Complot de famille

Family Plot differs from all the other Hitchcock films. It lacks suspense, for the most part, and it is not as funny as many of his films. Instead, it is just an amusing little yarn. I like the way the film starts with two separate plot lines which gradually merge. Even if it is not the most original thing in the world (especially since two of Family Plot's stars were main players in Robert Altman's Nashville), it still makes the film interesting. If anyone else had made this film, it probably would be more fondly received by the public, although I doubt anyone would still be watching it today.

The two characters with whom we begin the film, whom we would consider the heroes, are the best, and are played lovingly by Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern. She's a hack psychic milking old ladies out of pensions, and he's a cabbie who cannot find enough time both to drive his cab and participate in Harris' schemes. Although the characters aren't as well developed as those in numerous other Hitchcock ventures, they're entertaining.

The other couple, Karen Black and William Devane, fare less well. They're more crafty in their crimes, perpetrating large-scale kidnappings for enormous ransoms. Karen Black's character is very underdeveloped, hardly showing any depth. What character she does have is not entirely believable, since Karen Black seems too nice to play a hardcore criminal. William Devane is decent as the sinister mastermind, but the history provided to his character is far more brutal than is believable (he locked his adopted parents in their bedroom and set fire to their house).

I liked the idea of the small time crooks clashing with the professionals, and I liked the outcome of the film. All in all, it is decent and worth watching. It does not feel anything like a Hitchcock film, so I wouldn't expect anything like Vertigo or Rear Window when approaching this, his swan song. 7/10

"Murder can be fun", said Hitchcock to the then-rising composer John Williams, unsure about the use of playful theme for ominous situations. Well, after watching "Family Plot" again, I would say that anything handled by Hitchcock can be fun. And it is not surprising that the original novel titled "The Rainbird Pattern" saw its dark material turned into a lighthearted comedy by Ernest Lehman's inspired writing and Hitchcock's wicked sense of humor, in the same vein than "To Catch a Thief" and "The Trouble With Harry". And I think this says a lot about a fascinating mix of self-confidence and humility that -I guess- only experienced directors can demonstrate at the twilight of their career.

And I'm convinced that it took the two 60's misfires "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz" to put Hitchcock on the right track again and allow him to make movies that would be more fitting swan songs. So Hitchcock was back to his roots (in every meaning of the word) with the wonderful "Frenzy", a thriller certainly not devoid of macabre humor. Indeed, who can ever forget the villain's struggle to get his pin off the hand of his last victim, hidden in a bag of potatoes, and the whole action set in a moving truck? Frenzy was a legitimate thriller but its darkly comedic undertones worked as the perfect transition to a more relaxed and upbeat "Family Plot", definitely a comedy, with a good balance of thrills and suspense.

The film starts in a wealthy elderly woman's house, Blanche Tyler, a psychic in trance, tries to communicate with the woman's sister, using different voices, howling, screaming, giving such an over-the-top performance we suspect she belongs to the fraudulent side of the business, but it takes some great acting to perform the bad one, and Barbara Harris, whenever she's in that state, is a delight to watch, she'd be even funnier in a similar scene later with her boyfriend. The comedy is integral to the film's appeal because the opening is extremely talkative and provides a vital flow of information and Harris' lively and funny performance catches our eyes, and inevitably our ears and our mind.

So, it all comes down to the woman asking Blanche to find her sister's illegitimate son given for adoption, so she can clear her conscience and allow him to inherit her fortune; in exchange, Blanche will receive ten thousand dollars (and I just love Harris' cute response when she tries to pretend that money doesn't matter). Blanche is a small-time fraud and her boyfriend George is a cabdriver and wannabe actor, so the reward means a lot. But what an unlikely, non-glamorous, goofy yet charming couple to lead a Hitchcock film! Still, the chemistry between them, with all the talks about the 'plot', sex and their job, feels genuine and real.

There is another couple though in the film, more in-line with the classy and icy correctness we're used to deal with Hitch. A jeweler (David Levane) and his girlfriend Fran (Karen Black) specialized in kidnapping dignitaries and rich figures, leaving them up in exchange of precious gemstones. They hide their victims in a cellar and are so professional they make impossible any identification. The first transition from Blanche and George to Arthur and Fran is abrupt and disconcerting (although creatively done) but once we get it that the film centers on the two couples, the pros and the small-time crooks, we know where the story is going, two plots coming across each other, in other words: a confrontation.

The thrill in "Family Plot" is to see these couples getting closer to each other, and even play a sprinkled-sprinkler game when George's lousy attempt to pass a lawyer raises the suspicion of Adamson's former accomplice (he's obviously the lost heir, the only way the two plots would converge). So the cat and mouse's role are reversed and Fran and Arthur spy on George and Blanche, thinking they want the reward for their capture. Which would lead to the first life-threatening sequence with a high-speed descent in a mountain road, and as much I enjoyed it, I can't get over the hilariously distorted face of George, crushed under Blanche's shoe, while she tries to climb her way out of the vehicle.

Just like the plot swings back and forth between two couples that couldn't have been more different, it does the same thing with thrills and comedy and the result is savorous and entertaining. Hitchcock also provide some pretty memorable moments: Adamson delicately taking a lint off a cop's suit, Fran putting parsley in the hostage's plate, a dazzling aerial view on a cemetery and a great kidnapping scene in a church where a bishop is taken away without any of the people reacting. Adamson knew that church-people are so polite and inhibited they wouldn't react, and we believe him. This level of confidence echoes Hitchcock's, he doesn't go to intricate and lengthy extremes to get a specific job done. And only Hitch can get away with it.

This is a film for the fans, his cameo doesn't bother to show his face and yet everyone immediately recognizes him, this is why his last cameo is one of his most inspired. Hitchcock have built so much confidence that only he could conclude such a film with a climax relying on something that a child could have done, but knowing the childish Blanche and her slow-witted boyfriend, it could work. And although the film wasn't intended to be the last, it couldn't have had a better final shot than a wink at the camera. Hitchcock always did movies with the audience in mind, it's all natural to end with a friendly farewell to those whose emotions he toyed with for half a century.

Alfred Hitchcock's final film Family Plot is a story of two male and female criminal partnerships. The first pair is Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris who are a pair of small time grifters and we meet them in the process of fleecing a rich old spinster Cathleen Nesbitt with a phony psychic act.

The second pair are William Devane and Karen Black who have a lovely line in ransom kidnappings. They've really got it worked out to a science, including a soundproof hidden room in Devane's basement where the victims can be stashed until the ransom is paid.

Nesbitt confesses that she had her late sister give up an out of wedlock child during a séance and now she'd like to make amends by finding him and making him her heir. So with a finder's fee in mind Dern and Harris start digging.

Their paths cross Devane and Black as the police are hunting them so it becomes quite an interesting set of circumstances as Devane and Black suspect the others of being police operatives.

Hitchcock cleverly interweaves the stories of the two couples into a very cohesive plot. The players all hit the mark with their roles,] especially Devane, a smooth talking killer in the Hitchcock tradition of Otto Kruger in Saboteur, Tom Helmore in Vertigo, and James Mason in North By Northwest.

The ending is a bit of a surprise though, it comes rather abruptly. I have to confess I didn't like it at first, but it does kind of grow on you with repeated viewings.

Family Plot is a good for the master of suspense to go out on.

This film gets a bad rap because it was not a suspenseful blockbuster in the vein of "Psycho" and "The Birds". The fact is, is that after Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedrin did battle with seagulls in 1963, Hitchcock never again approached the heights of a major director and he dramatically slowed down his film output.

Still, this movie, along with 1964's "Marnie" and '72's "Frenzy" represent a decent effort by Hitchcock to stay current and hip with modern audiences. That he was still directing films at all in the 1960s and 1970s is quite remarkable for a man whose film work began in the silent era.

"Family Plot" is a fun, neat little comedy-thriller much akin to the NBC Mystery Movies of that era... i.e., "Columbo", "McMillen and Wife". Blanche is a phony psychic who, along with her reluctant boyfriend Frank, played hilariously by the underrated Bruce Dern, run afoul of big time crooks Karen Black and William Devane.

The plot does get a bit convoluted, but Hitchcock was smart enough to lay off the heavy-handed dictatorial directorship that categorized his earlier work and let the actors and their characters move the plot along. Unlike Cary Grant's Thornhill in "North By Northwest", we care about Blanche and Frank because they really are like us, the viewer. As much as we all adored the women in Hitch's films... Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, and wanted to be like the men,Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewert, Ray Milland, Rod Taylor, Farley Granger, etc., none of these characters were remotely like US, and in his dotage, Hitchcock was still keen enough to realize that Cary Grant in 1956 was an admirable figure walking down the street... in 1976 he was apt to be pointed at and laughed about. Hitch knew INSTINCTIVELY that the gray suit and slicked back hair era was gone forever. In this film, it doesn't even look like Dern showers.

That's part of the charm and why it was so refreshing, at this late date, to go into the movie theater and enjoy an Alfred Hitchcock film without having to sigh that it was all about nostalgia. This film, in his humorous approach has much in common with "The Trouble With Harry" than "Psycho" or "Shadow of a Doubt".

Hitch didn't go out with a classic, that's for sure, but he went out with a modern film that showed he could still produce an entertaining flick. That was all he was ever about anyway. No higher praise is needed.

This last Hitchcock film may seem out of step with all of the others, but then it has to be. The sexual/cultural revolution is over. The cynical 70s are in full swing. You can't just insinuate "the act" anymore and cut to the seashore.

Into this environment comes "Family Plot". It is basically two sets of crimes, one minor and one major, hitting an intersection with one group of criminals having no idea what the other group is up to.

Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) is a fake psychic. She has her cabbie boyfriend get information for her based on the hints she gets from the séances. In this case a wealthy woman, Julia Rainbird, claims her sister's spirit and her own conscience torment her because in 1933 she made her sister put her illegitimate child up for adoption because of the scandal that would have occurred given the conventions of the times. Nobody knows what happened to him since the adoption was closed. Now Julia Rainbird, in her old age, wants to accept her nephew into the family and leave the entire estate to him. There is 10K in it for Blanche if she can find him.

What Blanche and cabbie lover George (Bruce Dern) don't know is that the long lost heir is basically Lex Luther with hair - William Devane as Arthur Adamson, a true sociopath who loves thumbing his nose at conventions and loves crime. Together he and his girlfriend, Fran (Karen Black) kidnap wealthy people in exchange for jewels. Adamson has a legitimate business as a jeweler as a front.

The misunderstandings come in when Adamson discovers that somebody is digging into his past, specifically his faked death which was a cover for the murder of his adoptive parents back in 1950. Blanche and George can't figure out why they would be getting attempts on their life. Adamson has no idea of his true identity and has no idea why these two amateurs are trying to find him, figuring it has either to do with his current kidnappings or the past murder of his parents.

It all comes together in a suspenseful and comical way. I'll let you watch and find out how.

Blanche and George are a hilarious couple just perfect for 1975. In one scene, at the end of the day, she is basically ordering him to come inside the house and sexually service her. George replies she is wearing him out and he has to work tomorrow. She asks "what are you saving it for?". This is a long way from the stolen glances, passionate kisses, and hand holding in "Dial M For Murder", but this is a different time and they are just right for it.

Even at the end Hitchcock did know how to change with the times. I'd recommend it.