Review of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) by Brett C — 14 May 2014

Review In A Nutshell:

The Man Who Knew Too Much's story is about a family on a vacation in Switzerland, and events unfold that leads to them accidentally being involved with an assassination plot and their daughter put in grave danger. The film's premise was quite interesting and definitely had the potential to be one of Hitchcock's best but once you get in the film, we start to find a lacking of interesting characters, particularly the film's villain, and the events that unfolded didn't create any sense of real tension, making some scenes feel dull and uninviting. Hitchcock couldn't create this sense of weight towards the man that is targeted for assassination; so I ended up just shrugging most of the time when the discussion about the assassination was brought up. There were a couple of moments that did have me excited for a bit and that's the scene that involved chairs being thrown, and the build up towards the assassination during the film's third act; but they don't take up a large amount of time of the film, and they came too rare in order for me to feel content with this film.

I had a problem with the way Hitchcock edited this film, as events just seem to transition suddenly, leaving me feeling disoriented of place and time. Along with this, the film's running time only goes for about 75 minutes, so the film's pacing was quite fast. I think if Hitchcock slowed the film down and let the film's writing be a bit more fleshed out then this would have been a much better experience.

The film's photography was dismissive. It couldn't create this sense of tension that the film sorely needed, and it lacked any style that is commonly found in the director's great films. The film's score wasn't all that memorable and at times felt a little forced in order to have us feel something during specific scenes, like maybe the composer knew the film needed an over exaggerated score in order to make the film remotely interesting.

The film's acting was a hit and miss for me. Peter Lorre as the film's antagonist was quite good in the role, but his acting ability couldn't carry the role enough to make it remotely interesting; the blame for this failure is on the film's writers. Leslie Banks was disappointing in the lead role, as he just seems to say the lines and do what he needs to do in order to move the film forward; there simply was no sense of passion found in his acting.

The Man Who Knew Too Much was a disappointment in almost all levels but thankfully, Hitchcock makes up for it with a thrilling and involving experience in his next film, The 39 Steps.