A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Man Who Knew Too Much -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Rob_Ray]

The song became Doris' theme song and you heard it week after week opening and closing her TV show. Plus it was a huge hit for her at the time of the movie's release. So, really, from 1956 until 1974, you couldn't escape from it and I think that overexposure somehow just lingered on.

 

[Charles Smith]

It's also something no one ever expected in a Hitchcock movie, which might help to exaggerate the memory of it.

 

[Douglas R]

I've always very much enjoyed the film yet at the same time it contains so many annoyances. Why, for example, do James Stewart and Doris Day as the couple, go off to a restaurant and leave their son in the hotel? Great holiday for him I don't think! He looks about 10 years old - he's not a baby who can't go out with his parents for a meal. Another irritation is the constant mix of location footage and rear projection. One minute the couple are obviously walking in Marrakesh market and in the next shot they are just as obviously in a studio. As for Doris Day - she seemed completely wrong for a Hitchcock film. And don't get me started on that song!

 

[haineshisway]

I will say that my parents did the same thing - ALL THE TIME on our few vacations together.

 

[Douglas R]

I will say that my parents did the same thing - ALL THE TIME on our few vacations together.

I'm glad to say my parents didn't. Maybe this is a cultural difference between Americans and Europeans

 

[Mark-W]

One time, my parents left us (me and my two older sisters) with a baby-sitter in a condo at the beach while they drove back to Portland to see Star Wars.
I was 9 and had already bought the empty box thing at the toy store so I could get the pre-ordered action figures. Guess how upset I was.

I will say that my parents did the same thing - ALL THE TIME on our few vacations together.

 

[marcco00]

I agree. The original is tighter and faster-paced, but the remake is richer with many more nuances that enable you to genuinely care about the characters. I never understood Maltin's remark about the Albert Hall sequence. And those complaining about how Doris shrieks "Que Sera Sera" at the top of her lungs haven't seen the movie. She's desperately trying to call out to her son, four flights up. It was one of the first Hitchcock films I saw as a kid and it remains one of my favorites.

one of my favorites also..... i like doris day and james stewart as a team-- great chemistry, they make a wonderful couple.
doris has some great acting moments in this film--- she's excellent in the concert hall-murder sequence, bravo doris!!
and hitch must really have liked doris's look-- blonde hair in bun, ladies grey suit-- because he has kim novak dressed in a similar fashion in vertigo.

 

[Rob_Ray]

one of my favorites also..... i like doris day and james stewart as a team-- great chemistry, they make a wonderful couple.
doris has some great acting moments in this film--- she's excellent in the concert hall-murder sequence, bravo doris!!
and hitch must really have liked doris's look-- blonde hair in bun, ladies grey suit-- because he has kim novak dressed in a similar fashion in vertigo.

Now you have me trying to picture Doris Day reuniting with Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, especially as Judy. "To tell you the truth, I've been picked up before" and "whether you believe me or not, you can just beat it!"

 

[Richard--W]

one of my favorites also..... i like doris day and james stewart as a team-- great chemistry, they make a wonderful couple.
doris has some great acting moments in this film--- she's excellent in the concert hall-murder sequence, bravo doris!!
and hitch must really have liked doris's look-- blonde hair in bun, ladies grey suit-- because he has kim novak dressed in a similar fashion in vertigo.

For me, the key scene in the entire film is when James Stewart tries to sedate Doris before breaking the bad news. The doctor actually drugs his wife. Watch this scene. Their interplay is gripping because Doris is really feeling a rush of emotions.

 

[Rob_Ray]

For me, the key scene in the entire film is when James Stewart tries to sedate Doris before breaking the bad news. The doctor actually drugs his wife. Watch this scene. Their interplay is gripping because Doris is really feeling a rush of emotions.

That's some of Doris' finest acting ever. And she's sorely underrated as an actress. She's a natural and always was from her very first film, Romance on the High Seas.

 

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by haineshisway /t/324714/a-few-words-about-the-man-who-knew-too-much-in-blu-ray/240#post_4007112
I will say that my parents did the same thing - ALL THE TIME on our few vacations together.

Same here. And they always let me order from room service before they left just as in the movie.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I'm astounded that people are annoyed by the song, or really much of anything in this film.
This is bar none my favorite of the "golden era" Hitchcock, rivaled only by North By Northwest and Vertigo.
Rear Window is as over-rated as this one is under-rated.

 

[Rob_Ray]

I'm astounded that people are annoyed by the song, or really much of anything in this film.
This is bar none my favorite of the "golden era" Hitchcock, rivaled only by North By Northwest and Vertigo.
Rear Window is as over-rated as this one is under-rated.

While I wouldn't call Rear Window over-rated at all, I do agree that this one is highly under-rated.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

RW is very good, but it's not even in my Hitchcock top 10

 

[Rob_Ray]

RW is very good, but it's not even in my Hitchcock top 10

For me, RW and NbyNW may be my favorites. Certainly my favorites of the 1950's.

 

[Everett S.]

Funding shouldn't be an issue, but with the way these corporations work, you never know. The NBCUniversal TV branch of Comcast clearly is not doing the best...
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-12/business/sns-rt-comcast-nbcl1e8md05l-20121112_1_cable-channels-source-home-entertainment

They did not layoff anyone on "The Tonight Show", when Mr. Leno found out he took a pay cut to keep his team working.

 

[Cineman]

That is funny. I haven't watched this movie in ages, but in my memory of it, Day sings that song in its entirety no less than 875 times.
I absolutely could not stand it, and have had little desire to revisit the movie since. That you say it's really only sung 1 1/2 times is astounding to me. In my head, when I think of the movie, the song plays in a constant loop, over and over again, scene after scene after scene. She just will not stop singing it.
What is it about the movie and/or the song that triggers such a false impression of repetitiveness?

I'm not sure, but I think it is a combination of things. One is the obvious reaction of annoyance to her singing of it by the audience at the Embassy. For those of us who first saw this movie as youngsters, did we think they were annoyed because here was Doris Day singing that song...again...coupled with her singing it too loud? Maybe that established an early false impression for some in terms of how often it was sung.
Another possibility is that certain elements of Hitchcock's films are so potent, made so significant by Hitchcock's treatment of them that they grow larger in our memory over time. This could be one example of it.
For instance, I've heard people denigrate PSYCHO because there are "too many murders, too much blood, and it's too graphic". There are only two murders in it, the entirety of the onscreen "blood" would probably fit in a tea cup, and we never actually see a knife plunging into flesh. I remember having a fun conversation with someone devoted to "logic" in films who argued Cary Grant would not likely have had enough cash in his wallet to fund his "days and days" on the run after escaping the assassins in that elevator in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. In fact, the rest of the movie from that point takes place over the course of two or three days and nights (not counting the scene of Grant pulling "Mrs. Thornhill" up to his train berth) with enough intervention by the authorities along the way to supply him with food and water even if he didn't want to spend his own cash for it. But Hitchcock's handling of the chase element of NBNW is so potent I can see how it might grow in the memory as one of a prolonged and arduous journey over several days.

 

[WadeM]

I'm astounded that people are annoyed by the song, or really much of anything in this film.
This is bar none my favorite of the "golden era" Hitchcock, rivaled only by North By Northwest and Vertigo.
Rear Window is as over-rated as this one is under-rated.

The "Ambrose Chappel" mistake is the only thing about this film that bothers me, and that's because it's not an error that I could have ever made since I don't relate it to what they did. Otherwise, it does seem to be underrated, IMO.

 

[Matt Hough]

I've always considered the looks on the audience at the Embassy not as annoyance but rather as disbelief that she's not in formal attire and is singing a pop song rather than some operatic aria that with their being dressed in evening clothes at that time of night they might have been expecting. Remember that she was a stage star who had been out of the limelight for many years; many of those people were likely completely unaware of her name or her talent.

 

[Yorkshire]

I think the song bothers a lot of people because it's pretty much delivered like a song in a musical, in a film that isn't a musical.
Quite a few people who like films just can't get on with musicals, and of those who do, it just feels odd for a song to suddenly pop up out of nowhere.
I can think of other examples...
Steve W