A beautiful if underwhelming
film, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief
marked the director’s third and final picture starring Grace Kelly. Joining the
actress is another actor in his third Hitchcock movie, Carey Grant. Grant plays
John Robie, a once jewel thief turned French Resistance fighter who now
retired, tends to his vineyards high above the Côte d'Azur. When a series of
robberies which display Robie’s hallmarks are committed, the police come
looking for the man known as ‘The Cat’ and in order to clear his name, he gets
hold of a list of potential targets in the hope of out witting and out
manoeuvring the real thief. First on the list are Mrs. Stevens (Jessie Royce
Landis) and her daughter Francie (Kelly).
To Catch a Thief lacks some of the dramatic tension and edge of the
seat thrills of Hitchcock’s finest films but what it lacks in tautness, it
makes up for in other ways. Hitchcock cleverly gets passed the Hays/Breen
censors with some fantastic sexual innuendo and half hidden imagery. The
romantic side of the plot is much more developed than the dramatic side and
Hitch wows his audience with sexual fireworks (literally) and a John Michael
Hays script which while leaving little to the imagination, somehow feels clean
and moral. Coupled with the spectacular beauty on display, this is a movie
which is worth investing time in.
