THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Peter Lorre delights in such reptilian evil that you will be glad when the Nazis shoot him years later in Casablanca.
Abbott (Lorre's character) is so downright bad that he looks forward with cool engagement to murdering the child he has ordered kidnapped.
Why did he have the girl kidnapped? She is the daughter of a married couple who were passed a furtive handwritten note that the ambassador will be assassinated. By holding the girl hostage, Abbott believes he can persuade the couple to keep quiet.
Why does Abbott wish to assassinate the ambassador? That is never made clear, although the Inspector hints that it may be an attempt to start the next World War.
The first half of this movie--with a few exceptions--looks as if it were the film of a play. But once the bullets start chasing, we begin to get a sense that Hitchcock's magic was just beginning to flower. For example, inside a church meeting, where the sinister Nurse Agnes casts her spell, we get one of the director's first split action sequences as Agnes is on the phone in the foreground calling the child's mother with a demand, while to he left we see the bad guys marching the father down the stairs and into the full frame.
We also witness some characteristic dark comedy when the Clive character accompanies the girl's father, only to be tortured by a dentist, hypnotized by Nurse Agnes, arrested by London's finest, and other Hitchcockian shenanigans.
All these years later, the intensity of this movie retains its ferocity. Hitchcock's own remake may have been technically superior, but the sense of terror in the original wins out.
Abbott (Lorre's character) is so downright bad that he looks forward with cool engagement to murdering the child he has ordered kidnapped.
Why did he have the girl kidnapped? She is the daughter of a married couple who were passed a furtive handwritten note that the ambassador will be assassinated. By holding the girl hostage, Abbott believes he can persuade the couple to keep quiet.
Why does Abbott wish to assassinate the ambassador? That is never made clear, although the Inspector hints that it may be an attempt to start the next World War.
The first half of this movie--with a few exceptions--looks as if it were the film of a play. But once the bullets start chasing, we begin to get a sense that Hitchcock's magic was just beginning to flower. For example, inside a church meeting, where the sinister Nurse Agnes casts her spell, we get one of the director's first split action sequences as Agnes is on the phone in the foreground calling the child's mother with a demand, while to he left we see the bad guys marching the father down the stairs and into the full frame.
We also witness some characteristic dark comedy when the Clive character accompanies the girl's father, only to be tortured by a dentist, hypnotized by Nurse Agnes, arrested by London's finest, and other Hitchcockian shenanigans.
All these years later, the intensity of this movie retains its ferocity. Hitchcock's own remake may have been technically superior, but the sense of terror in the original wins out.
