Hitchcock's Harry

If you missed the revival of Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry (1955) you should not be forgiven. One of Hitchcock's least successful films at the box-office (which is saying a lot), it is also one of his directorial chef d'oeuvres. Seemingly ignored by most, we have it on reasonable authority that it is Hitchcock's favourite film. And well he might. Extremely austere in his films, this is Hitchcock's only comedie noir, a welcome relief to those disillusioned by his more recent films.

The trouble with Harry is that he is unwanted but inescapable. Everyone is caught up in Harry's larger-than-life presence. They bury him, exhume him, several times . . . they undress him, clean him, and put him in freshly pressed pants. They even trip over him. It's the funniest thing since Aunt Nell's skeleton. Predictable, sure, but the plot becomes so intricate and delicate that even a heart condition couldnt break it up. The only typical Hitcheockian theme is that of ordinary folks being caught up in a web they cannot fully comprehend. But their attitude becomes strictly ruthless and comically irreverent.

Edmund Cwenn (an old-timer who died in 1959) thinks he shot Harry, and falls in love with Mildred Natwick who has equal reasons for supposing she did it. John Forsythe didn't do it, but he'd do anything to fall in love with Shirley MacLaine (making, among other things, her screen debut). And he does. Harry's corpse thus brings happiness to all (we are invited to believe, but of course we dop't). This is, after all, part of Hitchcock's genius and his yen for bringing murder into the living-room where as he insists, it always was.

Paramount are to be congratulated on re-releasing a film with which they were never happy. Today, perhaps, we do not feel so uncomfortable about death. Anyhow; black humour is now a staple feature of many films. It never pays to underestimate Hitchcock; no one has yet learned the lesson of the scene in Torn Curtain where Paul Newman demonstrated the gruesome reality of killing.

Let us hope that Paramount will also re-release their other Hitchcock films—To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, and Vertigo—at the earliest opportunity. The rest will be up to you, dear readers.

However, in this particular instance we are equally among the autumnal yellows of New England. Harry's feet frame several shots, and we are delightedly welcome to drop in on some perverse and witty dialogue. For this we thank John Michael Hayes (To Catch a Thief). As for the beautiful colour photography, we thank Robert Burks, who has collaborated with Hitchcock on all his films since 1951 (Strangers on a Train) surely something of a record in the business.