Family Plot

*** 1/2 / *****
I'm an absolute Hitchcock mark. Don't deny it. Getting me to talk shit about his films is like prying chum from the jaws of a great white. Family Plot (1976) is a film I certainly enjoyed. Didn't love, but it was a nice Tuesday evening spent with one of the Master's latter career efforts. It is laid back and absent any real intensity but nonetheless breezy fun. There's no sense of urgency in the pace, lethargic and methodical with no higher gear. Casting is top notch with Devane and Black as kidnappers of wealthy folks they demand ransom diamonds for, with Dern a cabbie and Harris, his girlfriend, a faux psychic medium putting the fix on little old ladies.

The "family plot" has Barbara Harris learning of an heir to fortune through a weary client willing to pay her for details regarding the son of a chauffeur who might not have died in a fire with his adoptive parents. She gets her cabbie beau, Bruce Dern, to investigate the whereabouts of this son. William Devane (Rolling Thunder; Knott's Landing) is a jeweler moonlighting with girlfriend, Karen Black, as a cunning kidnapper of very privileged, well-to-do jetsetters and the filthy rich, exchanging their captured for valuable gems. For fun, Devane hides them in plain sight, hanging from their chandelier! Meanwhile, Dern learns that Devane's headstone was purchased by someone running a gas station (Ed Lauter), also involved in trying to get him declared dead. Devane has assumed a new identity and orchestrates a plot to kill Dern and Harris once they're discovered (Dern pretending to be an attorney is soon determined false) with help from Lauter...the two were associated in the murder of his parents! So Harris seeks out Devane, unknowingly walking into a dangerous trap; especially when she sees Black trying to conceal her and Devane's murder of a priest who knew too much...

Dern is just relaxed in this atypical role. He's typically in the Devane role, this time sliding into the part of some everyday taxi driver making ends meet, only committed to the search of Devane because Harris insists. He researches her clients and feeds her dirt. Devane and Black have a secret room, providing their victims a chemical toilet, air conditioning, cooked meals, and a less than dire temporary stay. A drug taken from a dentist to subdue their victims and chopper with paid pilot to shuttle them back and forth. It is quite an operation.

Obviously California locations are the setting, with a "runaway car" sequence involving cut brake line as Dern swerves around dangerous curvy roads as Harris fumbles about distracting him a highlight. Lauter is a fun heel, a dirty rotter who makes for the perfect heavy to associate with devious Devane. Black always appears hesitantly resistant to violence but willing to rob the rich...her commitment to Devane has drug her into the abyss. A wicked, teethy smile Devane certainly has. Dern and Harris literally stumbling into good luck and a farcical clairvoyance that emerges are pure Hitchcock baloney...Hitch just can't help but end this with a final nod to his audience.

It's too bad Hitchcock was ailing and aged by the 70s because the loosening of restrictions​ in the movie industry could have provided him with creative freedom only really seen in his '73 masterpiece, Frenzy. His direction was especially dark and humor black as pitch in that one. In Family Plot, this is all playful and at ease, never too edgy or naughty. It never felt too inspired but the camera was still active and studious. Hitchcock still followed where the action needed to go and his camera's eye remained attentive to its intended target. The score by the celebrated Williams still gave Hitchcock's film that cinematic core. It had plenty of places to go, his film, and the engine of the plot never truly sputters. But this is a joyride, not a race. Still to be in the final  Hitchcock film must have been an honor and his obsessions, which are often documented as creepy and perhaps morally dubious, did produce some spectacular results, still evident in various degrees with Black dressed in black. This film might not be prime Hitchcock, but it is still quite good Hitchcock...and to me good Hitchcock is often great compared to others.