A murder. A hidden clue. A kidnapping of a child to hush potential witnesses. Sounds great right? You bet it is. It's classic old school Alfred Hitchcock and it's one helluva lighting fast paced exciting thriller highlighted by a mesmerizing unforgettable performance from the ultimate baddie Peter Lorrre. X-Games skiing. Skeet shooting like a boss. Guys wear scarfs? Dinner and smoking. Sexy dancing. Tripwire. Deadly whisper. Linguistic communications failure. Every parent's worst nightmare. Disturbing phone call. G? Really bad teeth. I think the dentist is related to Dr. Giggles. Laughing gas overdose. Imposter. Peter Lorre is the motherfucker. Secret Society Singing? Hypothesizing? Every time Peter Lorre is on the screen I can't help but smile. Chair throwing can be extremely…

Film #13 of Project 30

”Tell her they may soon be leaving us. Leaving us for a long, long journey. How is it that Shakespeare says? "From which no traveler returns." Great poet.”

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s earlier works and a film that has all the defining elements of his universe: heart-stopping suspense, a bunch of unfortunate characters who accidentally get involve in a “nasty business”, unique camera work and editing and a plot full of twists. The Man Who Knew Too Much is an exciting and decent thriller from the Master of Suspense which never fails to entertain, however it must be said that it is miles behind Hitchcock’s more acclaimed works. The film’s plot looks a bit thin…

Commentary watch of Criterion's track featuring film historian Philip Kemp. A few interesting points:

- For Kemp, this is the birth of Alfred Hitchcock as an auteur. It's not the director's first thriller, but after it he made almost nothing else but thrillers (with the most notable exception being the screwball comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith), and Kemp points to several of Hitchcock's signatures that couldn't be seen before this movie and can be found in many places after it.

- The film also features the first in a series of what Kemp calls active, resourceful female heroines. Jill is an integral part of the conflict and its resolution, playing an active role in discovering the assassins and stopping their…

A Year of Film History Challenge
(watching a little bit of film history month by month, decade by decade)
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The abduction of their daughter has kept the Lawrences perpetually off balance since the day she went missing, and so it is also for the viewer of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, an early entry from the Master of Suspense that further distinguishes him as having a relationship with the audience already quite unlike anyone else from his era.

Hitchcock makes it easy to get sucked into following his story; the camera often rolls along fluidly with the action such that we're always wondering just where we're going, or a scene will start with a tight close-up…

It's an early Hitchcock, to be sure, and he's very clearly still a raw filmmaker who is figuring out his capabilities. At moments, his unique intuition for staging and building of suspense seem entirely missing, and much of this film falls flat, especially in the early going.

Two things rescue the film:
The first is the magnetic Peter Lorre. When Fritz Lang made the man with such sad eyes into Hans Beckert in M, it was a masterstroke that set in place a career of villainous typecasting for Lorre. Perhaps Lorre was wasted playing the villain for so much of his career, but on the other hand, he was so damn good at it. Here, he's playing the villain role…

My Personal Criterion Task: Film 39/100
Criterion Spine: #643

You could ask me what my favorite Hitchcock film is and I could probably come up with a very great film. Rope, perhaps. The Lady Vanishes. But then, I might also just be tempted to say, "Whichever one I'm watching." While there are certainly quality distinctions between films (especially the super eaarly stuff that no one watches anymore except super Hitchcock devotees and buyers of cheap, low quality DVD bundles), there's something about going into a Hitchcock film that is eminently comforting.

A family is thrown into disarray when a friend is shot. His dying words are a request to find something in his room and deliver it to the British…

Competent, to be sure, but more so in that "dutiful" way you'd expect from local theater actors instead of a longer-lasting cinematic sense. Very much an actor's movie, for the most part; while Lorre steals the show easily, Banks and Fresnay do a lovely job injecting energy into their roles. It isn't until later that Hitchcock starts really employing some neat, if simple, visual tricks; equating a blurred lense with the tears of a witness, a nice shot of a dentist's high ground over his patient in the chair, and a very classic "bomb under the table" informing of the audience bit that serves as the height of the film.

Ultimately, something I'd hardly recommend against, but it lacks the…