To Catch a Thief ***** (1954, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams) – Classic Movie Review 443

Alfred Hitchcock’s purringly smooth, thoroughly enjoyable 1954 escapist romantic comedy-mystery has the inestimable benefit of starring the director’s two favourites, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. As a thriller, it’s at the opposite end of the spectrum from Psycho, as light as that’s dark.

It couldn’t be more pleased with itself. And with good reason. All the ingredients for smart pleasure are here, shaken and stirred to perfection. The colourful plot effortlessly teases, twists and turns. The dashing Grant (51, playing 35) and exquisite Kelly (26) spark sexual and real fireworks against an ideal background of picturesque French coastal scenery.

John Michael Hayes’s witty screenplay is based on the novel by David Dodge, whose simple story focuses on American expatriate John Robie (Grant), a supposedly retired jewel thief living the high life on the French Riviera, who’s suspected of a new wave of copy-cat burglaries there. To stop the thefts from being pinned on him, he has to find out who the copy cat is.

One of the victims is Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis), an imperious American matriarch in Europe to help her lovely eligible daughter Frances (Kelly) find herself a suitable husband. Lloyds of London send in their insurance agent H.H. Hughson (John Williams) to investigate and it’s his plan to set a thief to catch a thief. Soon Grant’s Robie is deep in trouble, while romancing Kelly’s socialite Frances.

Hayes’s script is the height of carefree, sophisticated elegance, providing the right kind of snappy dialogue for the actors to play with. Hitchcock’s direction is chic and playful, full of his typical style and polish. The playing hits all the right high notes. Dream team couple Grant and Kelly share a sparky chemistry, while Landis and Williams delight as supremely Kelly’s bossy mother and the silky-smooth insurance investigator.

And it’s all packaged in gorgeously glossy Technicolor and VistaVision images, in Oscar-winning best colour cinematography from Robert Burks, who photographed 12 of Hitchcock’s films. The Oscar-nominated Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Hal Pereira) and Best Costume Design (Edith Head) are other notable contributions to the 50s chic style of the movie.

To call it lightweight isn’t a criticism. It’s meant to be lightweight, it’s the essence of lightweight. ‘It was a lightweight story,’ said Hitchcock. ‘It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.’ But Hitchcock takes lightweight seriously.

How Hitch seems to enjoy the ironic ending!

Chillingly, on 14 September 1982, Kelly was killed in an car accident in Monaco, supposedly on the same road as her famous chase scene in this film and not far from where she has the picnic scene with Grant. She was 52 and lost control of her car after apparently suffering a stroke while at the wheel. Kelly obviously wasn’t driving fast on those French Riviera cliff-side roads in the film, as they were using very evident back-projection.

Hitchcock appears about nine minutes in, sitting next to Grant on the bus. Ironically, for years, on non-widescreen TVs, Grant turns to look at nobody as Hitchcock was cut out of the frame of the VistaVision image.

The suggestive picnic scene exchange ‘Do you want a leg or a breast?’ (Kelly), ‘You make the choice’ (Grant) was improvised.

In other Hitchcock movies of the period, Landis memorably plays Grant’s mother in North by Northwest, while Williams is the canny police inspector in Dial M for Murder.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 443 derekwinnert.com

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