She Treads Softly: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Man Who Knew Too Much

1956

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles

My Friend Amy's The Summer of Hitchcock

After having watched the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much numerous times, I didn't realize until yesterday that Hitchcock made two versions of this movie. The 1934 version just happened to be on TV yesterday while we were planning to watch this, the 1956 version, last night. While I am also a fan of many movies with Jimmy Stewart, readers of She Treads Softly will know that I am a major fan of Doris Day movies. Her acting range and versatility is shown exceptionally well in The Man Who Knew Too Much. The tension slowly builds through the whole movie. The Albert Hall sequence is incredible. It lasts 12 minutes without a single word of dialogue and yet the tension and emotion is palatable. You can just feel her agony. Doris Day's "Que Sera, Sera" won Jay Livingston and Ray Evans the Best Song Oscar. Bernard Herrmann, the composer of the score, can be seen conducting the orchestra during the Albert Hall sequence.

1 comment:

Heidenkind said...: I've never seen the 1934 version of the film. I think it's so strange that Hitchcock remade one of his own films, so I'd be curious to see it some day and how it compares to the Stewart version.; August 6, 2009 at 2:51 AM

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