Review of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) by Matt C — 09 Mar 2017

There are surprising things here for the time. The way he gases his opponent to sleep. The inner circle society that hypnotized the uncle. Vince McMahon must've gotten his ideas for hardcore chair brawls from an amazingly gritty sequence in this film.

Hitchcock's camera movements are always interesting, eye-opening. There's a shot that moves through the church parish as the tabernacle leader points out there are strangers present. I like the idea of crime hiding behind a church, suppression of truth through faith - can't convince a faithful cop there's any wrongdoing here.

There's funny quirks, like the old lady with the shorts and man legs. Another old lady who holds our main character at gun point. I love the cylindrical door in Lorre's office.

The opening is lively, full of fluid dynamics between the family and their friend, the eventual assassinated target, as well as the community around them at the ski resort, some who are conspirators.

The Royal Albert Hall assassination setup is one of the greatest I've ever seen, and it's had a fair share of copies. The objective for the conspirators is to strike at the loudest note of the symphony, and for the family or police to catch the assassin. The mother is on the lookout, but who is she to reveal or stop a conspiracy like this? The suspense is played between the music's various crescendos - which note is it? - and from her point of view, tracing around the auditorium for the potential killer. She has an idea of a man in the darkness who might be it, but what can she do? Her hopelessness turns to her tears and POV going out of focus, a stroke of genius. There's no return from this, she can't do anything. We see various cutaways to the instruments that will play over the shot, but there's one instrument that will change everything -- the helpless mother's scream. Inevitably, the shot goes off and catches its target, but later it's revealed her scream threw off the shooter's full target and only caught his shoulder, a terrific twist.

The buildup to the showdown between police and conspirators has a great exterior cutaway with a blowing bag through the empty street - this whole section is blocked off for public safety - a beautiful calm before storm effect. And for good reason. These are all assassins, and when the fires start ringing, the situation becomes volatile.

This whole setup between the police and conspirators is brilliant. We see various setups the police are engaged in to get in position to fire back at the conspirators. There's concern over friendly fire hitting the husband or daughter. There's always something happening to advance or heighten the situation, it's not just a lot of random firing. Peter Lorre is practically suicidal, he intends to fire till death and put anyone else in harms way. He's not cold at all, he feels for the people he's lost, but he's driven by "the cause." They eventually catch him hiding behind the door - lucky shot, imagine if it were the wrong person?!