The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

This is an early effort from Alfred Hitchcock when he was an up and coming British Director usually working for British International Films. He would later be discovered by David O. Selznick, who lured him to America where he worked for the next twenty years on Hollywood pictures. Most of his acclaimed work was during that period. Films like The Man Who Knew Too Much show Hitchcock’s early talent and his beginnings of developing his own highly personal style.

These films are more of the "smoking gun in the parlor” variety than the psychological thrillers that brought him acclamation from approving multitudes. They are very British in character, yet even here, Hitchcock is able to slip in his trademark humor and slyly pokes fun at some of the very staid institutions he is depicting.

In The Man Who Knew Too Much, a young British couple (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) vacationing in Switzerland makes acquaintance of a nice young man who turns out to be a spy.

This of course is unknown to them but the young man is felled by a convenient shot from the wings and the husband hears his last words: "... in the handle of my shaving brush." Beating the authorities to the slain man's hotel room he unscrews the handle and retrieves a written note. So much for microfilm or secret electronic bugs transmitting information!

The message is about a boding assassination of a head of state, scheduled to take place in London in the near future. Back in London, the couple is waiting fearfully having had their teen-aged daughter kidnapped and told not to talk "or else." The kidnap cabal is headed by Peter Lorre, one of the finest character actors ever to tread the boards. Lorre is one of the oiliest, yet attractive villains the screen ever produced.

The camera work demonstrates Hitchcock's mastery of visual story telling, learned during his tenure in silent movies, where everything had to be visually depicted. I have seen a few of Hitchcock's silents and they are still pretty watchable due to his ability to use the camera, while most other silents are not. Hitchcock, in my view, rivals Fritz Lang for ability to use architecture and other features to visually drive the story forward. You can also see the overhead and crane shots that became trademarks of Hitch's style.

Already from the opening the film has had several incongruous happenings that do not make much sense yet Hitchcock paces the film relentlessly so the viewer is not bothered as there is always something unfolding.

I particularly enjoyed the sequence in the seedy church of the sun worshippers, the hideout of the foreign cabal. The two undercover detectives are singing messages to each other in accompaniment to a hymn. Hitchcock is obviously poking fun at religion here, but it seems well within the bounds of taste. Similarly, he shows the dentist who serves as a front for the spies and gives the viewer a taste of being in the chair at the hands of that scary fellow.

I like the huge gun battle that takes place in London, with the revolvers shooting plumes of black powder smoke until the scene is almost obscured. Finally the police obtain some rifles from a "gunshop nearby" in London? Then they blaze away at Lorre and company with black smoke belching Lee Enfields. You will be interested to note that the British police did not believe in bringing them back alive. They blazed away and stormed the stronghold until all were silent, and apparently the supervision was all in accord with that.

The DVD is by a public domain publisher. The film is dark from age and has not been restored but is watchable and the sound is intelligible. The film is black and white and lasts 72 minutes.

Recommended for Hitchcock's many fans and fans of early British cinema.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV