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The Epitome of Glamour...and One of Hitchcock's Best

posted 17 years ago by ecarle
60 replies | jump to latest

So there.

If you were looking to find the polar opposite of "Psycho" in the Hitchcock canon, I think "To Catch a Thief" might just be the ticket.

Whereas the characters in "Psycho" are workaday, hardscrabble types (they manage barely profitable motels and hardware stores, work as secretaries, etc), the characters in "To Catch A Thief" are generally rich, and/or surrounded by the rich.

"Psycho" was cheaply made in black-and-white almost entirely on the Universal backlot (for Paramount). "To Catch a Thief" was made in Technicolor and VistaVision on the gorgeous French Riviera, with Hitchcock's favorite cinematographer, Robert Burks, winning his only Oscar for showing us a mouth-watering Monaco, a night sky full of fireworks, the eye-popping golden gowns and other clotes of a costume ball.

"To Catch A Thief" came out five years before "Psycho," and "Psycho" was largely seen as a shocking rejection of the glamour that "To Catch A Thief" portrayed. Maybe it was -- the sixties would slowly drain glamour out of the movies and the movie stars.

In which case, "To Catch A Thief" is all the more rare a gem in the Hitchcock collection -- a standing monument to a time long gone and a lifestyle that the "new rich" have not carried on.

Objections include "it's not much of a thriller" and "it's not as exciting and action-packed as 'North by Northwest'" of four years later.

Granted, granted. But "To Catch A Thief" stands tall far more as a romantic comedy in the Lubitsch tradition than a thriller -- even though it does thrill.

And "North by Northwest" -- which was meant as the big budget "Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures" isn't as glamourous as "To Catch a Thief," and is an "All-American thriller" to boot.

Also, Eva Marie Saint, good actress and beauty that she is, is not Grace Kelly.

"To Catch A Thief" offers us Cary Grant looking about as good as he ever did -- 50 but much younger-looking, tan, fit enough for swim trunks -- paired with Grace Kelly looking about as gorgeous as SHE ever did -- parrying and thrusting all over the French Riviera looking as gorgeous as IT ever did. And that's almost enough to justify the whole movie.

Cary had "retired" in his forties, feeling that the Marlon Brandos, James Deans, and even William Holdens were replacing his Golden Era elegance.

But Hitchocck lured Grant out of that premature retirement, with two things: a character who fit Cary like a glove, and the prospect of working with Grace Kelly. Cary called Grace his favorite leading lady; and you can see why. They are a perfect pair here. One movie earlier in "Rear Window," Grace had been paired with Jimmy Stewart in an "opposites attract" kind of thing. But with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, their gorgeous bodies match, their smooth voices match, their elegant ways match. It's perfection.

But wait, there's more!

If "Notorious" perfected the "black and white 40's noir look" with a younger,more studly Cary Grant and an exotic Ingrid Bergman, "To Catch A Thief" perfected the "50's Technicolor look," with Grant and Kelly a perfect match of a different sort, in a movie designed, like so many others of the 50's, to battle the gray bleakness of that Old Devil, television with a screen full of color and scenery.

And yet, still more:

John Michael Hayes wrote four screenplays in a row for Hitchcock -- "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief," "The Trouble With Harry" "The Man Who Knew Too Much" -- and this one may just be the wittiest. Oh, "Rear Window" had its great lines,but "Rear Window" had a lot of gripping suspense and silent camerawork. "To Catch a Thief" is a comedy romance that rather DEPENDS on those great lines. Not just between Grant and Kelly, but between Jessie Royce Landis (as spoiled Grace's no-nonsense rich widow of a mother) and EVERYBODY.

I particularly like Grace's line to Cary when he says he's in the lumber business.

Grace: You don't look like an Oregon lumberman to me.
Cary: I must remember to shout 'timber!" more often.

Or when Grace tells Cary that she's reported to the police everything that happened between Cary and she the last night.

Cary: Everything? Oh, the boys down at the station must have enjoyed THAT.

There's also the dapper fun of John Williams (a Hitchcock character acting favorite, not the musical composer of "Jaws" and "Family Plot") as Grant's reluctant "partner in crime": an Insurance man who gives up the info on rich residents of Monaco so that Cary can find the copycat thief who is framing him for robberies. Grant and Williams trade some nice lines, too.

And how about this:

Early in the film, Cary dresses up in a nice tuxedo and goes into a Monaco casino to play Baccarat. You're waiting for him to say, "Bond, James Bond." But of course, the Bond movies were seven years away! Hey, wait a minute. Maybe they start RIGHT HERE. (With "North by Northwest" to provide further underpinnings for the Bond series: action, femme fatales, supervillains with mountain lairs, etc.)

Not to mention:

One of the sexiest yet funniest moments in movie history. On their first meeting, Cary escorts the luminously beautiful Grace -- heretofore nearly silent -- to her hotel room door. Grace lays a big sexy kiss on Cary -- we see only the back of his head, which is quite funny -- and closes the door. Cary turns in close-up with a "Cary Grant grin" and turns to walk down the hall with a languid yet jaunty Cary Grant walk...as Hitchcock's camera pulls back to play off the elegance of the joke.

There are other sexy-funny scenes in "To Catch A Thief" . The chicken picnic ("Breast...or thigh?" Grace asks.) The fireworks courtship in the darkened hotel room with Grace's breast's a heavin' in another gorgeous gown. "Look at them!" (The diamonds, she means.) "Have you ever had a better offer?" Cary's grumpy reply: "I've never had a crazier one."

There's also the saucy humor of Cary caught between two vixens -- Grace's society girl and Danielle Auber's barely-legal Frenchgirl stalker -- in the open water off Cannes. Cary's head bobs back and forth comically as the two women trade barbs en route to a waterbound catfight that doesn't quite happen.

Sexy. Funny. "To Catch a Thief."

But wait:

It IS a thriller. Maybe not as suspenseful as "Psycho." Maybe not as action packed "North by Northwest." But Cary's John Robie is a former jewel thief who also happens to be a mass murderer: to win his freedom from incarceration, Robie killed scores of Nazis in WWII, and his stout maid, Robie notes, "once strangled a German general with her bare hands...without a sound."

John Robie is, in short, a dangerous man -- certainly a more lethal professional than Roger Thornhill a few years later-- and he is also "the wrong man" in the classic Hitchcock tradition, hunted by the police for new robberies while being stalked by gangsters who want the heat off. There's a fair amount of suspense, danger, and potential death lurking beneath the glamour surface of "To Catch A Thief."

It all comes together at a masked ball in which the costumes pop our eyes out while Cary (a former acrobat in real life) does some daring jumping and hanging from rooftops.

Hitchcock perfected so many genres: the spy movie. the slasher movie. the child-kidnap movie. the bomber movie.

Here, Hitchcock perfects "the caper jewel heist movie." "The Pink Panther" was just one of the knock-offs from this film. And Robert Wagner had a 60's TV show called "It Takes a Thief" ("It Takes a thief...to catch a thief") that borrowed from this movie quite a bit.

All these years later, I think one has to sweep aside the thriller elements of "To Catch A Thief" to find its real value in the Hitchcock canon. Let there be no doubt: this was a big hit for Hitchocck, and a defining work in his canon. It stands as perhaps the most glamourous movie of the fifties, with the most perfectly paired stars. There can never be another movie like it. It's impossible.

But "To Catch A Thief" lived on beyond its making to add two grand Hitchcockian ironies that give it an even more special aura today:

1. Grace Kelly soon became the Princess of the small, rich nation in which this movie is set. Hitchcock, who wanted to work with Grace Kelly forever, is the man who brought her to the place that would cause her to give up movies.

2. The film's then-quite-exciting car chase sequence (process screens were fine back then) now carries a dark charge: Grace Kelly speeds around cliff-side corners in Monaco where she would die in a car crash in 1982.

Hitchcock, who died in 1980, would not have appreciated that Hitchcockian irony at all.

[–] rrb 17 years ago

ecarle--marvelous post. Thanks.

Richard

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

Ecarle returns, with thanks to those who like "To Catch A Thief," and just a SLIGHT inclination to debate its worthiness with those who don't. (My feeling is: you can never convince someone to like something they don't like.)

"North by Northwest" is, indeed, a more major film in most regards than "To Catch a Thief," though Eva Marie Saint was a somewhat-too-demure substitute for Grace Kelly, who Hitchcock and Grant attempted to coax out of retirement for "North."

However, "NXNW" came out four years after "To Catch a Thief" at a crucial time in American movies, as Hitchcock elected to take everything to a new level. "North by Northwest," with its heavy emphasis on action and spectacle, is as much Hitchcock "changing things" as "Psycho" would be one film later.

"To Catch a Thief" is from a more sedate and constrained period in American films; the mid-fifties. Hitchcock made a masterpiece there, too -- "Rear Window" -- but "To Catch A Thief" stands as a somewhat-lesser class act that represents, again, the epitome of glamour, with two stars perfectly matched in looks and voice: Grant and Kelly.

The glamour isn't necessarily in how Kelly physically looks as she vamps Grant during the fireworks -- it is in what she is WEARING. That gown. Following an earlier gorgeous gown and smart swimsuit, and ahead of that glorious golden gown she wears at the end.

For his part, Grant smartly wears an array of outfits and wears them well. In "NXNW," he is confined to a silver-gray suit for most of the picture, and a utilitarian white shirt/black slacks outfit for Mount Rushmore. In "To Catch a Thief," Grant wears a tux, a swimsuit, a sports outfit, a gray suit, and a striped tee- shirt only Grant could pull off. Not to mention the cool black of his cat burglar togs.

"To Catch A Thief" may not have the plot of "North by Northwest," but the screenplay is top-notch in the wit department, one of four in a row written by the man considered Hitchcock's greatest "long-running screenwriter": John Michael Hayes.

Meanwhile, "Charade" is a great movie for a variety of reasons: its stars, its co-stars (Matthau and Coburn), its plot, and its Mancini music. But "Charade" is missing what "To Catch a Thief" has: the Hitchcock touch, the Master's immitiable ability to focus, without dialogue, on a collection of shots timed by Hitchcock with the regularity of a metronome and weighted with an artist's eye.

I suspect some of the antipathy towards "To Catch a Thief" is generational. "North by Northwest" matches up better with Bond and Bourne and everything else since and today. "To Catch a Thief" is of another era.

Grant's deadpan performance, btw, strikes me as just right. What Grant does after Kelly first kisses him in the hotel doorway is the stuff of controlled genius. George Clooney will never acheive Grant's ability to get so much out of doing so little. Clooney's too much of a pick-up-basketball-playing wisenheimer to work his suave.

Hitchcock was such a great filmmaker that just "one level below" his masterpieces (Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window) are films that would be considered great by any other measure. "To Catch a Thief" is a great film about a time long gone, and that time is never coming back.

Imagine it with Matt Damon and Paris Hilton, and you get the picture...

[–] EricBarker 17 years ago

Imagine it with Matt Damon and Paris Hilton, and you get the picture...

LOL, thanks. Great thread, as usual.

This one is one of my Top 20 Hitchcocks, like the work of a master chef (which he also was), who normally serves up a seven course extravaganza, suddenly turning his attention to dessert for a moment and giving you the most sensual and featherweight cake you could ever imagine.

Any objections to the flawless comic performances by Kelly and Grant (not to mention the great Jesse Royce Landis) are just a matter of taste, a misperception based on changed fashions in performance style.

Kelly, BTW, loved older men. Exclusively. Modern audiences trained to think May-September romances are somehow immoral or disgusting project this misperception onto Rear Window and To Catch a Thief all the time. Repeat: Kelly herself liked 'em older, the more socially powerful the better.

"The artist makes art not to save humankind but to save himself." -- C. Paglia

[–] Oliver_Alla 17 years ago

With all my respect to Mr. Hitchcock, I found "To catch a thief" absolutely boring. Nothing to do with other masterpieces like North by northwest or Dial M for Murder... I keep watching this movie only for Grace Kelly.

[–] EricBarker 17 years ago

To each their own, I guess. I find Dial M an interesting, fun film, I've even directed the play myself, but I can't view it as a masterpiece of filmmaking to rank with NxNW. It was a knock-off project Hitchcock did to finish a commitment to Jack Warner, so he could get on with what he really wanted to do at Paramount: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much...etc.

Perhaps knowing that Dial M didn't mean that much to Hitch, except for introducing him to Grace Kelly in the flesh, my reactions to it have always been tempered (didn't stop me from buying it). I also think of it as a final experimental piece (playing around with 3-D), just before launching one of the most commercially and artistically profitable decades any director ever had. To Catch a Thief falls firmly in the first third of that career cycle, a beautifully photographed valentine to Grace and the French seaside, two of Hitch's favorite subjects.

"The artist makes art not to save humankind but to save himself." -- C. Paglia

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ecarle 16 years ago

Bump.

[–] slokes 16 years ago

The characters are underdeveloped, the plot is undernourished, and the witty banter a touch too smooth, but here's why "To Catch A Thief" really doesn't hold up today the way other Hitchcock films do: This is his film about sex. And given how our culture has moved since that time into a more explicit and frontal realm, scenes of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant giving each other bedroom stares while fireworks light up the windows behind them come off as almost fuddy-duddy.

It's a good film, but more for the look and the banter than anything else. Grant, Kelly, and Hitch all did finer work, with each other and separately.

[–] ecarle 16 years ago

Oh, they all did finer work, but in Grant and Kelly's case, I don't think they ever LOOKED better.

On the other hand, I don't think it does too well to dismiss "To Catch a Thief" out of hand as "below par" for Grant or Kelly. Most of Grant's movies from 1950 on were really rather dull or poor: Dream Wife, The Pride and the Passion, Kiss Them For Me, Houseboat, The Grass is Greener, Walk, Don't Run (his last film). "Indiscreet" with Ingrid Bergman is, today, virtually unwatchable for me -- NOTHING happens (and even as Cary looks incredible, Ingrid is more matronly than in "Notorious." Sorry, but true.)

"Operation Petticoat" was Cary Grant's biggest hit (Tony Curtis and Navy Veteran Nostalgia helped), but it is not really at Hitchocck Level. Ditto "That Touch of Mink" with Doris Day (Grant barely seems IN that silly movie; he stays outside of it at all times.) "An Affair to Remember" is a classic, and Grant looks great but...eh, not my cup of tea.

No, I would rank "To Catch A Thief" well above most of the Grant pictures listed above, and I would place it WITH the best Grants of that time: An Affair to Remember, North by Northwest, Operation Petticoat, Charade, Father Goose(for his great performance, not quite for the movie),

For Grace Kelly, "To Catch A Thief" is her ultimate Hitchcock movie: she is gazed upon lovingly by the Master and gowned perfectly by Edith Head (that Golden Ball gown at the end!) It is certainly more central to the Kelly resume than Green Fire or The Swan or The Bridges at Toko-Ri, and I like watching her in it more than in "The Country Girl."

It is hard to do this, but try to imagine "To Catch a Thief" without the knowledge that "Vertigo" "North by Northwest" and "Psycho" were ahead of it. In 1955, without those Hitchcock comparisions, TCAT was quite the plush and exciting thriller, very much in the Hitchcock tradition and yet entirely up to date for mid-fifties glamour.

That is it perhaps so dated about sex etc is why it is now such a pristine gem, IMHO.

btw, I personally think that a film is dated if it is made in the PRESENT era and has out-of-touch elements. ALL old films are dated; I consider them to be "time machines" back to the way things were. This is a truly "miraculous" quality of old movies and I think we should treasure it.

[–] slokes 16 years ago

I wouldn't dismiss TCAT as "below par" so much as call it "par" and leave it at that. I think your notion of viewing this film through a time-backwards lens is interesting, but the great Hitchcocks seem to either exist independently of time's effects good or ill, or in such a way as to present the time in which is was filmed (with two exceptions I know of, all Hitch's films were set in the present day) as the all-time best time to be alive in. See "Shadow Of A Doubt" for the former case, and "North By Northwest" for the latter. Here, the curio quaintness of Eisenhower sexcapades feels forced from the opening shot of the travel agency forward; and the gorgeous scenery and costumes, after an hour, as a bit too much sugar and not enough shortening.

I may be pushing the case against a bit too strongly, but the scenes of Grant and Kelly picnicking under false pretences, while fun, don't have the ballast necessary to overcome a lighter-than-air mystery story. By contrast, one feels a little worried for Cary in "North By Northwest" when he is at risk of being seen climbing around James Mason's spread. Here, you are more worried about John Robie's hair getting mussed. I think Hitch at his best made sure the suspense wasn't so shortchanged.

It's a good film; very entertaining. It just works on the one level, though.

[–] ecarle 16 years ago

Well, OK.

I suppose the element I should try to push a bit more strongly is that Hitchcock may well have not intended "To Catch A Thief" to be much of a suspense film at all. More like his shot at Lubitsch, or (lesser): "Three Coins in the Fountain."

On the other hand:

I tell you, I haven't gone up to re-read my OP, but did I say...and I'll say now...that John Robie is really quite the vicious Hitchcock character. In a word: he's a mass murderer. To get his pardon for pre-WWII capers, he evidently killed a LOT of Nazis, "up close and personal," and his stout female cook once strangled a general with her bare hands, and he still keeps HER around, too.

John Robie killed more people than Uncle Charlie, Bruno Anthony, Norman Bates, and Bob Rusk did, COMBINED.

Cary Grant's cool in "To Catch a Thief" is the cool of a man who has robbed for a living, and killed for a living, and is now settled in as, frankly, one tough character in warding off the cops, his fellow ex-crooks, and Grace Kelly.

I've always felt it is interesting that Grace is signing on to spend her life sleeping next to a man who probably strangled quite a few Germans himself...those strong acrobat's hands.

[–] slokes 16 years ago

Fair point, Robie IS a killer. But unlike the others you mention, he's more a killer in the Lancelot mode than Son of Sam. Not that every German he killed deserved their fate, but they were casualties of war.

It's a good point, Robie's dark past, but it doesn't exactly jibe with the manner of man Hitchcock and Grant present us with. Dangerous, yes. Vicious, hardly. The story of his past, related over a pleasant pastoral vista to the utterly gentlemanly John Williams, colors the film with a layer of menace when you think about it as hard as you do, but it hardly enters into the proceedings as played out. We never witness Robie kill anyone in this film, except accidently and in self-defence.

Your points about TCAT as frothy entertainment are well made, and I agree with them. But the sinister undertow seems exported from another story somehow.

[–] Jane_Doe01 16 years ago

I'm sorry but you've got to be kidding. There have been posts of yours that I recall truly appreciating, but in all honesty I would probably rate "Houseboat" above this devastatingly mediocre Hitchcock effort...forget about Charade, Operation Petticoat, An Affair to Remember and true Grant masterpieces it belongs nowhere near a comparison to like NBNW. The presence of an attractive young blond and some colorful European scenery do not alone guarantee a quality film, and I mention these two things seeing as they're the two things most of your praise for the film seems focus on(and I guess the supposed "witticisms", though to me these came across as contrived and uninspired as the "romance" between the leads.).

My theories have fallen along the lines either of drunkenness, laziness, or a simple desire to produce a vehicle for showing off an elegantly dressed Grace Kelly amidst a backdrop of colorful scenery when trying to figure out what exactly motivated Hitch to churn out a piece of (dare I say it, cr..?)work so incredibly below him. How so many people could apologize for, much less try to argue masterpiece status for a film made by a man behind so many of the acclaimed and iconic masterpieces we know and love, created both before AND after this one, is beyond me. The 7.5 IMDB rating is up there with Juno being in the top 250, if the two numbers were reversed I'd find it a more accurate reflection. Yes, it was a Hitch misfire made at his "peak" career period...mind-boggling in theory, but it's a reality.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ecarle 16 years ago

"Houseboat"?

OP must return to further, er, "clarify" remarks.

To me, running "To Catch a Thief" and then running "Houseboat" is EXACTLY how to make the point of the former's greatness. "TCAT" was made in Hitchocck's "peak years" and whether or not Hitchcock himself PERSONALLY cared about the story (he didn't much; called it "corn"), the guy's visual genius and metronomic sense of pace is evident in every frame. "Houseboat" is..well, I don't know WHAT it is. A TV movie before they made them?

A post or two down from my original is a wonderfully precise shot-by-shot breakdown that shows you exactly how cinematic "To Catch a Thief" is; Cary Grant was lucky to be in it, and indeed, the script (and Grace Kelly) lured Grant back to movies after a fairly serious "retirement" in 1953. He KNEW how well it fit his persona, and how well Grace Kelly would.

Funny thing: an author named Dan Auiler interviewed a number of Hitchcock collaborators for his book on "Vertigo," and evidently all of them said that for "the Hitchcock team," their favorite movie was "To Catch A Thief." Possibly because of the trip to Monte Carlo to make it, sure, but also perhaps because the team saw "TCAT" as the kind of entertainment that perfectly expressed Hitchcock's sensibility. (Face it: he MADE "Psycho" with its secretaries and hardware store owners, but he LIVED "To Catch a Thief," with its lifestyle of the rich and famous and fine cuisine.)

My phrase "...and one of Hitchcock's Best" is a come-on, to be sure. But I stand by it.

I suppose the best of the best will always be Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Rear Window (pick your order), but "best" stretches a long way with Hitchcock. Notorious? Shadow of a Doubt? The 39 Steps? The Lady Vanishes? Strangers on a Train? Rope? The list just keeps going.

My personal list is of TWENTY films, and I don't think it could be any smaller. And "To Catch A Thief" is on it.

"To Catch a Thief" is a "best" of a very particular sort. The epitome of glamour, etc. For nostalgia's sake, "TCAT" a salute to a time in Hollywood, America and THE WORLD that we will never get back again. And very much in the Hitchcockian visual/technical tradition.

There is a detailed memo from Hitchcock to his assistant, Herbert Coleman, about the POV plates of the drive on the cliffs of Monaco. Hitchcock treats with great precision the need to get a shot of an oncoming bus from a particular angle, with the camera sweeping a particular way, on a reshoot. It is the memorandum of a technician at the top of his game.

And as a moment of pure comic-romantic cinematic flourish, I don't think Hitchcock ever matched, in any other film, the delightful moment when Kelly kisses Grant in her hotel room doorway, with the camera held on the BACK OF HIS HEAD for just the right amount of time, and then he turns, and the look on his face, and then he walks -- and Hitchcock's camera backs up perfectly -- and the WAY Grant walks, pulling the hankerchief from his pocket to wipe the lipstick off.

Perfection. Never repeated, by Hitchcock or anyone else. For its particular TONE.

Nothing like that in "Houseboat." Sorry, gang.

[–] mascisman 16 years ago

Brillianty illuminating thread.

[–] ecarle 15 years ago

Then, let's bump it, why don't we?

[–] 3006springfield 15 years ago

You've summarized my thoughts on this film perfectly. What an excellent piece of cinema.

[–] romeorammohan 15 years ago

ecarle how do you come up with such informative posts....educating for modern day Hitchcock fans...

bump it

click this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048473/

[–] LooksLikeWeHaveCompany 15 years ago

I love to watch TCAT because I'm a Hitchcock fan, but mainly BECAUSE of its glamour, South of France scenery and stunningly beautiful costumes. There are also moments that still make laugh (Cary Grant laughing while he's treading water, for one! )

Ecarle--thank you again for this most eloquent post about a most elegant film. Are you involved in film history in any way?

I initially read this years ago, but for some reason I couldn't log on to reply.

I feel a little better about 'glitz' in entertainment, especially after I've watching some shockingly dim Bravo shows! Watching Grace Kelly in any Hitchcock role after my guilty pleasure-TV is a good remedy, and helps restore some brain cells.

[–] ecarle 15 years ago

Belated reply from ecarle:

Involved in film history only as an avocation...not a career.

Its a great way to escape from the everyday, don't you think?

---

I can only say that, having recently seen "To Catch A Thief" again, I am only further convinced that it is a Hitchcock great, of a very particular type, but great nonetheless. There has been no film like it in the 53 years since -- no, not even "The Pink Panther" of 1964.

Maybe its in a tie with 20 other films as "Hitchcock's Tenth Greatest Movie."

[–] ecarle 14 years ago

Bump.

[–] Danusha_Goska 14 years ago

Of course I admire and respect any post by ecarle, one of imdb's gifts to humanity -- and that's a sincere compliment.

I came to this board, though, because i can't stand this movie and I wanted to read articulate posts by people who also can't stand it and would express for me what I'm thinking and feeling and too tired to express for myself.

Fans will dismiss this as a "troll" post -- anyone who doesn't like what the fan likes is a troll.

Whatever. I come to imdb to read brilliant posts about movies I like .. and about movies I don't like.

I try to watch a Hitchcock film about once a year or so. I never liked him and I think about why. I love Golden Age Hollywood and the canonical directors and writers: Wilder, Ford, Capra, Sturges, Cukor, Fleming, etc.

Just could never really enjoy Hitchcock.

I took this one out mostly because there was nothing else on the library shelf that attracted me. I always tell myself, "How bad could it be? Maybe this time I'll finally get Hitchcock."

I can't even get through this one. I keep trying and keep not watching it I find it so expletive deleted.

The pointless scenes. The wink wink nudge nudge 1950s era Playboy cartoon approach to women. The obvious pandering.

Cary Grant was one of the most supernaturally good looking men ever to walk the face of the earth. He only got better looking as he aged. He has irresistable charm.

Grace Kelly is not my type, but I can see why a certain palate would be very drawn to her.

The French Riviera is God's own Country.

I mean -- Hitchcock had all this embarrassing bounty -- and he could not script or direct one scene I could care about, or be moved by, or laugh with, or ... nuthin. At least "Vertigo" is as profoundly disturbing to me as I think it's meant to be. And "Psycho" does have that truly great shower scene.

This? Pitiful.

And, yes, I know he's world famous and very popular. But we aren't all Hitchcock fans.

FAN SURVEY! http://www.codypublishing.com/goska/filmsurvey.html

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

Thank you very much for your kind words, and you are most certainly entitled to your own opinion about this particular Hitchcock movie!

[–] manu5689 13 years ago

I put TCAT in my top 10 (around 7 or 8) and I think it is just amazing. The dialogue is astounding, cinematography impeccable, Hitch's direction flawless. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant are spectacular as always (though Rear Window and Notorious are their best respectively). no, this movie isn't as shocking or exciting as NbNW or Psycho but hello! it's not meant to be. This is a romantic-comedy with some thrilling moments

"It's hard for me to watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch."
-Jenna, 30 Rock

[–] lizcarlo87 12 years ago

To Catch a Thief, North By Northwest, Notorious, Psycho, Rear Window, and others are my favorites. Grace looks lovely, the scenery is beautiful and it's perfect escape.

[–] boogles 12 years ago

The OP makes some good points about 'To Catch a Thief''s positive points. Yes, it is more lightweight story(compared to Psycho and Rear Window, and other works of Hitch's), but it moves along a reasonable pace. The cinematography is good and Grant and Kelly work well as a couple on screen. The verbal quips between them and their blossoming romance add to the film. The car chase looks a bit dated now(rear projection), but the roof top chase is exciting. The film is glamour with a capital 'G'!

[–] maz89 12 years ago

Great post; you summarize my own thoughts on the film. Definitely a strong Hitchcock effort.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

[–] ecarle 12 years ago

Thank you! And I think it is, too.

A new bit of trivia: I was reading a book recently in which Grace Kelly gave a quote on "To Catch A Thief" back when she was alive and somewhat older, as Princess Grace of Monaco. She was killed in a car crash in 1982 on the same roads she drove in TCAT, as noted in my OP. This quote was probably from the late seventies:

"I watched some of To Catch a Thief on television the other night. My, Cary and I were really quite good looking back then, weren't we?"

I enjoyed that quote because here was the ACTUAL ACTRESS who appeared in the film taking pleasure in how great she looked in it, along with her famously handsome co-star (and lifelong friend) Cary Grant.

Its a good-natured and professional narcissism, I think: Princess Grace Kelly KNEW she had the looks that make a star. "Once upon a time."

Funnier still(to me), is that somewhere, sometime, I read the same quote from a 60-something John Wayne, something like: "I watched one of my old movies from the forties the other day and thought: hey, I was a pretty good lookin' young fellah."

Perhaps there's no narcissism in making these remarks when you ARE old and the looks have kind of gone.

[–] Bree_33 11 years ago

She was killed in a car crash in 1982 on the same roads she drove in TCAT

This is incorrect. CD37 (Route de La Tourbie). "Contrary to popular belief, Grace Kelly did not crash on the same bit of roadway as where she drove in the 1955 film To Catch a Thief. In fact, the two are actually several miles from each other".

See map below:
http://www.franksreelreviews.com/images/stories/gracekelly/grace-kelly -car-crash-map-lg.jpg

------- __@
----- _`\<,_
---- (*)/ (*)------- ----__@
--------------------- _`\<,_
---- -----------------(*)/ (*)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:*•.. ¤°.¸¸.•´¯`»nec spe,nec metu :*•.. ¤°.¸¸.•´¯`»

[–] ecarle 11 years ago

Hmmmm.

"I did not know that."

Point taken.

However, several miles away still puts her in Monaco, doesn't it? Its not as if she crashed in Beverly Hills, Paris, or London....

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Still, thanks.

[–] ecarle 10 years ago

Almost a year later...bump.

[–] Bree_33 12 years ago

Everything you need to know about TCAT is on your post, so, thanks for sharing this!

This is probably Hitchcock's most beautiful movie. The elegant movie contains suspense , emotion , mystery , absolutely stunning scenery and cinematography (of which Robert Burks won an Oscar) and a wonderful love story .

They don't write films like this anymore.

[–] ecarle 11 years ago

I saw it on the big screen this week(January 2013), so a bump is appropriate. It all held up...royally.

[–] domester82 10 years ago

Excellent review ecarle. Really enjoyed your thoughts on this film. It is often seen as one of Hitchcock's minor works, but you can't go into this expecting North by Northwest or Vertigo. It's a very different film. A screwball romantic caper. And a particularly enjoyable one at that.