September 27, 2012
To Catch a Thief – U.S., 1955
Alfred Hitchcock’s
1955 film To Catch a Thief has
everything it needs to soar – an intriguing premise, a thrilling opening scene,
a talented lead actor. It begins with such fire that many viewers are likely to
be lulled into the erroneous belief that that unfolds will be more akin to a
James Bond adventure than a romantic melodrama like An Affair to Remember. Therefore, as the film unfolds, they are
likely to either be ecstatic or disappointed that what actually occurs on screen
is anything but a fast-paced, cat-and-mouse caper. The film stars Cary Grant as
John Robie, a former cat burgler who was apparently so good at his craft that
he has been able to live off his plunders for the past fifteen years without
working. A rash of complicated jewelry thefts are committed, and suspicion
naturally falls upon Robie. He decides the only way to clear his name is to
find the real thief himself.
To accomplish this
task, he enlists the help of an insurance broker named H.H. Hughson (John
Williams II), who has almost as much to lose if the thefts continue as Robie
does. Hughson has compiled a list of the thief’s potential targets, wealthy women
who refuse to keep their jewelry safely locked away. How exactly the thief has
this information is never explained. Perhaps it comes down to a series of lucky
guesses. Robie’s goal is to somehow ingratiate himself with the people on the
list in the hopes of catching the thief in the act and clearing his name. I
suppose there isn’t much else that Robie can do, but considering he could be
facing an extremely long prison term if he doesn’t find the thief, I expected
him to do a bit more than he does. His investigative techniques primarily involve
him walking out on balconies and looking around, in addition to sticking his
head out windows and scanning the tops of buildings. In his defense, there are
no clues for him to follow, and because the thief only strikes at night, Robie
has hours to kill in between his brief attempts to apprehend the thief.
So what’s a film
that is unable to move forward to do with its remaining sixty minutes? Why,
introduce a love story, of course. As luck would have it, the owner of some
rather valuable jewels just happens to have a rather captivating daughter with
a ton of time on her hands. And it doesn’t hurt at all that the young woman’s
mother seems intent on pushing her daughter into Robie’s arms, regardless of
the fact that the man is twice her age. The daughter, Frances Stevens, is
played by Grace Kelly, who was twenty-six when the film was made. Grant, here
appearing in his sixtieth feature-length film, was fifty-one, and the
difference in their ages shows, so much so that I found myself wondering if the
film wouldn’t have been better off matching Robie with Frances’s mother, Jessie
Stevens (Jesse Royce Landis).
The screenplay for
To Catch a Thief was written by John
Michael Hayes based on the novel by David Dodge. Hayes worked with Hitchcock
four times, penning the screenplays for such classics as Rear Window, The Trouble with
Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Here, he is tasked with creating a believable romance between a character that
has something to hide and a young woman who suspects he is more than he is
letting on. Hayes’s script cackles with clever dialogue and eyebrow-raising
double entendres, and his words are delivered with the appropriate flair by
Grant and Kelly. We should expect no less. However, something seems off. It is
as if these are the wrong lines for these characters, as if they were intended
to impress the audience and make them wow at their cleverness, instead of being
realistic. In addition, their courtship seems forced. It begins with an awkward
kiss and proceeds in a similarly peculiar fashion. And then, it suddenly
changes on a dime. Why? Because every heroine in a movie such as this one must
have a moment of doubt. It’s just part
of the genre.
I realize I’m
going against the grain on this one. The film currently has a 7.5 rating on
IMDB and a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Many comments extol it for its
stellar cast, its romantic storyline, and its suspenseful ending. In truth, I
appreciated the beginning of the film greatly, and I was particularly moved by
John Robie’s interesting back story. I’m sure that would have made a terrific
film on its own. However, once the film shifts its focus from the crime to the romance,
it loses the momentum that it worked so hard and effectively to build, and it
never really gets it back. I could be wrong, but for me, there’s much less here
than meets the eye. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
2 and a half stars
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