The Trouble with Harry

When I read the box at the video store, I thought it sounded a little silly, but since it was directed buy Hitchcock, I decided to give it a try. I was glad I did!

This film does a good job at showing what life is like (in a twisted way) in a small American town. Of course the whole thing is a black comedy about a corpse, but it's great fun, and suspenseful too, especially when Calvin is in the room, questioning everybody. I didn't understand why the door kept opening, but maybe it was just a joke - normally the door would signal a killer entering or something like that - but the door is never any cause for alarm.

All the actors are good, especially Gwenn, and Mrs. Gravely was so endearing. Don't ignore this lesser known Hitchcock movie. It's a treat to watch and is genuinely funny.

What is most notable about The Trouble with Harry is that it is a very early example of an American black comedy. At the time, black humour was mainly the reserve of the British, most notably films from Ealing studio, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Laughing at murder was not something American audiences really understood or appreciated at this time, so it would be fair to say that this movie only ever got the go-ahead due to the considerable clout its director Alfred Hitchcock had at the time. As it was, it is one of the few out-and-out comedies that he ever made. He almost always included humorous moments and comic characters in his more typical thrillers but with this one, they took centre stage and the thriller part of the plot was marginalised to the point of irrelevance. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was not a big hit in the United States but it did do well in Europe and it did subsequently turn a profit.

It is an unusual film. The humour is really very silly. The characters never behave believably at any point. It's about the discovery of a dead body in the countryside; several characters think that they must have been responsible his death. In some ways it felt like a proto version of the TV series Twin Peaks. Not only is the story propelled by the discovery of a dead body but both share the quirky small-town characters and absurd humour. They also share a remote idyllic setting for their murder mystery, in this case New England. The leafy golden woodlands certainly make for a pleasant landscape. John Forsythe plays the central character, a bohemian artist. Better was Shirley McLaine in her first starring role, as the wife of the dead Harry. She gives an effortlessly sweet and likable performance. Hitchcock soundtrack regular Bernard Herrmann chips in with a playful reworking of a typical Hitchcock thriller score; the music really fits the picture.

The Trouble with Harry isn't really laugh-out-loud funny to be perfectly honest. But it is one of the strangest films that Hitchcock ever made. It shows again that he was always willing to experiment with off-beat ideas. It must have been quite a puzzling film at the time of its release.

One thing I really admire about Hitchcock was that he was willing to experiment, and wasn't content to make the same movie over and over. This meant that he sometimes made movies that puzzled his audiences, and several of them were out and out flops. But the passage of time has been kind to many of these movies which can be enjoyed for what they are, not what the audience WANTED them to be. 'The Trouble With Harry' is a great example. Many of Hitchcock's movies have humour in them, but an actual comedy was a bit left field for him. And not just any kind of comedy, a very black one. Humour is very subjective, but I found this movie to very clever and a lot of fun. It gets off to a bit of a shaky start with John Forsythe's character coming out with some unfunny lines and bits of business, but once the story kicks in and the characters played by Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick are introduced, the movie becomes very amusing. Forsythe is technically the star of the movie, and Shirley MacLaine (in her movie debut) the leading lady, but Natwick, and especially Gwenn, steal the picture, and to me have the best lines. Edmund Gwenn was also in the underrated 1950s monster movie 'Them!', and I'm really fond of him. I also get a kick out of Royal Dano who plays the sheriff. Dano was a very interesting character actor who was in everything from 'Moby Dick' to 'Drum' to 'Killer Klowns From Outer Space'. To be totally honest 'The Trouble With Harry' wouldn't make it into my Top Ten Hitchcock movies, but that is only because he made so many great ones, and it's tough to choose, not because this is poor movie. If you want an edge of your seat thriller then maybe this isn't for you, but if you thought Hitch's droll introductions on his TV show were entertaining, then you should check this one out, as it's cut from the same cloth.

I was really young when I saw this film for the first time. In a quaint Vermont town, a body is found. For a while, the guy is just part of the landscape. Kids even play around it (that's Jerry Mather...the Beaver). A flood of guilt settles on the community. At least three people feel they may have caused the death of this man. However, the townspeople will do anything to keep the authorities from getting wind of it. Royal Dano, the long faced sheriff, is out there somewhere. We are also introduced to Shirley MacLaine who plays a young mother and is the wife of the deceased. As with all Hitchcock films, there is a lot of unique situations as people bury, dig up, hide, cover the body. If some feel the end is anticlimactic, that's what it's supposed to be. One of the stars of the show is Vermont in the fall which provides a backdrop for all the grim doings that are going on.

The Trouble With Harry is a comedy film about a dead body. Alfred Hitchcock makes the macabre concept deliciously funny and entertaining in his unique style. Helping Hitchcock to turn this unlikeliest of premises into an enjoyable film are Bernard Herrmann (providing fabulous music scoring), and a cast of winning actors who judge to perfection how far to push their tongues into their cheeks.

A dead body turns up on a patch of grass near the top of a wooded New England hill. Various people have reason to believe that they're responsible for the man's death. Septugenarian ex-sea captain Albert Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) is worried that he might have accidentally shot the man while hunting for rabbits. Old spinster Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick) fears that when she whacked the man over the head with her shoe, she may have done more damage than she intended. And single mother Jennifer (Shirley MacLaine) has even greater cause to feel responsible, for she is the dead man's wife. During an argument, she smashed a bottle over his head and is now almost sure that he died as a result. Local artist Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) decides to help his neighbours to cover up the crime, but after burying and digging up the corpse several times, the truth behind "Harry's" death is finally revealed.

No Hitchcock film divides viewers more than this one. Some consider the film a masterpiece of understated black comedy; others deem it a plot less, pointless time-waster. The film was a fairly massive box office flop at the time (audiences obviously felt from the movie poster that they were going to see a murder mystery, and were disappointed to actually find themselves experiencing a bizarre, off-kilter black comedy). In retrospect, I'd say The Trouble With Harry is a great film that was probably a good two decades ahead of its time. The performances are wonderfully outrageous, especially the elders (Gwenn and Natwick) who give perceptive comic turns that actors nowadays just don't seem to have the range to do. Forsythe and MacLaine are delightful too (the latter in her movie debut), and Royal Dano rounds off the cast as a gullible cop who nearly finds out that the other four have been up to no good. There's no doubt that The Trouble With Harry is an acquired taste; but if this taste is to your liking then you're in for a delectable treat!