The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

 I watched my upteenth Jimmy Stewart movie in like two months after coming home tonight. Thanks to Turner Classic Movies, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was on and I was like, "Why not?" Alfred Hitchcock directing a potential assassination in the Royal Albert Hall with Bernard Herrmann conducting the orchestra as Doris Day peers into a skybox at Reggie Nalder who is waiting the bang of cymbals signalling his turn to kill the prime minister as Jimmy Stewart hurriedly rushes about to stop the murder...the epic of this writes itself. The way the orchestra builds and Hitchcock prepares us for the musician and the cymbals to crash as Nalder hides behind a curtain, pulls his Luger, and awaits, with Day, in tears, torn about how to stop the killing, knowing her son's life is in jeopardy....Hitchcock milks that for all its worth. A child kidnapped, Stewart and Day caught between a rock and a hard place, London the location where the film takes us (Morroco to Marrakesh, and eventually to England) ultimately, a seemingly friendly couple (Bernard Miles and Brenda de Banzie) responsible for the son's abduction; Hitchcock not ending the film at Royal Albert Hall, instead concluding it at an embassy where the prime minister's own ambassador had orchestrated the entire assassination plot, I admire. It would have been so easy to expect Hitchcock to give us the big shebang at the Hall, but the embassy sure feels quite right. Miles, after finding out from the ambassador (Mogens Wieth) that Nalder not only was unsuccessful but fell from the skybox to his death, is tasked with killing the child because he "bungled everything" regarding the assassination. So to compound the suspense of globe trotting to find their son, having to halt an assassination at the Hall, then cleverly sneaking into the embassy by requesting to speak to the very prime minister they save the life of, Day gets behind the piano and hits the high notes of "Que Sera Sera" while Stewart rushes to secure his son.

Hitchcock includes some moments where characters look right into his camera while walking towards the film's leads, Stewart on a bad lead to a factory with stuffed animals (those in it calling the cops when he believes they have kidnapped his son) hearing footsteps that turn out to not be anyone nefarious, Day drawing police to a locked church they can't get into (as Stewart has to escape after the kidnappers smack him upside the head and unconscious by rope through a belltower!), and the little boy encouraged by de Banzie to whistle loud so Stewart could find him because she was mortified by the thought of her husband killing a child; Hitchcock didn't just have that incredible Royal Albert Hall sequence to wow us. 

This isn't really even high on my Hitchcock list and I still find plenty to gush about. I was happy Hitchcock got to direct Doris Day in a film. Her song winning the Oscar is a nice feather in the her cap, but I found her wonderful as the worried mother desperate to find her son, and Stewart at his wit's end regarding his son's safety and whereabouts once again brings the pathos. Miles posing as a priest in a church while his wife takes up moneys in the offering plate of his church while Stewart and Day's boy is held captive upstairs by thugs really gives me the giggles it is so ironic...it is quite the disguise. Nalder and Miles preparing for the assassination while de Banzie is clearly repelled by it all is a chilling conversation. Hitchcock could sure stage a scene where folks can easily slip in and out of disguises. 

And friends of Day holing up at their London hotel, clueless as to the whole kidnap / assassination plot. How Hitchcock and his leads navigate that where the friends are never in the wise while they are having a come-apart is just brilliant. 4/5