cybrsrch What a sad commentary on an above average couples perceptions of the world, going into a Muslim country completely unaware of the customs and norms, going around embarrassing themselves and looking like ignorant fools. The son almost seems mentally handicapped, even with his use of a few big words. Hitchcock had a narrow view of the world and it shines through in this film. Doris Day seems to be 1/3 spy 1/3 mother and 1/3 stage act, none of it seeming natural. Her automatic distrust of a dark skinned person and her immediate trust of a white couple show some pretty standard white biases that seem to be lost in the translation, not understanding they are out of place, but just relying on their american privilege. Hank Hank Hank, as the stupid son runs off uncontrolled. These people are just too dumb to be involved with spies, odd how they were singled out. The story just makes no sense, the idea this is Hitchcock's 2nd time around with this story doesn't speak well to his story telling skills, over blown in my humble opinion. His aristocratic view point is painted all over this film, a time capsule of ignorance and bigotry

HotToastyRag It's well known that Alfred Hitchcock had a penchant for casting icy blondes as his leading ladies, but it's often forgotten Doris Day was once one of them. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, the pronunciation of which was forever immortalized by Robert Osbourne, she's married to James Stewart, another of Hitchcock's favorites. In a rare dramatic turn, Doris shows her hidden talents. There's a famous and heart-wrenching scene that's nearly impossible to watch without a tissue handy. Doris and Jimmy's son has been kidnapped, and Doris is having a meltdown. James injects her with a sedative because he's a doctor and believes that's the best way to help her, and she hysterically cries until she passes out. While Doris usually gets all the acting praise from this movie, it's probably because everyone expects James Stewart to be great in a Hitchcock film. But let's not forget he was the other actor in that difficult scene, watching and deciding how to help his wife. He's wonderful in this movie, but if you know and love him like the rest of the country, it's not really a surprise.The Man Who Knew Too Much isn't the most famous Alfred Hitchcock movie out there, but it's absolutely worth watching. It has Doris's quintessential song "Que Sera Sera" and she also credits it with spawning her lifelong devotion to animals. Plus, it's pretty suspenseful, a necessity in a Hitchcock movie. There are exotic locations, good-looking leading actors, murder, and intrigue. What else do you want?

mark.waltz There is a tremendous amount of detail to keep your eye on in this remake of the 1934 Alfred Hitchcock British classic which Hitchcock directed himself. Like many of the later Hitchcock films, this has become a cult classic, and people watch them over and over to capture what they might have missed on previous viewings. You could spend an entire viewing looking at justice at Sam costumes and technical achievements, and another focusing on individual lines in the screenplay and the different characters who pop in and out. But the first time you watch it, it should be all about the plot, and this is one of Hitchcock's most suspenseful. Other than cinema classic lovers familiar with early British films, people do not remember Leslie Banks and Edna Best from the excellent original version, but anybody who has watch a movie in the last 50 years will certainly know James Stewart and Doris Day. As a happily married couple on vacations in the Middle East, they find themselves involved in a dire situation involving the kidnapping of their son, and the details leading up to the revelation of how and why what happened makes this intriguing from start to finish. They end up traveling all over, each moment passing them by making them more frantic.While Doris Day sang her most well known song, "Que Sera, Sera" in several films and used it as the theme of her TV series, this is where it was introduced, and unlike other versions of it, the song serves as a major plot element. Before that happens, however, a lot happens that would be sending most married couples to divorce court (Stewart keeping certain facts from Day until he makes her take a sedative), to a mental institution, or to a morgue. It is properly slow in spots to build up suspense, some which may make you jump, and some which may have you digging your hands into your couch to the point where you rip the fabric. Equally important to the plot is the extremely suspenseful music score by Bernard Hermann.Certain scenes seem like something that might have influenced Steven Spielberg when he created the character of Indiana Jones, one sequence taking place in an Arab market and involving a chase which results in murder. In fact, there have been several spoofs of elements of this film ("Foul Play") and serious plot devices used for other films, some successful ("Babel"), but mostly not. Hitchcock even utilized elements of this in his last film, "Family Plot". The supporting cast is not overloaded with familiar names, but their faces will be imbedded on your memory thanks to the dramatic way each of them is presented. Brenda de Banzie is particularly a standout. Of course, Carolyn Jones will instantly be recognized as an old friend of Day's.There's no whatever will be will be for Day's emotional mother, a retired musical comedy star who has left the stage to take care of her son. She is as dramatically effective here as she was in "Love Me or Leave Me", reacting with horror as each twist makes her believe that she may never see him again. Stewart is commanding as well, and it's a shame that they didn't work together again. But when you're in a film directed by the one and only Hitchcock, it's tough to choose who the real star is, even when outside a cameo, Hitchcock isn't even on screen other than for a split second.

robert-temple-1 In the fifties, Alfred Hitchcock decided unwisely to remake this film in colour, with unlikely and ineffective lead actors, but it is nowhere near as good as his original film THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934, see my review). The female lead is, of all people, Doris Day. And the male lead is drawling, yokelish James Stewart. Perhaps the bosses at Paramount exerted a nefarious influence, or perhaps Hitchcock went temporarily mad, in deciding upon this casting. Although the film does contain numerous excellent 'Hitchcock moments' and 'Hitchcock touches', the film itself is a failure because of all the other things wrong with it, not least suddenly turning into a musical from time to time. Having Doris Day repeatedly performing her famous song 'Que Sera Sera' in the film with her voice loud enough to shatter a glass, in the mist of a supposed suspense film, is so nonsensical and ludicrous that one despairs. Perhaps it had been demanded by her in her contract. The story this time does not start, as in the earlier film, in St. Moritz in Switzerland, but instead in Morocco. Stewart and Day, together with their young son, are on a tourist bus to Marrakesh. They are intentionally portrayed as being 'as American as apple pie', innocents abroad in fact (as Mark Twain would say). The little boy, though mercifully not chewing bubblegum, looks outside and says: 'Oh look, a camel.' But as we later learn that they have already been in Casablanca, they would have seen plenty before this one. These innocents abroad are befriended on the bus by a Frenchman who, it turns out, speaks fluent Arabic and is familiar with the area. Later in the simulated Marrakesh marketplace, the innocents abroad are puzzled by a police chase. A man in Arab clothes is running but has been stabbed in the back, and he staggers towards Doris Day and collapses. James Stewart holds him and his fingers rub against the man's face and brown makeup comes off on his fingers, leaving a streaked face, showing that the man was only disguised as an Arab and is in fact the Frenchman from the bus. (This is one of Hitchcock's famous 'images', out of which he built his films. He would think of a streaked face first and then construct a story around it. His instinct was always to go for images which were visually shocking and find explanations for them later.) The man whispers something in Stewart's ear and dies. Stewart jots it down in a notebook. (There is no message hidden in a shaving brush this time, as was the case in the 1934 film.) Day and Stewart had earlier been befriended at their hotel by a British couple named the Draytons, played by Bernard Miles and Brenda de Banzie. They have been accepted by Day and Stewart as a sweet and friendly couple, so they entrust Mrs. Drayton to take their son back to the hotel while they go off to make a statement to the police. But the Draytons are not what they seem. They are in fact sinister baddies masquerading as a sweet British couple. They kidnap the boy and disappear, fleeing the country for London. (This is the fifties, before all the identity checks.) The finest performance in the film is by Brenda de Banzie as Lucy Drayton. She makes a tremendously effective villainess. This leaves Stewart only with the secret message of the dying man to guide him, suggesting he 'see Ambrose Chappell' in London. So he and his wife rush off to London and look in the phone book where there is an Ambrose Chappell listed at Burdett Street in Camden Town, who turns out to be a taxidermist, providing some comic scenes with stuffed animals, but he is a false lead. They then discover that there is an Ambrose Chapel which is a religious chapel, not a person, and so they investigate that. It turns out to be where the 'Draytons' are holed up with the kidnapped son, with Mr. Drayton acting as a preacher for a strange religious sect, and he and his wife live in the adjoining house. One thing leads to another, as Hitchcock might say. The Royal Albert Hall as a location for a plan to assassinate a foreign prime minister remains the same as the plot of the earlier film version. The British filming was actually done on location, unlike the Moroccan filming. Hitchcock always liked any opportunity to film his beloved London. The man who died in Marrakesh asked Stewart to try and prevent the assassination. But how is he to do this? It is about to happen at any moment, and he is more concerned with saving his son from the kidnappers. Will the son be saved? Will the assassination be prevented? If only the suspense of this film had been undiluted, as in the original. But no, we have Doris Day singing 'Que Sera Sera' again, accompanying herself on the piano, and although this is ingeniously woven into the fabric of the story which ensues, really somebody has got this all wrong! The one thing which must be said in amelioration is that Doris Day actually does some effective acting in her role, and if only she had left it at that and not tried singing as if she were in a musical, the film would have been less of a nonsense than it is. One must decide whether one is either making a suspense film or one is not, and this time no one could make up his or her mind. So what a sad contrast this Hitchcock effort is with the earlier superb version! The final scene of the film is however a master's ironical touch.