VividSimon Simply Perfect

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

thinbeach I can only imagine this was an excuse to shoot the lovely autumn countryside in the newly created Vista Vision, for that is about all it has going for it. It's a black comedy from the master of suspense, which only manages to prove why he was not called the master of comedy, and has a catalogue containing very few of those titles.A number of people discover a dead body on a pretty hillside. A rabbit hunter, a single mother, an elderly woman, and an artist. No one knows how Harry was killed, but at various points in the film all consider that they may be guilty, or that they might be seen to have motive in the eyes of the authorities, and as such join a pact to cover up the deed - but not before changing their mind countless times - so that the body is buried and dug up and buried and dug up and buried again.Written like that the scenario certainly has promise for a black comedy, but plausibility was overlooked for humour, and being some of the weakest you will ever find, sees the film fail on both counts.

grantss In the woods outside a small town in Vermont, several people, in turn, stumble across a dead body, that of Harry. Captain Wiles is convinced that he shot him accidentally while hunting, and tries to hide the body. Things quickly get rather complicated...Directed by Alfred Hitchcock but quite unlike any Hitchcock movie you'll see, in many ways. Even before the movie begins you can tell this does not fit in with his usual movies - the cast gives it away. No James Stewart, no Cary Grant, no big-name stars. Then the movie starts and instead of the usual Hitchcock thriller tone of dark, foreboding colours, even black and white, we have the beautiful scenery of Vermont, in glorious bright colours!Turns out this isn't a thriller, this is a comedy, though not a good one. More Carry On than Woody Allen, this is basically a farce: one event sets a series of reactions and related events in motion. Unforeseen events then occur and/or new information comes to light, and the participants then do something even more ludicrous to cover up their previous actions. Rinse and repeat for over 90 minutes. Very silly at times, and beneath Hitchcock's standards and dignity. One thing that prevents this from being a total waste of time is the dialogue, on occasion. Too wordy, generally, feeling like a play, but there are some very good passages of dialogue sprinkled through the movie.About the only other positive is Shirley MacLaine, in her cinematic debut. She lights up the screen and gives easily the most convincing performance of the movie.On that note, another Hitchcock signature trait that bit the dust in this movie - no blonde lead actress. He really was just phoning it in.

lasttimeisaw Like gold dust, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is Hitchcock's fickle dalliance with black comedy, which opens with its spectacular VistaVision variegation of autumn foliage in a Vermont countryside, where a young boy Arnie (Mathers) accidentally finds a man's corpse, later we know his name is Harry and he was not from the village, apparently several residents are involved in the death of Harry.There is Captain Wiles (Gwenn), who believes that he killed Harry with a stray shot from his rifle while he was hunting rabbits, but soon would find all three recipients of his bullets and Harry is not one of them; then the spinster Miss Gravely (Natwick), who claims to kill Harry with the heel of her boot when the latter surprisingly plunges on her from the wood, but why would Harry attack her in the first place? Now, drumroll please, a third key character is Jennifer Rogers (MacLaine), Arnie's mother, she confesses that Harry is her estranged husband, who arrived earlier that day and she hit him with a milk bottle over some divide (nudge nudge wink wink) between them before he headed out towards the wood. So, presumably, a woozy Harry must mistake Miss Gravely for his wife. But is that all the truth about Harry's death, please wait and see.A fourth main character is the local painter Sam Marlowe (Forsythe), when he stumbles upon Harry's body, he draws a portrait of the deceased out of the artistic stimuli, which in due course would trigger the suspicion of Calvin Wiggs (Dano), the Deputy Sheriff. But before that, during the unfolding of the trouble with Harry, Sam and Jennifer become an item, so are Captain Wiles and Miss Gravely, small-town bonhomie does engender romance in a rapid fashion! In fact, the whole film takes place with a full circle of 24-hours, and poor Harry, not only he is afflicted with a weak heart and drop dead in an unfamiliar soil, his body has also been buried and dug out several times and what are all the reasons behind the three-ring circus? As Jennifer blurts out near the end - "I can't remember why".In all fairness, one cannot acknowledge that Hitchcock is a protean filmmaker, certainly comedy doesn't go with his style, despite that the story revolves around a macabre mystery, some red herring is expectedly but uncannily thrown in the face (the closet door in Jennifer's house), however, when the tension and suspense take a back seat, the chummy and cheesy character building and illogical whimsies frustratingly miss the mark.Shirley MacLaine is extraordinarily photogenic in her film debut, but cast a barely 20-year-older as a single mother is something a travesty (she must be married at the age of 13) and John Forsythe is simply anaemic in attempting to heat up the chemistry with her. Yet, it is rather pleasing to see the plot-line around Mildred Natwick and Edmund Gwenn doesn't retreat to the second fiddler when the plot thickens, the quartet remains inseparable through the middle point until the finish line, and certainly the two veterans are more at ease with the tall tale setting and wearing their hearts on their sleeve, so is Mildred Dunnock, who plays Mrs. Wiggs, diligently and dutifully.The film might be simply labeled as a less crowd-pleaser in Hitchcock's oeuvre, but it is the auteur's own favourite, and it also marks the beginning of the renowned Hermann-Hitchcock collaboration, while THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY loses out on the usual Hitchcock-ian trappings, it actually pushes Herrmann's tremendously bewitching work to the foreground, it is lyrical, idyllic and plain optimum.

Python Hyena The Trouble With Harry (1955) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock / Cast: John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Natwick, Royal Dano: The trouble with Harry is established early. He is dead and everyone who comes in contact with the body in the meadow believes that they are the prime suspect. Edmund Gwenn plays Captain Albert Wiles who comes across the body and believes he accidentally shot him while hunting. John Forsythe plays Sam Marlowe, an artist who assists Wiles in the several times they buried the body. Sam is romancing Jennifer Rogers, played by Shirley MacLaine whose husband is Harry and she seems disinterested in his death because she believes that she is responsible. Mildred Natwick plays Ivey Gravely who believes that she caused his death when she was attacked by him and she hit him over the head with her hiking boot. Royal Dano plays the Deputy Sheriff who shows up periodically while everyone is moving Harry about just out of sight. Director Alfred Hitchcock has fun with the humour and mystery surrounding Harry's death but the third act seems in very poor taste particularly when a cop pays a house visit when Harry's body is in a bathtub. The characters have likable qualities as played by an engaging cast but can anyone be this unlikable after death? The trouble with Harry is that he is never alive on camera for his version of the story to be told. Score: 7 / 10