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A Movie A Week: THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) He looked exactly the same when he was alive, only he was vertical.
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Week.
[For those who new to the column, A Movie A Week is just that, a dedicated way for me explore vintage cinema every week. I’ll review a movie every Monday and each one will be connected to the one before it via a common thread, either an actor, director, writer, producer or some other crew member. Each film, pulled from my DVD shelf or recorded on the home DVR (I heart TCM) will be one I haven’t seen.]
There’s a wealth of possibilities to take a jab at the bossman with this week’s title, as was pointed out in last week’s talkback. But I will take the high road and focus only on the movie of the week, Alfred Hitchcock’s comedy THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.
Plus I write this while I’m smack dab in the middle of Fantastic Fest, seeing 5 movies a day and getting about as many hours worth of sleep a night. So, any tangents will only serve to steal precious sleep minutes from my deprived brain.
I’ve covered a lot of Hitchcock in my AMAD and AMAW columns and I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I haven’t even really dipped into his really early work outside of the odd film, like THE 39 STEPS, SHADOW OF A DOUBT or BLACKMAIL. And that’s with me having grown up with his more popular films like PSYCHO, THE BIRDS, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, VERTIGO, etc.
A lot of people make a big deal out of THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY because it’s Hitchcock doing comedy. I actually didn’t find it all that surprising. Almost all his films have a dark sense of humor to them anyway so this one feels like a movie just with that black humor.
The basic plot is comically over-convoluted, a device we’d see repeated some 53 years later when the Coens did THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Didn’t think I’d namecheck that one, did you? You were expecting WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S, right?
So yeah, the movie’s about a tight knit group of people in Smalltown, USA who have to deal with a dead body that pops up in the woods. Simple, but the complications pile on until everybody’s paranoid, confused and unsure.
I really liked the movie, but I agree with a lot of the criticism I heard before screening it. The film is very uneven, with a lot of the humor not quite connecting. But much like Hitchcock’s ROPE the movie starts going and doesn’t slow down until the end, so for every joke or moment that doesn’t work there’s another one ready to step up to bat.
Everybody is good in the movie, but some of the chemistry doesn’t work as well as others. For instance, Edmund Gwenn plays an older sailor who is illegally hunting rabbits at the start of the film. He thinks one of his stray bullets killed the poor schmuck lying toes up on the forest floor. Gwenn is really good in the movie, but for some reason his scenes with John Forsythe’s leading man fell flat to me.
Forsythe plays a struggling artist who also happens to be incredibly charming, suave and confident. He’s great in the movie, especially when paired with Shirley MacLaine, but while he and Gwenn are both good in their scenes togther there’s something that just doesn’t quite connect.
That’s not true of his scenes with MacLaine, playing a single mother (or so it appears), and her young son (Jerry Mathers… yes, The Beaver!) which are hilarious… especially when he discovers Mathers’ grasp of time is… different to say the least.
Speaking of MacLaine this is the film that gets to put “And Introducing Shirley MacLaine” in the credits. Good lord, people. The more early MacLaine I watch, the more infatuated I get with her at that time and place.
It’s no wonder she became a huge star. She’s so perfectly quirky, pixie-ish and full of cuteness energy. She radiates adorability.
When the humor works in this film it works because of just how dry and matter-of-fact it is. When Mildred Natwick’s Miss Ivy Gravely stumbles upon the distraught Edmund Gwenn trying to hide the body of the man he’s sure he accidentally shot she just kind of looks at it and talks about it like it was a parcel delivered by the postman. “Is that your body?”
That seems to be the immediate reaction of everybody in the town, actually. And they all seem to pop up at the exact wrong time for Gwenn who just wants to get the body buried. It becomes such a constant stream of townsfolk walking this usually empty trail that Gwenn even falls asleep while waiting for the coast to be clear for him to hide his crime.
But is it his crime? We come to find out he may not have killed poor Harry. MacLaine has a motive, but seems to be brutally honest when confronted about it… so maybe it’s not her afterall… Even the old maid-ish Natwick might be complicit in the death of poor Harry.
The threat of the movie resides in the stick-in-the-mud town sheriff/auto-mechanic played by Royal Dano. Now, Royal Dano has always been an old man to me. When I came of age he was making memorable appearances in movies like KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (the clowns take his dog at the beginning), SPACED INVADERS, HOUSE 2 (co-starring Bill Maher. No shit! Look it up!), SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and appearances on AMAZING STORIES.
I didn’t recognize him when he first popped up in this movie, but the second he spoke I placed the voice immediately. It’s odd to finally visit these older films and find surprises like that, great early work from some of my childhood favorite character actors.
An interesting side note, this was the first time Hitchcock teamed with composer Bernard Herrmann who would go on to compose 7 films for Hitch, including his iconic Psycho score. Herrmann’s work here is actually very strong and was Hitch’s favorite of any of his films.
Longtime Hitchcock cinematographer Robert Burks shot this film and the Technicolor is that perfect Hitchcock hue. You know what I’m talking about? I can spot a Hitchcock color movie a mile away just in the way Burks shot it. The colors seem to bounce off the screen in a different way than with other Technicolor features. Whether it’s THE BIRDS or NORTH BY NORTHWEST or REAR WINDOW, you can tell it’s a Hitch/Burks collaboration just from a few seconds of footage.
Final Thoughts: The romance of the film works, at least it does for me because I was already smitten with MacLaine and Forsythe does a great job holding the movie together. You can tell Hitch was having some fun with in this different genre, using it as an excuse to slide some really dark humor in under the censors’ radar. For every one thing that doesn’t work or doesn’t work completely in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY there are two things that do. And I get the feeling this will be one of those that grows fonder in the memory as well. I’m sure I’ll be revisiting this one in the coming years.
Also, you should check out the original theatrical trailer for this movie. I love Hitchcock trailers!
This week sees the arrival of October and along with it the return of Horror Movie A Day! Here’s the first 7 titles:
Thursday, October 1st: NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT
Friday, October 2nd: BEWARE! CHILDREN AT PLAY (1989)
Saturday, October 3rd: CAMERON’S CLOSET (1988)
Sunday, October 4th: AFRAID OF THE DARK (1991)
Monday, October 5th: THE PIT (1981)
Tuesday, October 6th: BRAIN DAMAGE (1988)
Wednesday, October 7th: BRAIN DEAD (1990)
As you can see a variety of genre titles. I’m looking forward to jumping back into the daily grind for October and digging up some (hopefully) fun horror flicks! See you folks in a few days for the very first one, the Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee UK horror flick NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
Previous AMAWs:
April 27th: How To Marry a Millionaire
May 4th: Phone Call From A Stranger
May 11th: Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
May 18th: Too Late The Hero
May 25th: The Best Man
June 1st: The Catered Affair
June 8th: The Quiet Man
June 15th: Rio Grande
June 22nd: The Getaway
June 29th: The Mackintosh Man
July 6th: The Long, Hot Summer
July 13th: Journey Into Fear
July 20th: How The West Was Won
August 3rd: Call Northside 777
August 14th: Rope
August 17th: The Seventh Cross
August 24th: Track of the Cat
August 31st: The Public Enemy
September 7th: The Mayor of Hell
September 14th: Midnight Mary
September 21st: Around The World In 80 Days
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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LET THE SILLINESS BEGIN!
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He has the writing skills of a blindfolded rhesus monkey with Multiple Sclerosis...And he spends his "Amazon" Kickbacks on Burger King & Gay Bear Porn
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Sep 28, 2009 6:29:55 PM CDT
These talkbacks would be bigger if you did movies post-1959
by takingscorpioscalls
I assure you things got more interesting in the decades afterward and we'd all be happy to be discussing movies that most of us have actually seen before.
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[he says, right before being a stickler for details] but The Trouble With Harry and all those other Hitch films you mentioned were actually filmed in VistaVision, not technicolour. I, too, LOVE the look of VistaVision movies. It even made fairly average films, like Powell and Pressburger's Ill Met By Moonlight, look so damn sumptuous that you totally forget the movie's flaws and just became hypnotised by the prettiness of the picture on the screen before you. It's sad that no one's tried- or at least successfully tried- to shoot a newer movie in Technicolour or VistaVision. With all the money thrown at movies these days with the hope that some of it sticks, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to shoot at least ONE movie with this technique. The closest I can think of is Todd Haynes' homage to Douglas Sirk, Far From Heaven, but even that didn't quite nail it. If it's a question of no longer having the technology...there must be a VistaVision or Technicolour camera lying around gathering dust somewhere, right?
Anyway, not to be a douche [he says, right before being a douche], I didn't expect you to like this one so much, as I don't think you're the biggest fan of "dry" British humour. Which is fair enough. Granted, as a comedy, TTWH is hardly up to Eeling's standards, and as a murder mystery it's not exactly Rebecca (or Memento, to step back into the present...ish); but I quite enjoy it, bad jokes and all. I also like the weird, trans-Atlantic vibe...it kinda reminds me of Lubitsch movies, where it seemed as if America and Europe are just a few miles away from each other. The guy playing the artist lead is a tad lame, I'll give you that.
Actually, it's been awhile since I last caught this...so I probably agree with you more than I remember. Especially about Shirley MaClaine! I love pixie chicks (pixie sticks are kinda blergh, though). For a debut role, she seemed really damn confident in this, no?
*must fight sudden urge to watch a certain scene in Being There over and over again* -
I find the bigger talkbacks to be full of inane comments made by Neanderthals. Like myself.
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Have you noticed how the rest of the site's devoted to movies so sparkly and new that they haven't even come out yet? I recommend you stick to those talkbacks.
It's not being atavistic to acknowledge that film has a history. Hell, I can't be the only one having trouble coming up with a Top 10 list of favourite movies I've seen this year (last year I could have had a top 50 list), so trying to get your head around old movies is pretty much the only way a real film fan can stay well-nourished with a healthy red glow in their cheeks. Like with pretty much anything that's good for you, watching old movies takes TRAINING to learn how to enjoy them. Watch a couple of movies made before 1959 every week, however, and you'll find yourself another convert. -
I find the bigger talkbacks to be full of inane comments made by Neanderthals. Like myself.
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And it says "color by Technicolor" over and over again, so I guess I just totally showed myself up in front of all my internet peers.
Sory, Q! -
The very fact that you're actively going about discovering films you've never seen and sharing that with folks, nevermind the naysayers that have apparently spent every waking moment of their lives watching film, lends credence to the notion that you are, in fact, a cinephile.
Yes, that was a long fucking sentence, but damn it, somebody had to say it.
Bring on the HMAD for October, the king of all months. I'll try to keep up, but dammit man, I've got my own Halloween traditions to adhere to. -
Why is it that there are always idiots lamenting Quint's decisions to watch older films? That's kinda the beauty of film, you get a glimpse of the past. Sometimes you just look farther back.
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This is actually one of my favorite Hitchcock films. Very very funny and tight script with great character building all around. I love how everyone in the film couldn't care less that Harry is dead but rather that his dead body is just so inconvenient.
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This is one of my favorite movies with some great double entendre. It was unavailable for years, because Hitch bought the rights to the film. Best line
Forsythe: "Do you realize that you'll be the first man to, uh, cross her threshold?"
Gwenn: "Oh well, it's not too late, you know. She's a well preserved woman…yes, very well preserved, and preserves have to be opened someday!" -
If you want to see Shirley MacLaine at her absolute pinnacle of attractiveness watch "What a Way to Go." It's not the best movie ever but it also has Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum and Paul Newman in it. So at least it's interesting and watchable.
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in the '80s, do yourself a favor, and don't
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That movie scared the shit out of me when I saw it on some UHF station as a kid. I'm sure that its a sack of crap in retrospect.
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Hey the new trailer is out for the Nightmare on Elm St remake..check it out here...
http://theawesomer.com/nightmare-on-elm-street/19642/ -
Folks, if you think movies are only worth watching if they come from a certain era, then you probably aren't very good at watching movies. No shame in it; not everyone can read well, either. Or manage not to shit themselves when they get drunk. It's not necessarily one of Hitchcock's better movies, but I love "The Trouble With Harry."
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The entire point of this is to find unknown, unappreciated movies. Fuck this "This is to old" shit.
Film history is over 100-years-old folks. If you want to act like a 15-year-old girl who whines that Terminator or Godfather is too old, go ahold. The rest of us adults can handle seeing and talking about something that came out before Star Wars. -
Of course I am also a Hitchcock fanatic! Gotta love people who are terrified of watching any movies that are made before 1959. If that is the case you know NOTHING about film! I would direct you to Martin Scosese's Doc on American Film.
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The first time I saw it was actually with a large audience in a theater and it killed.
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I agree about forsythe and the old man, a little off, but Maclaine was phenonenal. Also- thank you for the HMAD list, the vast majority are not available on netflix, which means that it is easier to keep pace with ya ;)
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up at mania
http://www.mania.com/nightmare-elm-street-teaser_article_117889.html -
Holy crap, that movie is fantastic! Humphrey Bogart is incredible, probably the most charismatic I've ever seen him. The supporting actors are great, and you don't appreciate Mary Astor's performance until the very end. Terrific music, great pacing... I'd go several times to see this in the theaters if it came out today. We can't make mainstream movies like this anymore - no slow establishment, just GO.
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Finally caught this on tcm last and it was an enjoyable experience I myself was immediately smitten with maclain and the scene with forsythe telling her that he wants to paint her nude is nearly smoldering especially for that era. And seeing "kris kringle" talking in a sexually suggestive way is too damn funny. Who else but hitchcock could do this kind of film.
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Is there such a thing? I really enjoy the man - but he was so prolific, I've maybe seen 50% of his work. I know some of his films fall into the mediocre category, but is there such a thing as a bad Hitchcock film? He really seems to be the most consistent quality filmmaker...
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Nothing, he kicks ass. http://sickpicks.blogspot.com/
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That's my bread and butter man.
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I mean he's a complete and total invalid, and you have to care for him. You have to make sure he eats three meals a day by blending all his food up and pouring it down his mouth, making sure he swallows by massaging his throat. You also have to exercise his whole body by rotating his arms, legs, torso, neck, head, feet, hands, fingers and toes, making sure you don't over extend his musculature or break any of his bones. You also have to clean his sweat, pee, poo and drool constantly. Basically, you will spend the rest of your life taking complete care of his invalid body and...........ahhhh I'm just fuckin' with you, he's dead.
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There is definitely such a thing as bad Hitchcock. It's called "Jamaica Inn," and it will make you pay for being awake. Also, some of his silent movies are tough going. Many people also would put "Under Capricorn" and "Topaz" on that list, but really, that's about it. Otherwise, it's a question of whether it's good, great, or awesome.
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So agree with you Quint on Maclaine. I've been madly in love with the young Maclaine since i first saw one of my now top 10 films, Billy Wilder's The Apartment. After The Trouble With Harry, Two For The Seesaw, My Geisha, The Matchmaker etc it's a total infatuation. And to add to the disputing of the idiot that said things got more interesting in the decades after 1959 - why don't you watch a few pre-59 movies. Go watch A Matter Of Life & Death, His Girl Friday, Ill Met By Moonlight, The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, The Killers, Laura, Gilda, The Philadelphia Story, Roman Holiday, The Lady Eve, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sullivan's Travels, The Devil & Miss Jones, The Third Man, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, The Great Dictator, Modern Times, The Lady Vanishes, Sunset Blvd, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Wizard Of Oz, Dumbo etc, etc, etc and if you can't find anything to like in that lot then know there's something very very wrong with you.
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id never say its crap (its hitchcock after all) but held up against hitch's other films a bit boring. ive seen it twice now and really have no desire to revisit it.
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Sep 29, 2009 7:08:41 AM CDT
Trouble W/Harry is one of my least-fave Hitchcock flicks
by nasty in the pasty
MacLaine was super-hot back then, and Herrmann's score is delightful, but I just didn't find the movie to be that funny. Along with Family Plot, this is one of my least-watched Hitchcock films.
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Sam and the Captain's dialogue and chemistry is some of the best I've seen between two actors. It's what makes me watch this film every time it's on.
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Yeah, Hitchcock always liked to put obscure sexual references in his movies.
Regarding this one(and i got this from somewhere else) when Maclaine and Forsythe are talking about doing the dishes and nobody wants to do it alone, they're talking about...well you get the point. -
Remember when AMC was commercial free? AMC and the FOX one are constantly humming on my DVR/DVD burner. God bless 'em!!!
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Watched this not too long ago. Nothing paticularly special, but it is wrying amusing. I must finish watching my Hitch boxset!
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Not knowing what to expect from Hitchcock I was waiting for it to turn sinister, and about a quarter of the way through I realized that it just wasn't going to happen. So I watched wondering what the hell is going on. Yeah, it's weird to see all these "old" stars in young roles. MacLaine was tomboyishly hot years ago before she went into old woman crystal using crazy mode. Forsythe was an old man in this except he had black hair. Royal Dano was the same. He's always played broken down old men. I think people seeing this today for the first time will not be able to suspend disbelief. In the time of CSI and DNA what happened in the end just would not happen. It was fun, and fun waiting for Hitch to show up, but this is in no way what I expected.
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see THEM!
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I bought the DVD and for the life of me, I can't find Hitchcock's cameo appearance. I read he's in there, but somehow I missed him. Has anyone else seen him in this film?
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I spotted him. Do you want me to spoil it for you?
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When the millionaire offers to buy the paintings his art critic friend, whose face is half hidden by paintings and the group of people is Hitch.
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made me understand why MacLaine was considered attractive at one time. She does have a pixieish cute/sexy quality.
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Under Capricorn certainly tested my appreciation for Hitchcock, even with Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten."... we'd all be happy to be discussing movies that most of us have actually seen before"The point, I believe, is, if one has not seen the film, to watch it. Since Quint has gone to the movie-a-week it makes it a lot easier to track down upcomming titles before he posts about them. Instead of complaining you've never seen it, why not add it to your netflix queue, or visit your local video store. Sure, some titles may be tricky to find, but for a Hitchcock film you should have no trouble (you are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock, right; you have at least heard of him?).
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her character isn't into all that emotion crap. She's very logical and reasonable. Just like a man. I'd almost say Roddenberry got the idea of Vulcans from her, I mean look at the hair.
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gotta see _The Apartment_. Bonus: Fred MacMurray playing the bad guy!
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All the damn TIME on TCM. I used to see nothing but black and white but i realized even the very best ones were still stunted and formulaic with very rare exceptions. Even the fucking SILENT era movies were more creative than the smiling and dancing horesshit of the studio system heyday, and the 60s, 70s, 80s were the peak. Oh and who the fuck said anything abuot sparkly new movies? Stick to 60s-80s and we'll ALL be much happier fuggers. Basically what i'm sayin is if the 30s and 40s were humans i would have them and their families, and friends and relatives brutally tortured and then executed in MASS!!!!!!!!!!!!! the 50s i would just rough up and throw in a dumpster.
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i wouldn't mind if it was equally distributed all around but Quint seems to have a fetish for gray men in hats. Sure there's a bone of the other things thrown out once ina while but seriously let's move AWAY from Murder Inc.
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You are right, though, o salty one. He never was able to get the balance right when he attempted them. His movies are humorous (Forgive me, but I laugh at Rear Window more than any sane person should) I feel if he had tried more he would have made a classic of the genre.
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Sep 29, 2009 6:43:30 PM CDT
The trouble with Harry is his anus is getting routinely shredded
by takingscorpioscalls
by his unbounded craving for cock.
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Well that and Lost. If I lose them, I'm switching to DVDs and box sets of tv shows.
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The two are interchangable. Still waiting for them to play mother/daughter or grandmother/granddaughter.
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They've never aired it. I think it deserves a whole night of its own. Okay enough of me ranting.
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"Film" and "Noir". Fucking awesome movement that came out in the 40s and 50s.
Plus Hitchcock, Anthony Mann, Ford, Hawks, Cukor, Welles, etc. All their best work was in the 30s, 40s and 50s.
There is a reason it is called the Golden Age of Film. -
Seriously. I don't believe there is a less formulaic romantic comedy/drama. Great cynical film.
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Out of the Past, The Asphalt Jungle, Duck Soup, Vertigo, and Sunset Boulevard
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Grammaton Cleric Binks--YES! It won't be a spoiler. How many minutes into the film does Hitch appear or what is the context/scene? Thanks.
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it's the last 15 minutes of the movie when Forsythe sell his paintings.
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