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The Trouble With Harry

The Trouble With Harry

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
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Rating: 4 stars
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.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: the trouble with harry
Review: Hitchcock fans beware...this is a stinker!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This May Sound Blasphemous, But I Wasn't Wild About This.
Review: Hitchcock has never, ever, made a bad movie. 1955's "The Trouble With Harry" is actually a pretty competent film, but when paired next to "North by Northwest" or "Rear Window," this film falls conspicuously short. It's a dark comedy set in New England where a dead corpse is found and a group of town residents spend the entire film debating what to do with it. Should they report to local authorities? Should they keep it a secret? And, most of all, who killed him? John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine (in her film debut) make appealing apprearances, and they do the best they can with the material they have. And the score by Bernard Herrmann is easily the best thing here. Yet, I wanted this film to push my buttons the way "Psycho" and "Frenzy" did, and I ended up mildly disappointed. Hitchcock diehards should give this a look, but the "trouble" with this "Harry" is that there's nothing extraordinary about it for me to recommend to casual viewers.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This May Sound Blasphemous, But I Wasn't Wild About This.
Review: Hitchcock has never, ever, made a bad movie. 1955's "The Trouble With Harry" is actually a pretty competent film, but when paired next to "North by Northwest" or "Rear Window," this film falls conspicuously short. It's a dark comedy set in New England where a dead corpse is found and a group of town residents spend the entire film debating what to do with it. Should they report to local authorities? Should they keep it a secret? And, most of all, who killed him? John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine (in her film debut) make appealing apprearances, and they do the best they can with the material they have. And the score by Bernard Herrmann is easily the best thing here. Yet, I wanted this film to push my buttons the way "Psycho" and "Frenzy" did, and I ended up mildly disappointed. Hitchcock diehards should give this a look, but the "trouble" with this "Harry" is that there's nothing extraordinary about it for me to recommend to casual viewers.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointing Experiment
Review: Hitchcock wanted to do something different this time around, but THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is uneven and tedious at times. Shirley MacLaine is terrific in her screen debut, Edmund Gwenn is great, as usual, and even Jerry Mathers (no, NOT as the Beaver) gives a good performance. But, at 100 minutes, it's overlong and the endless unearthing and burying of poor Harry grates after a while. However, it's a beautiful film, with superb color and a great score by the always wonderful Bernard Herrmann.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Life, death, sex and lots of laughs
Review: Hitchcock was always funny, even in his darkest and most suspenseful films, but in this movie he decided to pursue all the comic possibilities lurking in what could have been a horror scenario: a corpse that won't stay buried, feelings of terrible guilt, innocent people falsely incriminated, the usual Hitchcock bag of tricks except that here it's all played for laughs. Something else worth mentioning is that without a single nude scene or crude word, this film manages to be sexier and more outrageous than anything on the screen in this free-and-easy era when film-makers keep trying to one-up eachother with outrageous shock effects. Some of the double-entendres make you laugh with sheer disbelief that they ever got past the censors. At the risk of spoiling a great laugh line, I have to mention one -- "She's a well preserved woman, and preserves have to be opened sometime!"

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unexpectedly different mystery comedy from the Master
Review: Hitchcock was hardly a one-note director. He functioned in a variety of modes, and while the various films he made possessed a family resemblance to one another, they are not monolithically the same. If one only allows him or herself to enjoy the out-and-out suspense films like NORTH BY NORTHWEST or STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, this could very possibly be a film that will not bring pleasure or enjoyment. But if, instead, the viewer is able to be open to something a little bit different, this film can be a source of unexpected delight.

I first saw this film as part of the revival of the "Five Missing Hitchcock" Films in the early 1980s, the others being THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (the Jimmy Stewart version), REAR WINDOW, ROPE, and VERTIGO. While VERTIGO and REAR WINDOW were the two films causing the biggest stir, I was pleasantly surprised by THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. Hitchcock has always vacillated between comedy and suspense, with some films containing more, and others less, of the former. Except for MR. AND MRS. SMITH, however, this film comes the closest of any of his films to pure comedy.

The trouble with Harry, of course, is that he is dead and won't stay buried. The other trouble is that a vast number of individuals may have had a motive for killing him. But how and why he died is decidedly unimportant. Instead, his corpse provides the basis for a series of mildly complicated situations, as his body is shifted and moved and brooded over.
This movie was the extraordinarily cute Shirley MacLaine's film debut, and she is enormously fetching in it. John Forsythe plays the male lead, but the woodenness of his performance mars his performance somewhat (for the uninitiated, he later was the voice of "Charlie" on CHARLIE'S ANGELS). Several reviewers have noted the presence of the Beaver, Jerry Mathers. Edmund Gwenn, who as he often does, nearly steals the film as Captain Wiles, appears here in his first Hitchcock film since portraying incongruously but magnificently an assassin in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT in 1940.

Hitchcock filmed THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY on location in Vermont, the most recognizable shots being in one of my favorite towns in America: Craftsbury. I have stayed in inns in Craftsbury on three separate occasions during the fall foliage season (this film was shot with the leaves changing), and I can testify that it is every bit as lovely, albeit a touch more developed, as it appears in this film.

This film isn't for everyone, but if you are willing to be flexible, and not be disappointed when this turns out not to be REBECCA or THE BIRDS, then I think most viewers will find a great deal to enjoy and smile about.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful, under-rated film
Review: How could you not fall in love with the autumnal colours of New England, brilliantly photographed by Robert Burks, or the gentle shades and nuances of Bernard Herrmann's fine score? Not only that, but the cast is a dream, especially Edmund Gwenn (a fine Brit), Shirley MacLaine and Mildred Natwick. I am a great fan of Hitch's films, and this would have to be in my personal list of favourites. Hitchcock manages to pull of a splendid balance of character, romance and dark humour, and the whole thing is a brilliantly executed bit of understatement as the cast wrestle with the practicalities of an acquaintance that just won't stay buried.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: One of Hitchocks Not-so-good movies
Review: I bought this video because I am collecting the Hitchcock movies, but I was rather disappointed when I watched it. It is a rather unusual movie, a completely different style than his previous ones. It is made to be a comedy-mystery, shown by how Harry was constantly being dug up and burried again. Some parts of the movie were fairly good, but I didn't find it too humourous. I would recommend this movie to people who have rather "silly" sense of humours, or to people who just want to watch or collect as many Hitchcocks as possible.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bizarre!
Review: I really, really wanted to like this, but it was just TOO dated and bizarre. A huge disappointment.


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