Plot: What’s it about?
Doctor Ben McKenna (James Stewart) and his wife Josephine “Jo” (Doris Day) are on vacation with their son, Hank (Christopher Olsen). Ben, a doctor in Indianapolis, Indiana was stationed over in Europe during World War II, and is currently attending a medical conference in Paris. He figures while in Europe, he might as well take his family on a little tour of the “area”. Immediately they meet a strange man who comes to their rescue on a bus while Hand has mistakenly taken off an Arab woman’s vail (a definite “No No”). Making almost instant friends, he is invited up to their hotel room for drinks later that night. Now all is well according to Ben, but JO immediately starts to doubt the man’s intentions, saying that he is dishonest and mysterious. Ben, of course, dismisses it and life goes on. After meeting an English couple in a restaurant, the two decide that things aren’t as bad as they seem (the English couple recognized JO from the English stage, hence the suspicion on Jo’s part). In what is one of the funniest parts of the movie, which is not a comedy, we see Ben try and abide by the social standards and eat his dinner according to the local custom. On top of all this, the chairs and tables are only a foot from the ground, and as we all know James Stewart was a rather tall, lanky individual.
All of this is fine and good, but what’s the plot? The mysterious man on the bus is come to be known by the name of Louis Bernard. Louis is dressed in the local customs, though French, he is chased and stabbed in the courtyard of a large group of people. The entire movie rests on the actions of this scene. Struggling to stay alive, Louis staggers over to Ben an mentions to him that a man, a statesman, will be killed in London. This, obviously, looks odd to the local authorities and the couples are immediately brought into the local police headquarters for questioning. It’s at this moment that the McKenna’s realize that things aren’t going to be OK. They realize that the police won’t buy their “real” story of being from the states and won’t believe that Ben is on vacation from his medical convention. Ben also gets a call from a stranger warning him of the danger that will happen if he does tell what Louis Bernard told him. At this moment, Ben realizes that his son has been kidnapped and in one of Doris Day’s best scenes, she is told of the possible fate of their child.
From there, the story moves into London and onto somewhat of a wild goose chase. We don’t know what exactly will happen, but we know that will involve the London Symphony Orchestra and something to do with Cymbals crashing (the opening credits tell us this). To tell much more would be to give things away, and one thing you don’t want to do is to give away the ending of a Hitchcock movie, that’s for sure. One thing a lot of people don’t know is that this movie is a remake of an older version by the same name, also directed by Hitchcock. It’s not often that you find a director who will remake his own work, but Hitchcock was no ordinary director. How many other directors do you know of that have their own theme song? Unlike Rear Window, this movie encompasses a great many sets, locations and miles. Is this good or bad? While Rear Window is considered to be one of Hitchcock’s finest, it’s like saying which one of Picasso’s paintings do you like the best. There really is no definitive answer. For fans of any Hitchcock movie, this is yet another that deserves to be owned.
Video: How does it look?
The Man Who Knew Too Much is presented in it’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. As with some of the other Hitchcock movies, this takes advantage of the anamorphic enhancement and looks a bit better than the others in the series that are full-frame only. The image looks good, clean and clear but not by today’s standards. Take a look at the trailer before you look at the actual film itself to see what I mean. The trailer is presented in a full-frame format that looks terrible. There are flashes of green and shades that go from light to dark, so it’s clear (no pun intended) to see how good this print now looks when you see what it came from. The colors seem a bit overexposed in some scenes, but let’s face it…Hitchcock used some pretty interesting methods to film his movies, so as good as this images looks, all I can say is thank you Universal!
Audio: How does it sound?
As with most every other Hitchcock release, the sound mix is presented in a Dolby Digital Mono mix, and as with the other releases, it sounds just fine. Now saying it “sounds just fine” isn’t exactly a measurement term that describes how a movie sounds, but only one of your (hopefully) 6 channels is being used whereas today the movies on DVD are using 6 or more speakers to convey the same level of information. The dialogue is fairly clean, but is broken up a few times, other than that, it’s a modest-sounding track. Of final note, Doris Day’s rendition of “Que Sera, Sera” sounds pretty darn good as well, but a little more can be said for the singing voice of her son!
Supplements: What are the extras?
Though not a full-fledged Collector’s Edition like Psycho, The Birds, Marnie or Rear Window, this disc has it’s share of extras. It was only after looking at the entire set that this was sort of Universal’s answer to the James Bond Collection, put out by MGM. While James Bond certainly has it’s place in cinema history, they don’t compare to anything that Hitchcock put out. This version comes with the usual array of Universal goodies, including a theatrical trailer and a re-release trailer. Hitchcock was known for his use of trailers in the sense that they were all done out of character (for instance we see James Stewart explaining the story to us as James Stewart, not as Ben McKenna). Also included are some cast BIOS (though only of Stewart, Day and Hitchcock), a DVD Newsletter subscription and some Production Notes. Also included are some production photographs that show the different advertising materials used in the production of this movie. Lastly, a 30+ minute documentary entitled “The Making of The Man Who Knew Too Much” is included and once again has interviews with Hitchcock’s daughter (who says “My father…” waaaaay too much) and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, who also penned Rear Window. There is some discussion as to how the movie would be made, or remade as it were, and who would work on the set. All in all, it’s not a bad disc, the extras are there and it’s nice to see all the Hitchcock movies getting the treatment that they well deserve.
