The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

A remake of a film that he first attempted 20 years earlier, the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much has a bigger budget, bigger stars and a much more experienced Alfred Hitchcock behind the camera. It also has some emotional depth to the characters, giving some substance to the style.

Dr Ben McKenna (James Stewart) is holidaying in Marrakesh with his wife Jo (Doris Day) and young son Hank. They have an accidental meeting on a bus with a mysterious Frenchman, Louis Bernard, who is later murdered in front of the family. With his dying words, he reveals details of an assassination attempt on a foreign statesman. This plunges the McKenna family into a nightmare that see Hank kidnapped, and Ben and Jo in a desperate race against time to save two lives.

In many ways, The Man Who Knew Too Much fits in well with much of Hitchcock’s work. The story is an unlikely one, but no more so than many of his other films which share the trope of the ordinary man thrown into an extraordinary situation. It also has Hitchcock regular James Stewart who, as always, brings a real likeability and vulnerability to the character of Ben, as well as the complexity and glimpses of a darker side that Hitchcock was so good at bringing out of him.

Hitchcock also indulges in his love of what call “Pure Cinema”, using techniques and tools unique to the medium, such as editing or juxtaposition of sound and images, to manipulate the viewer and tell the story. This works brilliantly in the climactic scene at the Albert Hall in London, a bravura sequence, nearly 10 minutes long with no dialogue, only the sound of the orchestra (conducted in person by legendary Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Hermann). The tension mounts as the gunman lines up his target in his sights and Ben frantically tries to convince the police that he is telling the truth – and the whole thing is told through images and editing.

However, in some ways this is an atypical Hitchcock film. The ordinary man is often accompanied by a blonde woman, and The Man Who Knew Too Much is no exception in that respect. However, instead of the usual sub-plot that sees them playing cat-and-mouse love games, here the couple are already in love, happily married with a child, which we see in the opening sequences of the McKenna's holiday (including some great physical comedy from Stewart as he tries to get his longs legs into the awkward seating at a Moroccan restaurant). This makes the dynamic different, making them equal partners, with an equal stake in the outcome, and, as things become more desperate, superb acting from Day and Stewart makes the film less arch and knowing and much more heartfelt than the Hitchcock reputation as a master manipulator might lead you to expect.

Caprice (1967)

Caprice is a joyless grating mess of a film that wastes the charms and talents of the two stars. Doris Day plays Patricia Foster, an industrial spy for a global cosmetics firm run by Sir Jason Fox (Edward Mulhare of Knight Rider fame). She crosses swords with rival snoop Christopher White (Richard Harris), both of whom are chasing the latest vital inventions from each other’s companies, inventions such as a spray that keeps hair dry under water and mascara that turns into LSD if you burn it and ingest the ashes.

Beyond that, I am not entirely sure what happened. Patricia’s dad used to be an Interpol agent who was murdered, so she is trying to avenge his death, and White may not be all he seems. Day is a great comic actress but here she feels out of her depth, unsure how to act amongst the avalanche of sixties clichés, while Harris varies between embarrassed and can’t be bothered, and there certainly isn’t the slightest bit of chemistry between them, surely a vital requirement for any romantic comedy.

The comedy is thin on the ground too with jokes that fall flat and an irritatingly self conscious wackiness. The constant shifts in tone feel like the film-makers, or perhaps the studio, were unsure what they were after.

Perhaps more importantly than not knowing what was happening is that after one too many exasperating double cross plot twists, I eventually stopped caring.

The Thrill Of It All (1963)

The success of the TV show Mad Men triggered some interest and debate fairly recently over mid 20th century attitudes towards gender roles and advertising. The Thrill of It All is a film dealing with both themes, but as it was made nearer to the time Mad Men is set in, it does not have the safety net of ironic detachment to fall back on.

Doris Day plays housewife Beverly Boyer, who, after a chance remark at a dinner party, ends up doing TV commercials for Happy Soap - much to the chagrin of her husband, obstetrician Gerald, played by James Garner. As her fame and earning power grows, so does Gerald's jealousy. Will have Beverley have to choose between her career and her marriage?

Despite being written by two genuine comedy legends, Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner, the script never raises any real belly laughs, and does not really rise above the level of the domestic TV sitcoms of the time, with cheesy dialogue and predictable situations, although some of the sexual innuendo is good for a chuckle. Thankfully, the seemingly effortless charisma of the two stars, who take up the majority of the screen time, make the film a very enjoyable watch. The rest of the cast go for a rather exaggerated, almost cartoon style of acting, that grates after a while.

The main message of the woman gaining, and then giving up her vocational and financial independence could be problematic, but it is difficult to take as misogynistic given the lightweight, insubstantial nature of the film.

Rather than the "Battle of the Sexes", the more interesting conflict is that between TV and cinema. The Thrill of It All is set in the time when TV was, relatively speaking, still in its infancy, and still a fairly crude and unsophisticated medium, both in technology and form. The dramas sponsored by Happy Soap are depicted as being poorly made, with a running gag of about them literally churning out the same scenes each week. Nevertheless, the public are entranced by it, perhaps as much by the novelty as by the content.

This leads to a slightly sneering, dismissive tone in the script, as if television is a medium driven primarily by commercial concerns, providing mindless, cheap entertainment to the masses, but never able to reach the sophisticated heights of more established forms. Which is of course exactly how, in it's early days, cinema was perceived.