Review of Family Plot (1976) by Tiberio S — 12 Sep 2017

Family Plot is a nice double-entendre for the plot against the Shoebridge family, whose mystery begins at the family's grave plot, a dishonest representation of their fate. Edward Shoebridge is a missing body, and it's believed he's not dead. A rich woman who is his aunt hires a psychic to track him down. The psychic uses her special powers - taxi driver/actor boyfriend George (Bruce Dern) - to track down Shoebridge so they can get a $10,000 reward.

One classic Hitchcock device is identity crisis, people getting in trouble for not being who they are. It happens on every level, heroes and villains alike. Edward is really Arthur Adamson, a corrupt, kidnapping jeweler who erased his previous identity. He enjoys asking his girlfriend to play a tall blonde for crime jobs, something Hitchcock himself might like. Even in his store he won't allow them to acknowledge themselves as a couple, they role play store manager and customer almost pointlessly - it couldn't possibly matter to these customers that they're together. But Blanche and George are a mirror image - she plays a phony psychic, he plays anything she asks him to (sex roles reversed from previous couple), and as a couple, they are to appear as driver and client. The film acts as a couples faceoff, perhaps a third entendre as either of these two couples' eventual marriage will make them a family. The main protagonist is a blonde female, the accomplice antagonist is a dark-haired female; the accomplice protagonist is a blonde male, the main antagonist is a dark-haired male.

The brakeless winding downhill drive may be the one major action/suspense sequence that Hitchcock planned to wow us with, but by 1976, these poor visual effects are no longer an excuse, and it seemed he was more interested in the comfort of an easier filming space than with getting the most convincing images. It is an annoying abomination to watch this part, Blanche helplessly flailing about, clinging on uselessly to George, bodies reacting with no inertia to these ridiculous turns that'd have them flipped over long ago. The comedy is too slapstick - her body position changes radically each time we cut back to the interior, one second wrapping herself in his tie, the next her legs kicking upside down. In this dire of a situation, one might think to crash the car, but he acts as stupid as she does, and it all looks really bad.

Hitchcock definitely looks to be running out of gas by his final entry, no grand staging, effects, or cinematography to transcend us. His penultimate Frenzy really seemed to be a last desperate inhale, recovering from the long exhale that was fading magic in Marnie to Topaz, in which he invoked some of his rawest personality with shrewd images set against satirical macabre. In Family Plot, he relies on fun characters acted well enough in an interesting and slightly ironic situation. Ernest Lehman delivers a decent script that creates enough mystery to make us want to know what the hell is going on here, to some degree. Some of the minor details get a little jumbled and lost, but the gist is good enough to keep me engaged. I like how Maloney is used to keep the tension distracted from our heroes and their primary target; Edward/Adamson doesn't have much more to throw in their way. Maloney's literal fall from the story is so ridiculous that it earns a good laugh.