This thriller, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in his pre-Hollywood career, is about a family vacationing at a resort in St. Moritz.
Alas! The family witnesses a murder and – what’s more unfortunate – their daughter is kidnapped, because her father (Leslie Banks) discovers a Clue that will interfere with the Bad Guys.
It’s a good film, although we do prefer the 1956 version starring James Stewart and Doris Day (also directed by Hitchcock). The 1934 version is a more modest affair, but no less tense, and it features Peter Lorre as a Villain.
About the abduction: The girl is taken from her room at the resort, and her parents return to England to search for her. When they arrive home, they find, to their dismay, that everyone already knows Their Business, and look! Here’s a man from the Foreign Office sitting in their living room, asking them to be part of a Sting Operation.
It’s a terrific script with wonderful actors. Even if you didn’t know Hitchcock directed this film, you would easily spot his handiwork.
But the thing that got to us is the kidnapped girl. She’s the face of the underlying terror in this film.
The daughter, played by Nova Pilbeam, is a young, free-spirited teenager. Her parents indulge her whims and are rarely cross with her.
For example, during a ski race in St. Moritz, Pilbeam allows her dog to run onto the downhill track, causing an oncoming racer to fall and be disqualified. No one’s angry: What a lark!
In another scene, Pilbeam’s mother (Edna Best) is in a skeet-shooting contest – Hint: Foreshadowing – and Pilbeam rushes to her just as she’s aiming to shoot. This causes Best to miss the shot and lose the contest, but no matter. We’re on vacation!
So, given a willful girl who disregards boundaries and doesn’t care what The Adults say, how on earth did criminals manage to kidnap her?
And how did they keep her captive? It’s almost implausible that she should be kept prisoner by anyone.
However, when we see Pilbeam later in the film, she’s a different person. She’s not the sassy, devil-may-care girl Hitchcock introduced us to at the St. Moritz resort. This girl is terrified.
What happened after she was wrested from the care of her parents?
Hitchcock doesn’t say. It is enough that she suffered the fate of so many children then, and now: To be treated as currency by adults for their own purposes.
The title of The Man Who Knew Too Much is borrowed from a series of G.K. Chesterton stories about a man related to several high-ranking politicians, which, naturally, gives him Too Much Information about those Goings On.
The film received good reviews, according to IMDb, although producer C.M. Woolf reportedly “hated” it, and stuck it at the end of a double feature.
Hitchcock needed this film to be a success because his previous work, Waltzes from Vienna (1933), was poorly received. Hitchcock famously said Waltzes, a musical about Johann Strauss, was “the lowest ebb” of his career.
The Man Who Knew Too Much was Peter Lorre’s second English-speaking film, if you count the English version of M (1931). Lorre wasn’t yet fluent in English, and he learned most of his lines phonetically.
Fellow cast member and child actress Nova Pilbeam was 15 years old when she appeared in this film. She quit acting temporarily when she married in 1939. However, she returned to acting after her husband was killed in WWII, then permanently retired in 1951.
Some regard the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much as superior to the 1956 film. But let’s not quibble. Let’s have a party with both films and celebrate their merits with fondue and champagne. Who’s in?
This post is part of The Odd or Even Blogathon, hosted by Taking Up Room and Realweegiemidget Reviews.
The Man Who Knew Too Much: starringLeslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Charles Bennett, D.B. Wyndham-Lewis & Edwin Greenwood. Gaumont British Picture Corporation, 1934 B&W, 76 mins.
I hope you get a chance to see a restored version. Without giving too much away (I hope) there’s a standoff near the end of the movie that’s based on actual events.
I’m in for the party, with the full disclosure that I am a bigger fan of the earlier film. I can understand Hitch wanting to revisit the material and it has much to admire but enough is too much for this gal.
Thanks for bringing this post to the blogathon and the Doris Day one too (with your bonus even year release mention). Count me in to check these both out too… Thanks for joining Ruth and adding you to my Day 4 post…
I’ve only ever seen the Hitchcock version but I’d love to see the earlier one! And Nova was probably scarred from working with Hitch–he was quite the tyrant with his female stars!
It has become quite common to prefer this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much to Hitchcock’s own remake with James Stewart and Doris Day. Like you, I prefer the latter film, although I don’t think either one ranks with Hitchcock’s best work. Still, it’s a fine opportunity to see Nova Pilbeam. She is good here, but even better a few years later as the young lead in Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent, one of his most entertaining movies of the 1930s.
To this day I haven’t found the first version of this movie and would really love to see this Hitch-Lorre collaboration. Anyway I love the Stewart-Day version very much and Que Serà Serà is one of my children’s lullaby (don’t know what they will think of their mother when they grow up and watch the movie though).
Haha! Your children will like the choice of lullaby because they’ll see what fabulous taste you have in movies.
I hope you can see the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and hopefully it will be a restored version. I have a half-decent version on DVD, but this film is, sadly, in the public domain and there are a lot of substandard versions out there.
Great post, Ruth! I’m more familiar with the 1956 version so I can’t make a fair call yet. This I do know, I can’t resist Herrmann’s score or his cameo or that white and green dress Doris wears towards the beginning of the 1956 film. I will now have to revisit the 1934 film to discover its merits 🙂
I’m a huge fan of the 1956 version too. (Doris is fab in that role, isn’t she?) The 1934 film is also striking and memorable, although in a grittier way.
Great article! I just happened to stumble across the Criterion BluRay for this film a couple of weeks ago while browsing on Amazon. I think I may just have to make a purchase. 😀
Ha! I forgot about the dog. And Peter Lorre was so creepy here–they sure don’t make Villains like him anymore. Thanks again for joining the blogathon with this great review, Ruth. It’s always a pleasure. 🙂
Enjoyed your write-up, Ruth! I’ve never seen this one, but I liked Nova Pilbeam a lot in Young and Innocent and would love to see her again. I’ll be on the lookout. Good stuff!
The movie sounds like an interesting classic, chock full of symbolic moments. I like where they’re all pointing at the same crack in the glass. THIS IS THE CLUE, they seem to be saying. Without giving anything away, they seem to say it all.
Silver Screenings 
You’ve peaked my interest to see the 1934 version 🙂
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I hope you get a chance to see a restored version. Without giving too much away (I hope) there’s a standoff near the end of the movie that’s based on actual events.
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Ooo! Hooked 🙂
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I’m in for the party, with the full disclosure that I am a bigger fan of the earlier film. I can understand Hitch wanting to revisit the material and it has much to admire but enough is too much for this gal.
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I’m a sucker for spectacle, so I lean towards the later film, but I do want to screen both in a weekend to analyze Hitch’s style.
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Thanks for bringing this post to the blogathon and the Doris Day one too (with your bonus even year release mention). Count me in to check these both out too… Thanks for joining Ruth and adding you to my Day 4 post…
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Thanks, Gill. Am looking forward to reading all the fab entries later today & tomorrow.
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There is a great selection as always xx
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Must catch this one. Not so keen on remake.
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You might really like this earlier version. Peter Lorre steals the whole movie.
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I’ve only ever seen the Hitchcock version but I’d love to see the earlier one! And Nova was probably scarred from working with Hitch–he was quite the tyrant with his female stars!
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She may not have been acting after all…
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It has become quite common to prefer this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much to Hitchcock’s own remake with James Stewart and Doris Day. Like you, I prefer the latter film, although I don’t think either one ranks with Hitchcock’s best work. Still, it’s a fine opportunity to see Nova Pilbeam. She is good here, but even better a few years later as the young lead in Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent, one of his most entertaining movies of the 1930s.
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To this day I haven’t found the first version of this movie and would really love to see this Hitch-Lorre collaboration. Anyway I love the Stewart-Day version very much and Que Serà Serà is one of my children’s lullaby (don’t know what they will think of their mother when they grow up and watch the movie though).
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Haha! Your children will like the choice of lullaby because they’ll see what fabulous taste you have in movies.
I hope you can see the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and hopefully it will be a restored version. I have a half-decent version on DVD, but this film is, sadly, in the public domain and there are a lot of substandard versions out there.
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Great post, Ruth! I’m more familiar with the 1956 version so I can’t make a fair call yet. This I do know, I can’t resist Herrmann’s score or his cameo or that white and green dress Doris wears towards the beginning of the 1956 film. I will now have to revisit the 1934 film to discover its merits 🙂
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I’m a huge fan of the 1956 version too. (Doris is fab in that role, isn’t she?) The 1934 film is also striking and memorable, although in a grittier way.
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Great article! I just happened to stumble across the Criterion BluRay for this film a couple of weeks ago while browsing on Amazon. I think I may just have to make a purchase. 😀
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Wait – this is on Criterion? Awesome!!
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Ha! I forgot about the dog. And Peter Lorre was so creepy here–they sure don’t make Villains like him anymore. Thanks again for joining the blogathon with this great review, Ruth. It’s always a pleasure. 🙂
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Peter Lorre is the perfect viilain, isn’t he? In this or any other movie.
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Absolutely! He never gets old.
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Enjoyed your write-up, Ruth! I’ve never seen this one, but I liked Nova Pilbeam a lot in Young and Innocent and would love to see her again. I’ll be on the lookout. Good stuff!
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A lot of folks prefer this version to the later Doris Day/James Stewart version. Peter Lorre brings a whole new level of creepiness.
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I would love to see them both!
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I think a double-header evening with both films would be a great idea.
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The movie sounds like an interesting classic, chock full of symbolic moments. I like where they’re all pointing at the same crack in the glass. THIS IS THE CLUE, they seem to be saying. Without giving anything away, they seem to say it all.
— Catxman
http://www.catxman.wordpress.com
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Well said, and that’s exactly it. I hope you get a chance to watch a restored version of this film. It’s well worth it.
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