Review of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) by Hugo S — 10 Sep 2009

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934).

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter LorreThis is the film that first gained international attention to Alfred Hitchcock. An athlete is friends with a married couple and is murdered during a dinner. He gives them the key to his room, where a piece of paper with informations about a murder plot written on it. Soon after that, their daughter is kidnapped and they cant tell anyone about the murder. So later on, following the clues the father goes on the trail of the men holding his child. Thats pretty much regular stuff and there is nothing special in the script but Hitch makes it extremely effective.Slow at first, The Man Who Knew Too Much gets better and better until the end of its 77 minutes. From the dentist scene, to the chair fight and the opera scene, the film has a lot of key scenes that make it very fun to watch.Peter Lorre, from Fritz Lang's M., is another reason this film is so enjoyable. He plays a fun and stylish bad guy. The performances are overall pretty good in the style of acting there was at the time. There are also a lot of touches of humor that work pretty well.The ending reminded me of Howard Hawks'sScarface, with the bad guys holding a siege inside of their house shooting at the cops trying to get in. Apparently it is based on the real life Sidney Street siege which took place on 3 January 1911 in London. It works as an action scene but Hitchcock emphazises on the drama with all those characters dying.I havent seen the remake that Hitchock directed himself some twenty years later but The Man Who Knew Too Much is definately one good movie from his early career.