Review of To Catch a Thief (1955) by David E — 09 Jun 2013

Hitchcock himself called To Catch a Thief a "lightweight story" and it could be said he treats the material as so. The story is pretty simple and straight forward, Cary Grant is John Robie, a retired cat burglar and former hero of the French Resistance. After a string of robberies, the police believe Robie to have come out of retirement and eventually force him out on the lam. Robie then conspires with the insurance agent of many high priced jewels (H.H. Huston) who provides him with information regarding high class, and also high risk, clients. Atop the list are Jessie Stevens (Jesse Royce Landis) and her daughter Francie (Grace Kelly), who Robie meets at luxury hotel on the French Riviera. Robie wines, dines, and lies to the ladies; telling them he is an American industrialist, but Francie soon figures out he is lying. Even though the film is 58 years old, I won't spoil the twists and turns at the end.

The film plays out like three different movies rolled into one: the first part is a man on the run story, the second part is the love story, and the third part is the suspense story. Certain Hitchcock trademarks, though not always his best, appear; namely gorgeous on location shots of the French Riviera intercut with rear projected sound stage work. I understand that Hitchcock did that to control every aspect of the frame, but I still find it distracting in certain scenes. The cat burglar sequences are shot well, but not in such a way that I expect from Hitchcock, so, due to who he is, the work is somewhat disappointing. The film works best as a love story between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, and, of course, the best scene involves fireworks between the two. Hitchcock is the ultimate technician whose pictures are always entertaining and To Catch a Thief is just that, all of my disappointment in the film is rooted in my own expectations of what Hitchcock would do with a cat burglar story.