To Catch a Thief

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.

Notorious

Set and made in the months following the end of the Second World War, Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is an espionage thriller set mainly in Brazil. The film features a more romantic plot than many of the director’s previous films and includes a couple of great performances from its leads Carey Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Alicia Huberman (Bergman) is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy and is enlisted by her adopted United States to counter spy on Nazi activities in South America. Her handler and government agent T. R. Devlin (Grant) falls for his charge and jealousy ensues when Huberman goes to romantic lengths to infiltrate the Nazi group.

At its best, Notorious matches the tension and drama of any Hitchcock movie but there are large swathes which I found uninteresting. Unlike some of Hitchcock’s best which are tense and exciting from start to finish, Notorious ebbs and flows from extreme brilliance to mere average but overall is a very well made and intriguing film.

North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock’s tale of mistaken identity and Cold War spying has gone down as one of the most highly regarded films in history. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, is ranked at 55 in the AFI’s 100 Years 100 Movies ranking and holds an 8.6/10 on IMDb. Carey Grant plays Roger Thornhill, an Ad Man who is abducted by James Mason’s ‘Townsend’ character under the suspicion that he is the spy George Kaplan. Thornhill is chased across America from New York to South Dakota via Chicago by the Police and Townsend, meeting the seductive Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) along the way. In this next sentence I’m going to say something that will probably draw a lot of negative comments along the lines of “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “You mustn’t have been watching it right” but not only do I not think North by Northwest is a great film but I personally believe it is the worst Alfred Hitchcock film I’ve seen so far. The film undoubtedly features some great stand out moments but as far as suspense and thrills go, this one left me cold.