The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 version)

[quietprofanity]

Should have been called "The Couple Who Knew Too Much," really. Also ... I had trouble hearing a lot of this film. I'm not sure if it hasn't been kept well or it was a bad DVD. Probably the latter. I only paid a buck for it ...

Comments

[bromius.livejournal.com]

I saw it on TCM over the summer and the sound was just fine. I'd suspect the DVD.
Isn't it amazing how modern the film feels? And wasn't Peter Lorre just great?

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

I may have to re-buy it, then. I was a little distracted from the film since I couldn't hear the dialogue very well, but I keep thinking about the film afterward.

I don't know if it makes me think of a modern movie, because it does so much that a modern movie wouldn't do. I really got the sense that the husband and wife were ordinary people in a bad situation and not super-people, which you see much less of now. They even had un-choreographed fights, which I really liked. The scene where everyone's just throwing chairs at each other is great. Also, seeing the father get shot ... wow.

But you can clearly see the talent coming through in Hitchcock's direction, even if he thinks he was an amateur.

And Peter Lorre was total win. Very entrancing. And he did all his dialogue phonetically -- he couldn't speak English at the time. Just wow.

[bromius.livejournal.com]

I suppose a better way to put it is this: you can clearly see the continuity between it and modern action films in its use of certain tropes: the sympathetic kidnapper bit and the rooftop scene at the end come to mind. But yes, you're right, I doubt we'll see much like that chair fight again any time soon.

I think a comparison between the '34 and '56 versions would be very interesting. The original has nothing like the taxidermists' scene, and the weird which is my favorite part of the remake.

Between this and M, you can see Lorre's real talent, before he slowly turned into a caricature of himself.