The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

The original version of this film so appealed to Hitchcock that he felt it could survive a remake. He also thought he could improve upon it, which is still in debate. Other than switching the locale from Switzerland to Morocco and adding a musical number (the only one to appear in a Hitchcock film), the director kept the original story fairly much intact and granted the tale a much more lavish production than his 1935 film had received. Further intensifying this topflight thriller are the performances of Stewart and songbird Day, who play two sweetly innocent and unsuspecting tourists whose vacation in French Morocco turns into a nightmare.

Stewart, a doctor; Day, a former musical star; and their son, Olsen, are enjoying their holiday when they meet a friendly British couple, de Banzie and Miles. Frenchman Gelin also befriends them and asks them to dinner. They show up at the restaurant and run into de Banzie and Miles, who dine with them when Gelin fails to show up. Halfway through the dinner, Gelin does appear but infuriates Stewart by ignoring them and dining with someone else. The following day, while Stewart and Day are shopping in the bazaar, an Arab runs frantically up to them after he's been stabbed in the back. Stewart grabs the falling man and finds, to his horror, a dye coming off on his hands. The Arab turns out to be Gelin in disguise, and he whispers something to Stewart before dying.

When Stewart returns to the hotel, he finds that his son is gone, along with Miles and Olsen's baby-sitter de Banzie, who have fled to England as kidnapers. He receives a call telling him that if he keeps his mouth shut about Gelin's secret, the boy will not be harmed. Stewart is concerned about telling his emotional wife, so he gives Day a sedative as he breaks the dreadful news about their son. When she recovers later, she and Stewart race to England. The authorities are willing to cooperate, but they know Stewart is holding something back. He is fearful of relaying Gelin's information that an important foreign diplomat is scheduled to be assassinated during a concert at the Albert Hall. Stewart decides to hunt for Olsen on his own with a thin clue gleaned from the dying Gelin--that Ambrose Chapel is part of the conspiracy. He loses trailing Yard detectives en route to a small manufacturing company where he confronts Howe and accuses him of kidnaping the boy. Howe, Howe's son, and workers gang up on Stewart, who barely escapes alive.

He and Day later realize that Ambrose Chapel is not a person but a place, and they find a little chapel where de Banzie and Miles are holding Olsen. But the kidnapers escape with the boy, and Stewart manages to survive an attack by a group of chair-throwing thugs while his wife Day is outside at a pay phone frantically calling police. Stewart escapes the small church just as police arrive. Later, Day goes to the Albert Hall and spots the killer, Nalder, but he warns her that if she utters a word, her son will be killed instantly. But Day, standing in the aisle in the middle of the performance and seeing the assassin aiming his weapon at the diplomat in a box high above, cannot allow an innocent person to be killed. Just at the climactic musical moment, with cymbals crashing, she screams. The diplomat moves and is shot but is only wounded, and the assassin is apprehended.

Stewart and Day still do not have their son back. They are led to believe that Olsen is being held in the embassy of the wounded dignitary and accept an invitation to a party in their honor as the embassy wishes to show its gratitude to them for saving the diplomat's life. During the party Stewart tells his wife to sing their son's favorite tune, "Que Sera, Sera" ("Whatever Will Be, Will Be" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans) so that the boy, if he's there, will take heart and perhaps let Stewart know where he is. Day sits down at the piano and begins to sing, louder and louder, to the puzzlement of the guests. Stewart sneaks up the stairs and begins searching the long hallways, finally going up to the third floor. Day's voice is booming now, echoing upward to a room where Olsen is being held by de Banzie, who knows the child is to be killed and has argued with her husband against such brutality.

Olsen yells out and Stewart bursts through the door, but Miles appears and holds onto the boy, threatening to shoot him. Stewart tells the boy to come to him, that he won't be harmed, and, at the last minute with his wife pleading for the boy's life, Miles relents and Stewart takes his son into his arms and downstairs, where Day sees the boy and runs to him. The family, once more united, leaves in safety while the diplomat in the embassy, a man wishing to usurp the chief dignitary who was wounded, is unmasked along with his henchmen.

Though this remake is obviously more polished than the original and was backed by a lavish budget, it is no more or less impactful than the first version. Again, Hitchcock's scenes are beautifully framed and tautly directed. The pace of the child hunt accelerates gradually until the suspense reaches fever pitch in two climaxes, during the assassination attempt at Albert Hall and in the embassy search. Stewart is excellent as the hapless victim, a favorite Hitchcock hero who perfectly fit the mold of everyman. Day is surprisingly good, and "Que Sera, Sera" won an Oscar as Best Song and became a hit record. Hitchcock shot the film on location in Marrakesh, Morocco, and in England and Hollywood. He did use the actual Albert Hall this time (in the original version it was a set), but much of the audience was a fake as in the original. Here he employed the anxious "Storm Cloud Cantata" leading up to the assassination attempt.

Hitchcock had longtime collaborator Hayes work on the script, but he later brought in his old friend Angus MacPhail, one-time intelligence expert, to sit in on scenes and advise the director on the bits of espionage appearing throughout the script. MacPhail actually contributed little to the script and could hardly sit still on the set without shaking severely, due to the advanced alcoholism that would shortly kill him. Hitchcock nevertheless insisted that MacPhail get screen credit, causing Hayes to seek arbitration from the Screenwriters' Guild, which decided that MacPhail should receive no credit.

The murder scene in the Marrakesh marketplace almost turned into a riot. Somehow the natives, hundreds of them employed as extras, got the word that unless they were on camera they would not get paid, so they milled and shoved their way about so they could see the camera, jockeying for position and almost knocking down Stewart and Day. Grumbling turned to shouting, then a few fights broke out. Police had to restore order by calling in backup squads. All the while Hitchcock kept his cool under a huge umbrella and waited wordlessly for the crowds to tire themselves and take his soft-spoken direction.

Cast:

Performer, Character

James Stewart, Dr. Ben McKenna

Doris Day, Jo McKenna

Brenda de Banzie, Mrs. Drayton

Bernard Miles, Mr. Drayton

Ralph Truman, Buchanan

Daniel Gélin, Louis Bernard

Mogens Wieth, Ambassador

Alan Mowbray, Val Parnell

Hillary Brooke, Jan Peterson

Christopher Olsen, Hank McKenna

Carolyn Jones, Cindy Fontaine

Production Credits:

Producer, Alfred Hitchcock

Director, Alfred Hitchcock

Screenwriters, John Michael Hayes and Angus MacPhail (based on a story by Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis)

Editor, George Tomasini

Cinematographer, Richard Mueller

Composer, Bernard Herrmann