The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934).

Review #2032: The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Cast: 

Leslie Banks (Bob Lawrence), Edna Best (Jill Lawrence), Peter Lorre (Abbott), Frank Vosper (Ramon Levine), Hugh Wakefield (Clive), Nova Pilbeam (Betty Lawrence), Pierre Fresnay (Louis Bernard), Cicely Oates (Nurse Agnes), D. A. Clarke-Smith (Binstead), and George Curzon (Gibson) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (#219 - Rope, #223 - North by Northwest, #446 - Spellbound, #447 - Psycho, #450 - Vertigo, #455 - Rear Window, #553 - Strangers on a Train, #800 - Shadow of a Doubt, #910 - Notorious, #963 - The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, #964 - The Ring (1927), #965 - Downhill, #970 - Mr. and Mrs. Smith, #977 - Frenzy, #1343 - The 39 Steps, #1739 - The Birds, #1828 - Rebecca, and #2014 - The Lady Vanishes)

Review: 

 "Let's say the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional."

It isn't often you get to see films where the same director would do it again decades later, but here we are. The Gaumont British production was one of the most noted features released by Alfred Hitchcock in his years in England, and he would do an updated version of this film (each involve an international crime plan with kidnapped children for extortion) that ran for two hours and was done in VistaVision for a distinct feature in its own right. The initial idea with Hitchcock was for him to do an adaptation of a Bulldog Drummond story (as originally created by H. C. McNeile as adventure novel series), which apparently would've been called "Bulldog Drummond's Baby". When that fell through, they just kept the idea of doing a conspiracy film with parents and cribbed the title from a 1922 novel of the same name (as written by G. K. Chesterton) that Hitchcock had select film rights to. The film was written by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis (Bennett asserted that he wrote the film with little, if anything done by Lewis). while Edwin Greenwood and A.R. Rawlinson provided the scenario for a film that runs at 75 minutes. This was released in the wake of such previous Hitchcock films as Number Seventeen (1932) and Waltzes from Vienna (1934), which are not exactly as remembered as the films that quickly followed after 1934 with The 39 Steps (1935) and Secret Agent (1936). It certainly ranked as the most curious film Hitchcock did in the sound era since probably his first one with Blackmail (1929), that much is for sure.

Admittedly, for such a little thriller, it actually is quite a vibrant feature in all the little things it does around building tension with a compact amount of time and composition. Banks and Best may not be the most recognizable names among features, but they were solid regulars for dozens of films for good reason, because it sure is something to play to what Hitchcock wants within the ordinary-turned-extraordinary here. This becomes pretty apparent after the opening sequences (such as introducing themselves to the future threat or trying to do a shooting contest) dispense away from their time as just wry parents and goes right into vulnerable panic. The startup to that sequence involves a would-be dance turning into whispers and then panic to effective execution that all involves a secret message (but it isn't the real important thing when it comes to coming up with one's own plan). Hitchcock does find time to pass that might inspire a wry chuckle without seeming wasteful, though, one of which involves a meeting with a dentist or (lest we forget) a church of sunworshippers. Lorre isn't forgotten in the main run of course, choosing his words carefully in menace - he had exactly one other English-language film under his belt with M (1931), which had an English version (remember that he left Germany in 1933), but this was the one where numerous English productions would follow in its wake. He has the physical presence that others wish they could match as a threat, and its clear to see how that could be used for films down the line. By the time that the film lumbers to the climax at the Royal Albert Hall, it has made its setup with key distinctions in one sound that makes the overall execution of said scene all the more better in tension and release. The gun fight that follows was actually inspired by the Sidney Street Siege, a real shootout in the East End of London in 1911 (which was actually captured on camera from a news outlet, some of which featured rising politician Winston Churchill), although obviously the gunfight here ends up different than the actual siege (which involved a collapsed building that killed a fireman), which isn't exploitative or played out with false notes. As a whole, in a lengthy career of several decades, The Man Who Knew Too Much shows Hitchcock in a favorable position when it comes to directing tension that he would cultivate for further success in further productions with most of the right moves already present here in a pretty good time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

La Grande Illusion.

Review #2017: La Grande Illusion.

Cast: 

Jean Gabin (Lieutenant Maréchal), Marcel Dalio (Lieutenant Rosenthal), Pierre Fresnay (Captain de Boëldieu), Erich von Stroheim (Captain (later Major) von Rauffenstein), Dita Parlo (Elsa), Julien Carette (Cartier), Gaston Modot (Engineer), and Georges Péclet (Officer) Directed by Jean Renoir (#1234 - The River)

Review: 

"[La Grande Illusion] is a story about human relationships and I am confident that such a question is so important today that if we don't solve it, we will just have to say 'goodbye' to our beautiful world.”

You know, the label of "auteur" apparently went out first to directors such as Jean Renoir. That is the theory that a director had such a control of their filmmaking in personal style that one could identify a film as made by them alone when it comes to talking about cinema. So yes, folks like Renoir or Hitchcock (depending on what critic is talking about, of course, since it was François Truffaut who called Renoir one of the "la politique des auteurs"). Renoir served in the French cavalry prior to the start of World War I. He took a gunshot to the leg and grew interested in cinema when recovering before eventually serving as a reconnaissance pilot. His father (Pierre-Auguste, a famed Impressionist painter who raised an actor son in Pierre, and a ceramic artist in Claude) suggested he should go into ceramics, but Renoir took inspiration from Erich von Stroheim and became a filmmaker in 1924. The film takes its title from the 1909 book The Great Illusion, as written by Norman Angell that said theorized that a European war wouldn't occur because of the economic cost of war being so great. The film was written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak; it is a French film that due to its interesting circumstances of character setup sees a mix of French, German, and English spoken all throughout the film.

As a film of brotherhood, it was quite popular in its day (despite trouble in finding a producer for years), owing to Renoir's goal of apparently doing a true picture of the men doing the fighting that had been done (in his eyes) by only All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Franklin D. Roosevelt called it a film for "everyone who believes in Democracy". Renoir finished the decade with La Marseillaise (1938), La Bête Humaine (1938), and The Rules of the Game (1939); the latter was eventually referred to as one of his best films. Fierce bonds between prisoners clearly must have irked Nazi Germany, since the country not only banned the film (with a label of it being "Cinematographic Enemy Number One") but also found time to destroy most (not all) of the prints of the film. Given that the film was made right in the middle of two World Wars, it probably says more about the nature of people than anything, as if it isn't enough to have "class ailments" to go with wars that treat all folks the same in terms of who goes first or not. There may be time for POWs to go in drag and sing "La Marseillaise", but there isn't time for sentiment in war or time to wonder just what the place will be for a "Boëldieu" in a post-war society or if one is snuffed out before that can happen. In that sense, for an anti-war film that shows the plight of one trying to eke out with some sort of humanity remaining that basically says "damn the classes, let's get the hell out of this war".

Gabin has been called one of France's key stars in cinema, and he appeared in a wide range of films of varying directors beyond a handful of collaborations with Renoir. He has an understated charm that seems effortless when it comes to making a pursuit of escape at all costs, and the repertoire with Dalio (playing a rich but generous prisoner, with his Jewish heritage being noted) makes them a worthy pair to follow in solid timing (most tragically, Dalio would later see members of his family perish in concentration camps at the hands of the Germans, who used his face as a "typical Jew" on posters). The film is neither dour nor mired in sentimentality, finding a balance with its seamless sense of cinematography and humane spirit to make a mostly effective pacifist feature. Even the moments spent with Parlo (near the climax, which apparently came to Renoir late in production) make for a fruitful time in saying what needs to be said in the true measure of war from the only key person not playing a soldier. Evidently, von Stroheim and Renoir had an eventful time when it came to making the film together, but the former later said, "I have never found a more sympathetic, understanding and artistic director and friend than Jean Renoir." With certain suggestions made by von Stroheim (such as certain parts of dialogue) mixed in with Renoir's collaborative directing, it makes for a quality performance that doesn't seem constricted with the ratio of screentime to presence. Him and Fresnay represent the last of a potential dying breed when it comes to "needed names in society", and they play it straight to the bone in high-measured honesty, which makes their last scene together all the more poignant. The final sequence (the one after a would-be romance is essentially put on pause) is one best left to looking for oneself to imagine where it could go from there, pragmatic or not. As a whole, you can't go wrong picking this film when looking upon messages about people or war as is the case here, and it is easy to see why this endures as one of Renoir's most distinct films.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.