El tercer tiro

Lovely colourful photography of Vermont. A fantastic adorable debut from Shirley Maclaine that earned her a Golden Globe. Amusing, endearing performances by all characters. And a large dose of Hitchcockian humour that begins with the credits. However the doctor who reads while walking and stumbling was a bit over the top.

With all humor, you either get the "joke" or you don't. If you don't, no amount of explaining can change your mind. If you do, the details are endlessly enjoyable.

Part of the joke that's "The Trouble With Harry" is that "nothing happens." Hitchcock's "anti-Hitchcock" film defies expectations for action, shock, mayhem, suspense, spectacular climaxes on national monuments, etc. Instead, it's a New England cross-stitch of lovingly detailed writing, acting, photography, directing and editing.

Saul Steinberg's title illustration tells you exactly what you're in for. One long pan of a child's drawing of birds and trees . . . ending with a corpse stretched out on the ground as "Directed by Alfred Hitchcock" briefly appears.

So meticulously is "The Trouble With Harry" conceived, the only two images in the title art that are NOT trees, plants or birds are a house with a rocking chair on its porch and that corpse. The film literally plays in reverse of the title sequence -- from little Arnie's (Jerry Mathers, pre-Beaver. The boy who drew the titles?) discovery of the corpse, back to the home with the rocking chair, as Hitchcock's final "joke" puts the audience safely to bed. A double bed, in this case.

What's the film about? Oh, Great Big Themes like Life and Death, Youth and Age, Love and Hate, Guilt and Innocence, Truth and Lies, Art and Pragmatism -- packaged with deceptive simplicity.

The "hero," Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), is an artist. The man the "child" who drew the titles (Arnie, or someone like him) might have become. His name is an amalgamation of two of hard-boiled fiction's greatest detectives: Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Indeed, Sam Marlowe functions here as a "sort of" detective. But enough of pointing out the detailed construction of this script and film: repeated viewings yield far greater pleasures.

"Introducing Shirley MacLaine" in her first screen role threw that enduring actress into an astounding mix of old pros: Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Dunnock, Mildred Natwick and Forsythe. That MacLaine held the screen then, and still does 50 years later (name another major actor who can say that), validates Hitchcock's astute casting.

In fact, TTWH is a tribute to cinematic "acting" as much as anything else. These are among the finest performances ever captured of these terrific actors. Since there are none of the expected "spectacular" Hitchcock sequences, nor his nail-biting tension, all that's left is for the actors to fully inhabit their characters.

That they do with brilliance, efficiency and breathtaking comic timing. No pratfalls here. Just nuances.

Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick are the real stars. Had Hitchcock said so, the film would never have been produced. Their scenes (they receive as much if not more screen time together than Forsythe and MacLaine) are possibly the most delightful (and yes, romantically and sexually tense) ever filmed of courtship in middle-and-old age. Perfectly realized in every intonation and gesture. Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

Theirs is paralleled by the courtship of the younger "stars," Forsythe and MacLaine. "Love" at both ends of life, young and old, and love's wonderful humor and mysterious redemption, even in the face of death -- that inconvenient corpse on the hill.

Perhaps the most surprising and powerful undertow in "The Trouble With Harry" (one hesitates to name it because it's handled so delicately) is Sex.

It is only barely present in the lines given the characters, but the subtext is always there. Occasionally, it boils over into an infinitely subtle burlesque, as in the exchange between Gwenn and Forsythe about crossing Miss Gravely's (get that name?) "threshold" for the first time.

The look in Gwenn's eyes and the repressed joy and romantic hope in his face -- even at his stage of life -- is bliss.

The coffee cup and saucer "for a man's fingers;" the ribbon for Miss Gravely's newly-cut hair (Wiggy cuts it in the general store -- Mildred Dunnock in another unbelievably subtle performance -- muttering, "Well, I guess it will grow back."); Arnie's dead rabbit and live frog; the constantly shifting implications of guilt in the death of "Harry" up there on the hill; the characters' struggles to regain innocence by "doing the right thing"; the closet door that swings open for no apparent reason (never explained); the characters' revelations of the truths about themselves; their wishes granted through Sam's "negotiations" with the millionaire art collector from the "city" -- ALL portrayed within the conservative but ultimately flexible confines of their New England repression and stoicism (yes, the film is also a satiric comment on '50s morality) -- these details and more finally yield a rich tapestry of our common humanity, observed at a particular time and place, through specific people caught in an absurd yet utterly plausible circumstance.

Nothing happens? Only somebody who doesn't know how to look and listen -- REALLY observe, like an artist / creator -- could reach that conclusion about "The Trouble With Harry." Only a genius, like Hitchcock, would have the audacity to pull the rug out from under his audience's expectations at the height of his career by offering a profoundly subtle morality play in the guise of a slightly macabre Hallmark Card.

When the final "revelation" arrives, in the last line that takes us home to the marital bed where love culminates and all human life begins -- yours and mine -- and draws from us a happy smile of recognition, so Hitchcock's greatest secret is revealed, more blatantly in this than any of his films.

"Life and death -- and all of it in between -- are a joke! Don't you get it?" It's there in all his pictures. Nowhere more lovingly and less showily presented than in "The Trouble With Harry." Thank you, Hitch.

When I read the box at the video store, I thought it sounded a little silly, but since it was directed buy Hitchcock, I decided to give it a try. I was glad I did!

This film does a good job at showing what life is like (in a twisted way) in a small American town. Of course the whole thing is a black comedy about a corpse, but it's great fun, and suspenseful too, especially when Calvin is in the room, questioning everybody. I didn't understand why the door kept opening, but maybe it was just a joke - normally the door would signal a killer entering or something like that - but the door is never any cause for alarm.

All the actors are good, especially Gwenn, and Mrs. Gravely was so endearing. Don't ignore this lesser known Hitchcock movie. It's a treat to watch and is genuinely funny.

Everyone who had something to do with Harry just can't figure out if he should stay buried or dig him up. From there, Hitchcock's black comedy brings about tension and giggles. Seems that everyone had a reason for wanting Harry out of the picture, only trouble is, Harry is more trouble dead than alive. A light film for Hitchcock, but it does contain the transference of guilt theme, and the guilt bounces all over our main players. A small gem of a film that often gets overlooked, watch this one and you'll be charmed by the trouble that Harry causes.

Amusing and lighthearted suspense story about the apparition a corpse on the countryside and there being many suspicious , causing all sorts of troubles for peaceful neighbors in a rural community . Problems take place in a quiet New England little town when a man's bothersome body is found in the forests . The trouble is that almost everyone in town thinks that they had something to do with his death . As Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) , Mrs. Rogers (film debut of Shirley MacLaine , and she is marvelous as usual) , Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn's fourth and last film with Alfred Hitch) and Miss Gravel (Mildred Natwick , John Ford's usual actress) , all of them are suspicious people and carry out several tricks and antics to disappear the evidences , in fact , Harry gets dug up three times throughout the film . Meanwhile , Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano), the closest thing to law enforcement in their town attempts to finds out about Harry (Alfred Hitchcock insisted on using a real actor for the body of Harry).

Enjoyable mystery movie involves a motley group of characters who hold numerous tricks in order to disappear a corpse as well as find alibis . Entertaining suspense movie packs humor , intrigue and ordinary Hitch touches . This agreeable and often hilarious picture has some 'Black comedy nature' and results to be an unexpected change of pace from master of suspense . Alfred Hitchcock's films have become famous for a number of elements and iconography : vertiginous height , innocent men wrongfully accused, blonde bombshells dressed in white, voyeurism, long non-dialogue sequences, etc. However in this film there aren't these particularities but contains a fun intrigue and amusing situations . Hitch was famous for making his actors follow the script to the word, and in this movie the characters use their dialogue taken from an interesting as well as fun screenplay by Jon Michael Hayes based on the novel by Jack Trevor Story . Alfred Hitchcock's movies were known for featuring famous landmarks such as Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest and the Statue of Liberty in Sabotage ; however here only appears a quiet small town and some colorful outdoors . Hitch apparently decided to leave this movie location unspecific and without recognizable landmarks and filmed in Vermont , though it was hampered by heavy rainfall , as many exterior scenes were actually filmed on sets constructed in a local high school gymnasium . Alfred Hitchcock once said of this film and of ¨Family plot¨ : ¨they are treated with a bit of levity and sophistication , I wanted the feeling of the famous director Ernst Lubitsch making mystery thrillers ." The film was unavailable for decades because its rights -together with four other pictures of the same period- were bought back by Alfred Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter. They've been known for years as the infamous "5 lost Hitchcocks" among film buffs, and were re-released in theaters around 1984 after a 30-year absence. The others are ¨The Man Who Knew Too Much¨ (1956), ¨The rear window¨ (1954), ¨The rope¨ (1948) and ¨Vertigo¨(1958). When Music Composer Lyn Murray was working on the music score for ¨Catch a thief' (1955), Alfred Hitchcock was already looking for a composer for this film, which was to be his next. So Murray suggested Bernard Herrmann. Bernard arranged his whimsical themes from this film into a concert suite he called "A Portrait of Hitch". This was the beginning of the long professional relationship between Hitchcock and Herrmann. Colorful and glimmer cinematography in Vistavision by Robert Burks , Alfred's ordinary cameraman , showing nice autumn outdoors .

The motion picture was well directed by Alfred Hitchcock . Originally designed by Hitchcock as an experiment in seeing how audiences would react to a non-star-driven film and was one of Alfred's favorites of all his films . Although this was a failure in the US, it played for a year in England and Italy, and for a year and a half in France. Rating : Better than average . Well worth watching .