The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Alfred Hitchcock’s original British version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (he later remade it in Hollywood in 1956 with James Stewart and Doris Day) finally gets a Blu-ray release in its native land courtesy of Network. 

On holiday in Switzerland Bob Lawrence (Leslie HOUNDS OF ZAROFF Banks) and his wife Jill (Edna Best) end up in a world of intrigue when their friend Louis (Pierre Fresnay) is shot dead during a dinner dance. Louis is a secret agent, and he just has time to tell them about the secret compartment in his shaving brush and the message contained within, before he collapses elegantly to the floor in his white tie and tails. Lawrence finds the message but before he can contact the British consul as instructed his daughter is kidnapped, with a further message informing him that he will never see her again if he or his wife reveal what they know.

Back in London, it’s revealed that Louis’s message concerned a possible assassination plot. Unable to reveal what he knows to the British government, Lawrence decided to investigate himself.

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH isn’t as slick or accomplished as slightly later Hitchcock pieces like THE LADY VANISHES, but for a film made in 1934 it’s still very good and extremely watchable. The MacGuffin allows for some fine set pieces, including a scary dentist who ends up a victim of his own gas, a fight in a church hall muffled by the sound of an organ playing, the (almost) climax in the Albert Hall and the actual climax of the gun battle that must have been the equivalent of a Tarentino bloodbath for audiences of the day. Peter Lorre, in his first English speaking role (he would make the classic MAD LOVE the following year for director Karl Freund) is excellent and stands out as being by far the best actor here. In fact if MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH has any shortcomings its in the blandness of its leads, who have a nice bit of chemistry at the start but can’t quite manage to do the gear shift needed when the suspense gets upped.

Network’s transfer of MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is excellent, in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, and with a running time of 75 minutes. Because of rights issues there have apparently been a lot of bootleg copies of this one floating around but if you’re a fan then this is the version to get. Extras include a short introduction by Charles Barr, and a London Weekend documentary from 1972 in the ‘Aquarius’ TV series. It’s a 35 minute profile of Hitchcock with lots of behind-the-scenes filming of him making FRENZY, as well as an interview. 

Network are releasing Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH on Region B Blu-ray on 19th January 2015

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Forget the remake that sank Hammer Films (almost) for good in the 1970s, and the even more recent television adaptation - here’s the first and best version of Ethel Lina White’s novel The Wheel Spins, directed by none other than Alfred Hitchcock and featuring a plethora of stars, some of whom would pop up later to memorable effect in Ealing’s classic anthology DEAD OF NIGHT (1945).

It’s 1938, a time when the appropriate response of all good Englishmen to having been shot through the hand was “Oh my goodness I appear to have been shot through the hand.” Posh, privileged, but ultimately likeable Margaret Lockwood bids farewell to the chums with whom she’s spent her last holiday as a free woman and boards the trans-continental express bound for London and her imminent marriage.

        She befriends elderly Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty - slightly and pleasantly eccentric rather than going Full Margaret Rutherford) but when she wakes up from a deep sleep Miss Froy has disappeared. More worryingly, no-one on the train claims any knowledge of her ever having been there. Is Margaret going mad? Did that blow on the head before she got on the train have anything to do with it? Why did an Argentoesque-to-be killer strangle a rustic fellow playing the guitar in an earlier scene? Will chirpy Michael Redgrave continue to be a raving nuisance to Margaret, or will he turn out to be resourceful, daring and brave?

Made nearly 80 (!) years ago, THE LADY VANISHES still holds up remarkably well for the entirety of its 95 minute running time. The model work is charming and the back projection work is obvious (especially in this Blu-ray presentation) but the entire endeavour is such slickly made fun you just don’t care. The leads are engaging and don’t even appear for the first twenty minutes, allowing Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne’s endearing Chalmers and Caldicott centre stage for a bit of prologue-style shenanigans that has dated far better than a lot of the nauseating music hall posturing that used to pass as comic relief in those days. All this, and Redgrave even gives us his impersonation of Will Hay. Utterly marvellous and deserving of a place in the collection of any fan of British cinema.

         Network’s Blu-ray looks excellent. There are a few scratches on the print and one or two scenes where it looks a bit creaky, but overall the print looks remarkably fine for something this old. Extras are limited to a trailer and a four minute introduction by Charles Barr (complete with MCC tie). THE LADY VANISHES is being released as part of Network’s ‘The British Film’ collection and will probably be one of the best of them.

Network are releasing Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES on Region B Blu-ray on 19th January 2015

Spellbound (1945)

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 thriller deals with passion and intrigue in the sexy world of psychiatrists. What do you mean psychiatrists aren’t sexy? Ingrid Bergman’s one in this, and Gregory Peck is as well. Well, actually, he’s not, but for his first few minutes of screen time he does an excellent job of acting the way psychiatrists really do, taking a random half day off to go wandering about in the countryside and collapsing in a dead faint if he has to go near an operating theatre. 

      It all starts to go wrong when Ingrid draws a vagina on the tablecloth for him at teatime. Gregory gets all shaky and wobbly when she starts talking about swimming pools and before Bela Lugosi can leap in to say ‘Freud - you are avenged!’ Ingrid’s losing all control and coming to Gregory’s room at night. Unfortunately Gregory’s not quite in control of himself either, poor chap, and when he kisses her he starts to go all wobbly again. But it’s not her, it’s the dressing gown she’s wearing. “What’s wrong with it?” she asks. Anyone who has gone to medical school will know that the approved answer is “You’re still wearing it” and Gregory gives himself away by not coming up with the goods. It turns out he’s been impersonating Dr Edwardes, the new head of Green Manors, the institution in which all this is taking place, and, confused by Ingrid’s vagina, dressing gown, and with being in a Hitchcock movie in general, he promptly dashes off to a posh New York hotel in the hope of maybe working for Universal instead. “I always thought there was something unscientific about him,” says Leo G Carroll, probably because Gregory has been there a whole day and a half and has yet to produce one giant guinea pig, frog or tarantula capable of crushing a house which would guarantee him a job over at Universal in a few years' time. Leo’s another psychiatrist and ex-head of Green Manors because Gregory, or rather Doctor Edwardes, was intended to replace him. 

      Doctor Edwardes has, in fact, been murdered! Ingrid travels to New York where Gregory has been trying to remember who he is. She employs the tried and trusted psychoanalytic therapeutic techniques of forcing him to buy a railway ticket, exposing him to the very police who are searching for him, and rubbing herself up against him. A lot. Gregory’s terrified of black tracks on white lines. Dr Edwardes loved skiing. The two couldn’t be connected, could they? Oh yes they are, but we don’t get to find out about that until we’ve sat through a trippy Salvador Dali-designed dream sequence that really should have been in colour. There was a Dali exhibition on in London a few years ago & I was lucky enough to be able to see the painted backdrops used in this sequence and they really are a surrealistic delight to behold. A shame they weren’t preserved on the screen in all their glory. 

      Anyway, Gregory dreams all the answers in the kind of sequence that would keep Italian film directors in business way into the mid 1970s. The reason for his fear is also explained in the kind of flashback giallo lovers everywhere were to see again and again in the decades to come. I’m not going to give away any more of this as SPELLBOUND is definitely still worth watching for some great suspense sequences, some stylish camerawork and some absolutely beautiful and subtle noirish lighting, even if its treatment of the world of contemporary 1940s psychiatry is about as accurate as Robert Bloch’s depiction of that same world twenty years later. Twenty five years later of course, SPELLBOUND would have definitely been made in Italy. The title and poster would have approximated the French one shown above, with the villain swigging from a bottle J&B, Morricone doing the music instead of Rozsa, and Edwige Fenech in the Gregory Peck role. But who would have played Ingrid? Answers on a bloodstained postcard please...