Rating: 
Summary: Good.
Review: 'The Trouble With Harry' is yet another fantasic mystery from Alfred Hitchcock. Although I don't remember the storyline too much, I remember liking it enough to give it a four-star review.
Rating:
Summary: Good.
Review: 'The Trouble With Harry' is yet another fantasic mystery from Alfred Hitchcock. Although I don't remember the storyline too much, I remember liking it enough to give it a four-star review.
Rating: 
Summary: A Double Bed
Review: -Instructions: Bury Harry and dig him up three times. Then you will see how much trouble he can be.--Alfred Hitchcock, as shown through his endless cameo appearances, had a whimsically sly side to his talent. Usually, I allow some time to pass before reviewing a film, so through the test of time I can tell how effective and enduring a film remains. Since I enjoyed The Trouble With Harry so much, I would rather review it while its fresh on my mind.- -What would you do if one day, after a series of circumstances, you believed that you had somehow accidentally killed someone. To make matters worse people start showing up, and don't seem to care. In the back of your mind you wonder if they will use what they have seen against you, or if they had seen anything at all. Confused?- -How can a dead body weave between the lives of four normal people that all believe they had a participated in a murder in different ways? What follows is a light hearted film that is quite honestly one of the more enjoyable Hitchcock's.- -Just to sum up the situation: An old scooner captain believes he has shot Harry with a rifle while rabbit hunting. An artist (who quickly becomes the main character) helps the captain bury the body. Right before they stick him in the ground they hide and witness a woman (young Shirly McClain) seem almost excited that Harry is dead. After Harry is in the ground the two men set off after her to find out whether or not she knew him. Soon after this, another cog get's thrown in the wheel as another woman announces that she believe's she had killed him, by hitting him in the head with the heal of her shoe. McClain is found to be Harry's wife and suspicion is drawn to her. Then there is the blasted closet door that keeps opening by its self...!- -Whodunit indeed!- -It's worth checking out. Lot's of fun, and genuinely hitchcock.-
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie. Surprisingly funny
Review: A truly excellent movie. I saw this movie just yesterday and couldn't help laught out loud at the twists that came with it. Shirley Maclaine is fantastic in her role of the nonchalant, slightly strange wife, and even her kid does a superb job! The dialogue is fantastic, with Harry acting like a service elevator going wrong. In short, fantastic. Worth watching many a time.
Rating: 
Summary: Trouble with Hitchcock
Review: Alfred Hitchcock always had a soft spot for his misfires; perfectionist that he was, he probably wondered what went wrong and how he could have fixed it. "The Trouble with Harry" is one of those: an embarassingly clumsy comedy that just doesn't work at all. A man is shot under unseen and unexplained circumstances and the humor is supposed to spring from how the residents of a small Vermont village deal with him. The only moments of real comedy are the romantic byplay between John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine. "There are some things I just don't like to do by myself," she tells him in a hilarious double-entendre. Bernard Herrman's fine score and Saul Steinberg's graphic credits are wasted.
Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock at his most droll, delightful and enchanting!
Review: Along with ROPE, VERTIGO and the 1956 THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (TTWH) was unavailable for public viewing for many years. Far less famous than any of these films, TTWH is often thought of as a "minor" Hitchcock - light, amusing, but lacking the formal adventurousness of "classic" Hitchcock like PSYCHO or VERTIGO. It is true that TTWH is essentially a one-joke comedy without any great "set-pieces," but it is perhaps Hitchcock's purest meditation on the cycle of death and rebirth, and the place of human relationships within the realm of Nature. Many reviewers have commented on Robert Burks' lush cinematography of Vermont in October. Yes, it is "beautiful" to human eyes, but the beauty of fall is but the gorgeous face of death, life's final protest before winter's inexorable advance. The Vermont setting is crucial to the success of TTWH. The autumn landscape is as much a character in the film as any of the actors, who (very unusually in Hitchcock) are photographed in carefully composed group shots without close-ups. More so than in any other Hitchcock film, the characters share equal screen space with the landscape. This suggests the interdependence of humans and the earth, and avoids the fetishistic quality of much Hollywood cinema, which abstracts the human subject from his or her environment. All of the major characters in TTWH begin by being unfamiliar with one another, despite their residence in what is obviously a tiny village, and end by becoming deeply (and joyfully) enmeshed in each other's lives. Oddly, death is what brings these people closer to one another and sparks new love in their hearts. Harry himself is something of a "MacGuffin." The characters care deeply about what to do with his body, which is the prime mover of the plot, but we never know Harry, and really don't care very much about him (Hitchcock carefully weights our sympathies on the side of the Captain, Jennifer, and Miss Gravely by having them describe Harry as a drunk and a lout - a rather nasty individual whom the world is perhaps well-rid of). Instead, our involvement is with the lives of the four major characters, all of whom seem none too disturbed by Harry's death. In the real world, Harry's death would of course be the subject of a police investigation, but in TTWH's quiet rural hamlet, dead is dead, and only the living matter. The somewhat dim Sheriff Wiggs is one of Hitchcock's typical befuddled representatives of the law/society, easily outwitted by the far more clever painter, Sam, who treats Harry's corpse as an aesthetic object. The comedic subplots of the film treat getting away with murder as something perfectly rational, even desirable - what difference does it make once someone is dead? Keep in mind that each of the major characters thinks (one after the other) that they have killed Harry right up to the end of the film. As usual in Hitchcock, our sympathies are with the living, not the dead, and so of course we don't want the incompetent and inhuman Law to ensnare any of them in its net. In the world of TTWH, "manslaughter" has no meaning as a legal concept - too bad Harry's dead, it was only an accident so let's bury him quick and forget about it! TTWH expresses in a very pure form Hitchcock's moral position that the true danger to life comes from the power the dead have over the living (exemplified by the power of the law to punish those who have taken life). The universe of TTWH is one where death is not particularly feared, nor even seen as an unusual or even saddening event. It is remarkable how the characters display no anxiety or fear of Harry's corpse - even little Arnie seems quite unperturbed by death. It is also remarkable how frequently the characters discuss sex with a calm acceptance rather than prurient interest (the dialogue is quite straightforward for a film made in 1955!). In this tiny Vermont town, both sex and death, the two great obsessions and taboos of our society, seem equally ordinary - just simple facts of existence, to be accepted rather than feared or made much of. The humor in this film comes from its treatment of these fundamental questions of life in such an incongruous, matter-of-fact way, and this is what gives TTWH an astonishing freshness, even today. This is a very unusual, perhaps unique film, which eases the mind while it pleases the eyes. Hitchcock consistently described THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY as one of his personal favorites among his films, and after one or two viewings, you will understand why. The performances are fine all around, the dialogue is crisp as the autumn air, and the pacing is quick and lively. An all-around charmer!
Rating:
Summary: A sweet film
Review: Dark, charming, and funny without being sentimental or nihilistic, "The Trouble with Harry" is a good example of Hitchcock's skill in walking the fine lines without tripping. This is a grandly underrated movie, possibly the only completely successful film of its type. Imagine the recent flick "Amelie" worked around a murder...wthout losing any of its remarkable magic.
I only have two quibbles with the film, none substantial enough to take even a fragment of fifth star away. First, John Forsythe seems a tad miscast Just a tiny bitty tad. The problem might simply be seeing him through the haze of his later television acting career. It's probably just my problem. I never find him to be a sympathetic or believable character (yet, to make up for that, Shirley MacLaine is great).
The second issue is that the story is supposed to be set in Vermont. I live about twenty minutes from Vermont and up close it never looked as much like northern California as it does in this film. Where are the trees...and the mountains? Oh well, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" is set in a nearby New Hampshire that looks like a stretch of WWI battlefield trench on a rainy day. Northern California is more flattering for sure. As a crotchety native New Englander, I'll gripe: why is it that in the movies set in Florida or Southern California those places are always made to look like some sort of Paradise-on-Earth (whereas in fact both locations are pretty hellish. I know, I've been there), and New England--a dag-darned charming place outside of the cussed cities--is never given its due? It's either wrongly expansive, big-sky West Coast or, worse, creepy Stephen King-ish Witch Haven. So help me, there isn't a single creepy abandoned Victorian mansion anywhere around the region!
Rating:
Summary: Harry's Holiday
Review: Director Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 film, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, is a dark mystery/comedy, that is time well spent. When a corpse suddenly appears, the residents of a small New England town are left to wonder how the victim died. After several failed attemps to bury the corpse, the townspeople are shocked to learn the true "Trouble" with Harry. Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, a young Jerry Mathers, and Shirley MacLaine (in her first film) all dive right into their roles. Thanks to its dark sense of humor and with Hitcock at the helm, the film remains good for a chuckle or two. Athough, I have to admit, that the movie is not my favorite among Hitchcock films, it still has plenty to like. The DVD has a 30 minute-plus retrospective documentary, just like many other Hitchcock films on disc. As a follower of the director, I find these documentaries informative and well produced by Laurent Bouzereau. It also includes a photo gallery, with both production and publcity photgraghs. Rounding out the extras on the DVD are cast and crew information, production notes, and the vintage theatrical trailer. Recommended
Rating: 
Summary: Not a "showstopper", but so what?
Review: Do yourself a favor and pour a nice glass of iced tea, put your feet up, and enjoy "The Trouble With Harry" on a lazy Saturday afternoon prior to going out to enjoy the centerpiece activity of your Saturday night. In other words, if you don't expect too much from this film, you'll find it enjoyable and diverting. I liked the gorgeous scenery and wonderful photography; the offbeat humor; and the none-too-realistic but amusing characters (many of whom reminded me of the done-with-a-straight-face neurotics that began popping up in Monty Python sketches a decade and a half later). The movie isn't a showstopper (it doesn't have those three or four stare-in-awe directorial moments that mostly every other Hitchcock film offers) but "The Trouble With Harry" is beautiful to look at, laced with several chuckles, and, if not directed in the master's usually gripping style, is certainly presented with supreme polish and artistry.
Rating:
Summary: Harry just lies there
Review: Gerry Mathers is playing in a field and some shots are fired. Soon he comes up on a body. We are now prepared for suspense and mystery. Turns out pretty formula; everybody and nobody could have done it. At first it seems slow and weird as no one acts normal even for a movie character. They are all slow, nonchalant, and distracted. Harry gets dragged around and buried in controversy. Soon you can really get warped up in the story and anticipate the end. The movie never picks up you just have more loose ends to keep up with. No one cares who bumped Harry off as along is it does effect him or her.
The draw to the movie now days and maybe then is the cast of characters and the introduction of Shirley MacLaine. Edmund Gwenn looks pretty old here and is remembered also for his performance in "Outward Bound" (1930) 25 years earlier. There is still a Hitchcock feel. So sit back and enjoy it for what it is.
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