To catch a thief. Old saying, for anyone who didn't know.
I just watched this again, after many years, and as usual with Hitchcock films, I felt like I was seeing it for the first time. I doubt there will ever be another film-maker as unutterably gratifying to movie audiences as Alfred Hitchcock.
Its supposedly "minor" (compared to North by Northwest and Psycho and Vertigo), but...its a sort of perfection on its own terms. Grant and Kelly are perfectly matched, the color cinematography won the Oscar, the "capture" of the French Riviera circa 1955 is a time capsule, and the shots attendant to the rooftop cliffhanger climax are, possibly, the best Hitchcock ever did in that motif(which he did a lot.)
I also like the character John Robie. A former criminal on parole who won his parole by being a mass murderer: he has killed 40 Nazis when we meet him. Robie killed a lot more people than Norman Bates did -- but "they were all BAD."
Indeed "set a thief to catch a thief..."
And about 12 years later, a TV series with Robert Wagner called "It Takes a Thief" was a further riff on the line.
Yes, I've wondered about that, (Vertigo being considered "minor"), and I can only attribute that view to the film's fairly simplified character development. Robie is explained quite early on, and because it's Hitchcock the audience expects that he'll change radically, one way or the other. But he goes through with his plans and emerges exonerated, without too much trouble. That's fine, though.
I think Hitchcock was slightly diverted by the subplot of getting Cary Grant and Grace Kelly to set up house in that beautiful location, (it was probably a fond wish of his own, in fact). :) There's almost always romance in Hitchcock movies, and this one, being in such a manifestly romantic location, was more like a Romance with Mystery, rather than a straight Hitchcock thriller. Either way, I love it.
This time around, I took the time to soak up Robert Burks' photography, the colours and the framing of scenes. I think Ted Moore's "James Bond" photographic style owes something to him.
All that, plus Bernard Herrman. Say no more. :)
"won his parole by being a mass murderer: he has killed 40 Nazis when we meet him."
Robie says he killed seventy-two. Killing the enemy during war is not "mass murder".
"won his parole by being a mass murderer: he has killed 40 Nazis when we meet him."
Robie says he killed seventy-two.
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Forty was my vague estimated guess from memory. Oops!
I daresay that you made your post on Sunday, August 16, 2020...just after Turner Classic Movies showed To Catch a Thief(as part of "Cary Grant Day" during the August Summer of Stars) right before showing "Charade." I watched them back to back; its cool to compare Grant in a Hitchcock circa stodgy 1955 versus Grant in Hitchcock copy circa hipper 1963(with Hepburn as co-lead and Matthau, Coburn and Kennedy in support.)
It was a great evening's viewing.
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Killing the enemy during war is not "mass murder".
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I suppose it depends on who is doing the killing and why(see: the concentration camps.)
The law has specified that killing in war is not murder, but nonetheless, the fact that Robie killed that many men -- I assume they were all men -- has to have taken some toll on his psyche. And he has a COUNT. I guess it was personal, hand to hand combat -- he didn't blow any up(or maybe he did -- at a movie theater maybe?)
I have noted before that between Cary Grant's body count in To Catch a Thief and Tony Perkins' body count in Psycho -- Perkins doesn't come close. But Perkins' killings were NOT of war and that makes them...murder. Still, John Robie killed 62 human souls. I can't believe that it didn't take a toll -- perhaps his isolation and grouchiness.
And did his stocky maid -- she strangled a German general..."without a sound."