The McGuffin Film to End All McGuffin Films: Torn Curtain

Torn Curtain, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Julie Andrews and Paul Newman, struck me as a strange film the first time I saw it. I put down the oddity to Julie Andrews.

Don't get me wrong! I adore Andrews! But it seemed an odd film for her to star in. She lacks the inherent vulnerability that Hitchcock seems to favor in his female stars. 

On the latest viewing, however, I determined: the oddity isn't Julie Andrews. It's Paul Newman.

Paul Newman's character, Michael Armstrong, is supposed to be a professor who appears to defect to East Germany (he goes behind the Iron Curtain). He is actually acting as a self-appointed spy, there to collect important rocket science information from a German professor. His fiancée, Andrews's character Sarah, follows him there, unaware of his plans.

I know this will sound like a cliche (hey, Hitchcock wisely and intelligently used cliches!) but Newman is the least professor-like actor I've ever seen. Gregory Peck would have been better cast. Good grief--even Cary Grant (of course, Grant could do anything). But Newman looks like a tough guy. Wouldn't the East Germans have said, "Good grief, that man looks like a man who might consider himself a spy! Don't let him in!" 

The scene between Paul Newman and the older scientist is well-handled, but I spent the whole time thinking, "Why is he telling all this to a American who clearly knows nothing about math?" (I assume David Krumholtz does when he's covering the chalkboard with marks--not Newman.)

It would have made more sense if Paul Newman's character was acting for a friend and had memorized a bunch of math stuff, which would still be impressive!

The moment I questioned Paul Newman, I had to question the premise. He isn't an official spy. He decided to carry out this mission himself. Who in the U.S. State Department would ever agree to send an amateur on this type of mission? And if they didn't agree--which is implied--who would ever let him back in the country? 

Finally, I realized: It's all a McGuffin (arguably true of all Hitchcock plots). Hitchcock doesn't care why the main characters are behind the Iron Curtain. He just needs them there so he can get them out.

The movie is a series of escape scenes by ordinary mortals (not trained agents). They have to be ordinary mortals trying to get out of a university, a town, a bus, a post office, a theater because only ordinary mortals would be so bad at it. 

I found the escape sequences tedious--but not, I should make clear, because they are badly done. They are actually quite impressive. Hitchcock was still the master at creating tension from ordinary moments (Is the other bus getting closer?) and both Andrews and Newman do solid jobs, in their mutually undemonstrative ways, of expressing uncertainty and fear and a feeling of being out of their depth. 

But still--either they make it or don't. After awhile, I cease to care.

The one scene I remembered from my prior viewing is the scene I noted now. Michael, Newman's character, drags Sarah, Andrews's character, up a hill to ostensibly persuade her to support his defection but truly to communicate that he is not defecting. Sarah's relief is expressed almost entirely through body language. It is still, for me, the most memorable part of the movie.

In addition, the scene where Sarah (Andrews) stands numbly at a hotel window while Michael (Newman) fidgets in the background is so strong a domestic scene, I can't help but ponder:

Why didn't Hitchcock tell THIS story? 

Good Things to Say About The Man Who Knew Too Much

Another great Hitchcock film!

Truth is, my favorite Hitchcocks are not necessarily his best. I adore Dial M for Murder with the snarky Ray Milland, the elegant yet warm Grace Kelly, and the self-effacing Robert Cummings. I love Rear Window. I quite liked Rope when I was younger and saw it multiple times.

These are all good movies, but they don't have the finished wholistic feel of Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, and The Man Who Knew Too Much.

What's so good about The Man Who Knew Too Much?

Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart

Jimmy Stewart is an amazing actor, a  Tom Hanks progenitor--the guy who can play everyman with full individualistic flair. Or maybe it's the individual with full everyman flair. Whatever it is, both Stewart and Hanks capture the everyman experience without American Beauty ennui: oh, look, everybody, I'm being NORMAL. They just are normal.

In fact, there's an extremely funny comparison here. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Jo (Doris Day) and Ben (Jimmy Stewart) go to a restaurant where they have to sit on low cushions. Jimmy Stewart delivers about 2 minutes of pure physical humor when he tries to sit comfortably on the cushions and keeps sliding to the floor. It reminds me of Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail trying to get comfortable on his father's new couch. 

Stewart is perfectly cast as the husband/father in The Man Who Knew Too Much with Doris Day as wife/mother. Doris Day is a particularly fine choice here. She has all the appearance of a 1950s cliche, but her character (and possibly the actress herself) is India-rubber tough.

Not tough as nails. Rather Jo McKenna exudes brassy good cheer which masks high-strung intensity which in turns covers a strong, endurable will.

The suffering parents of kidnapped children have, of course, been done a billion times by now. In 1956, it was still fresh and new enough that Day and Stewart were operating without all those television cliches (I'm not opposed to television cliches, by the way; I'm just impressed by Day and Stewart). They managed to capture the fear, desperation, and resilience of this all-American couple without hitting a single wrong note (ha ha--sorry, you have to see the movie).

The Camera Work

Yes, yes, everybody praises Hitchcock's camera work, but I actually noticed something this time!

Many of the Marrakesh scenes use the blue screen effect or whatever the equivalent was in Hitchcock's day. It is obviously not-on-location. I shrugged my shoulders when I saw it; eh, so, CGI has improved since then.

But then, a little later, Jo and Ben walk through the Marrakesh marketplace with Drayton and a police officer behind them--that is, regular characters. Yet Hitchcock deliberately presents Drayton and the police officer as if they are part of the rolling, outside Marrakesh shots.

It is very cool. It deliberately emphasizes Jo and Ben's role as innocent tourists--look at those people wandering blithely through a PBS special! (Since, after all, they are exactly the type of people who watch Nova and Nature.) It underscores their innocence, making their exposure to spies and assassins and kidnappers that much more inexplicable.

The one rough spot in the film occurs towards the end. Right after the denouement at Albert Hall, Jo and Ben could easily have whisked themselves to the ambassador's house to find their son. It would have taken a single line of dialog (the inspector saying, "You should go with that guy!")

Instead, there are several minutes of pointless conversation with police characters who don't need to be paid off in the slightest (one thing about kidnapping stories: the audience will care about little but the parents and child).

Que Sera Sera

It's great! Apparently, it wasn't Doris Day's favorite song, but she sure does it justice.

Hitchcock: Hey, Sometimes He Was Less Than Perfect

The famous scene in Suspicion: great visual!

I'm currently reading through A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks the Master of Suspense by Jim McDevitt and Eric San Juan. I don't share McDevitt and San Juan's adulation of Hitchcock--however, I appreciate their analysis which focuses on the art of story and film rather than on meaning (in other words, they don't over-intellectualize Hitchcock).

Besides which, one of them makes a great point in his review of Suspicion.

The story behind Suspicion is that Hitchcock originally wanted Cary Grant to be a killer, but the studio balked, so he had to switch to the current ending at the last moment. The authors of A Year argue that this is pure folklore. Hitchcock always intended the ending as it now stands. He started to put about the rumor of studio interference when the ending was panned by critics.

Why is the ending criticized? Because (and having seen the film several times, I agree with this), "[The ending] is not entirely unpleasing as it is, but given the way Johnny is portrayed--as a calculating conniver--Hitchcock's [supposed] suggested ending would have been more in line with the story, not to mention far more satisfying."

I don't necessarily agree that it would have been more satisfying: a con turns out to be . . . a murderous con. Ho hum. But I do agree that it would have made far more sense.

I also totally buy that Hitchcock didn't see this while he was making the film and revised history to blame the studio after the fact.

Why? Because of Psycho.

To me, Psycho shows the same defect as Suspicion, only with Psycho, Hitchcock got away with it, it being a story that doesn't really hold together, no matter how many times you see the film. The beginning and the end feel like two different films; the murderer's motives are over-explained when Hitchcock would have been better served ignoring motive (since psychopaths may not make sense, but they do show consistency, and trying to explain Norman just highlights his character's utter inconsistency). If Psycho hadn't been acclaimed--and Hitchcock turned unnecessarily into a demigod by French intellectuals--I'm sure Hitchcock would have found someone to blame for misleading him.

Don't get me wrong. I love Hitchcock films. I've seen Rear Window so many times, I've put myself on a Rear-Window-Time-Out. I think Notorious is one of the finest Cary Grant films ever made. And I personally consider Shadow of a Doubt to be one of the best films of all time.

The excellently scripted, acted, and filmed uncle-niece

relationship in Shadow of a Doubt.

But that shows my writer's bias. The scriptwriter for Shadow of a Doubt is Thornton Wilder, and the superb storytelling shows. It isn't a flawless script but it is possibly the best out of all Hitchcock's films--deep without slowing down, complex yet tidy. (I'm excluding Rebecca which came ready made.)

My view is grounded in bias: I want story, and I'll take it at the expense of almost everything else. However, although I don't care for Psycho, considering it massively overrated, and although I think that Hitchcock's payoffs are sometimes less impressive than proponents of Hitchcock try to argue, I can't really fault him.

Hitchcock was a director/a camera/an eye before anything else. 

A good film needs a good story, but the truth is, many filmmakers become filmmakers because they love visuals. Their modus operandi isn't the same as the modus operandi of the intellectuals and critics that cause them grief; their modus operandi is images: what we see, how we see, what we are guided to see. And Hitchcock truly was a master here. The fact that he also attempted--to varying degrees--to tell a decent story (and wasn't afraid, until the intellectuals got hold of him, to tell a simple story) is to his credit. I consider most of his films to be classics--just, some are better than others.