Hitch #44 - The Trouble with Harry (1955)

I’m fairly sure that I had never seen The Trouble with Harry before, which seems very strange - I’m guessing that it just never turned up on the telly back in the day? Perhaps because it is so much more low-key, and less classic Hitch than the films that preceded and followed it. I did of course know what the trouble with Harry was, because it’s just one of those things you know!

The Trouble with Harry (1955)

I wasn’t too sure what to expect and was a little apprehensive but I absolutely loved it - the quirky humour, the ridiculous way that the characters behaved, and every cast member was a joy to watch - obviously I could watch Shirley MacLaine all day long, and Edmund Gwenn is always a pleasure (his Rowley in Foreign Correspondent is one of my favourite Hitch minor characters). But all those actors, the one who I really only knew as a soap star in a soap I never watched, and all the ones I’d never heard of before - they were all charming - even the kid wasn’t as annoying as kids tend to be in US films of this era.

Bernard Hermann’s music was exceptional, obviously not as familar as his more famous Hitch scores, but still a joy.

There were a couple of oddities

• the studio set of the wood where Harry gets buried was very unconvincing.
• the periodic fades to black, to represent time passing, felt a bit clunky for Hitch.
• occasionally the dialog would sound like they were talking in a gymnasium… which it turns out they apparently were.

So, maybe this isn’t classic Hitch, but it was very enjoyable all the same.

Shirley MacLaine

Source: DVD
Rating: 7/10
Hitchcock Zone: The Trouble with Harry (1955)