actions like these contrast so cleanly with his dead-serious moments, when he threatens a self-important police inspector, for example. Stewart is a bit too old for the part, but he plays the loving father and husband well, and no one of his generation was better at adapting his reactions to varying plot twists. Stewart was the consummate Everyman.

Doris Day is one of Hitchcock's famous heroines. Her Jo McKenna (or Josephine Conway, her professional name, replaced by her husband with the domestic "Jo") is sufficiently independent, although she has rather resentfully given up a singing career to be a wife and mother some 700 miles from New York City, where, she says sarcastically, the doctors are not starving. The Cincinnati native also lends her voice to the story, in endearing scenes with her boy, singing "Whatever Will Be" a couple of times, including a performance crucial to the resolution of the painful situation at the end.

It is interesting to compare thrillers of this era with modern ones. It's ironic that directors like Brian DePalma and Gus Van Sant pay homage to Hitchcock, but would never make entire films in the same tradition as the old master. Because modern audiences would not pay to see such pacing and intricacy, directors in the twenty-first century will continue to concoct similar stories, but with break-neck action and expanded levels of depravity. Only years of experience, in living as well as in movie-watching, reveal that age does not mean inferiority: Many of Hitchcock's films, as a lesson, are of much higher quality than most contemporary Hollywood products. THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is not as well-known as VERTIGO or PSYCHO or REAR WINDOW, but it is essential material for fans of film and social history.

The rating printed on the video is PG, for one murder and another attempted one. This movie is suitable for viewers nine and above, and would be available most readily in the video collections of public libraries. It could also be found in the classic sections of video rental locations, as well as through online sites that sell new or used videos.