Saturday Night Cinema: To Catch A Thief

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Tonight’s Saturday night Cinema classic is quite the departure from Hitchcock, Master of Suspense — actually suspense is too limiting, Hitchcock is the Master.

To Catch a Thief is the direct opposite of, say, Psycho. It is a wonder both these films emerged from the same mind. But then , he’s the Master.

To Catch a Thief is light and clever, sexy and sophisticated, full of sunny innuendo. It doesn’t take itself seriously for a moment. It’s gorgeous, visually dazzling.

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“It may occasionally be guilty of coasting on pure charm, but To Catch a Thief has it in spades — as well as a pair of perfectly matched stars in Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The two seductive stars playing cagey characters who play at romance with all of their charm.”

A bubbly and effervescent Alfred Hitchcock romantic-suspenser that finds the Master in a relaxed and purely entertaining mood.

https://youtu.be/p0wEe5GEHuk

Screen: Cat Man Out ‘To Catch a Thief’; Grant Is Ex-Burglar in Hitchcock Thriller

By Bosely Crowther, New York Times archived pages August 5, 2018:

IT takes a thief to catch a thief. That’s the old saying, anyhow. And that’s the thesis Alfred Hitchcock is exhibiting in his new mystery-thriller-romance at the Paramount. With Cary Grant playing the catcher and Grace Kelly playing—well, we won’t say!—”To Catch a Thief” comes off completely as a hit in the old Hitchcock style.We’re not saying much about Miss Kelly, other than to observe that she is cool and exquisite and superior as a presumably rich American girl traveling with her mother in Europe in quest (her mother says) of a man. To say more might tip you as to whether she is what you suspect her to be—the jewel thief whom Mr. Grant is stalking through the lush gambling-rooms and gilded chambers of French Riviera villas, casinos and hotels.As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even tell you that you may rest entirely assured Mr. Grant himself is not the slick cat-burglar he says he is out to catch, as a matter of self-protection and to help an insurance man from Lloyds. What with his being an acknowledged old gem thief, living in a villa high above Cannes and chumming with a covey of ex-convicts, he could be almost anything.Well, he isn’t the thief. That much we’ll tell you. He’s the fellow who genuinely tries to use his own knowledge of cat-burglary to nab the thief who has been terrorizing Cannes and causing hysterics and conniptions among the always ineffectual police. But then there are enough other suspects — ex-convicts, French thugs and pretty girls, not to mention that nervous Lloyds fellow—to let us write off Mr. Grant.In his accustomed manner, Mr. Hitchcock has gone at this job with an omnivorous eye for catchy details and a dandy John Michael Hayes script. Most of his visual surprises are gotten this time with scenery—with the fantastic, spectacular vistas along the breath-taking Cote d’Azur.As no one has ever done before him, Mr. Hitchcock has used that famous coast to form a pictorial backdrop that fairly yanks your eyes out of your head. Almost at the start, he gives you an automobile chase along roads that wind through cliff-hanging, seaside villages. The surprise is that it is seen from the air! If you have ever been on the Riviera, you can imagine how brilliant this is, in color and VistaVision, splashed on that giant screen.All the way through the picture, he gets this sort of thing — shots from great heights down yawning chasms, glimpses of ruins high on hills, views across Mediterranean harbors and, usually, in the background, the blue sea. And he winds up with a surge of production—a costume party at a villa outside Cannes—that should make the Marquis de Cuevas turn green.True, there are times when the color is not Iways so good as it should be, and Mr. Hitchcock’s camera man (or somebody) has a bad time with slow dissolves and fades. He has not mastered VistaVision. It has almost mastered him.But the script and the actors keep things popping, in a fast, slick, sophisticated vein. Mr. Grant and Miss Kelly do grandly, especially in one sly seduction scene. If you’ve never heard double-entendre, you will hear it in this film. As the chap from Lloyds, John Williams is delightfully anxious and dry, and Jessie Royce Landis is most amusing as Miss Kelly’s low-down American mom. Brigitte Auber is fetching and funny as a frightfully forward French girl, and Charles Vanel has the air of a rascal as a local restaurateur.”To Catch a Thief” does nothing but give out a good, exciting time. If you’ll settle for that at a movie, you should give it your custom right now.

Danielle . . . . . Brlgitte Auber
Foussard . . . . . Jean Martinelli
Germaine . . . . . Georgette Anys
Claude . . . . . Roland LesaffreMercier . . . . . Jean Hebey
Lepic . . . . . Rene Blancard
Big Man in Kitchen . . . . . Wee Willie Davis

The Truth Must be Told

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robert v g
robert v g
5 years ago

I remember “North by Northwest,” another Hitchcock/Grant delight.(1959)

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago
Reply to  robert v g

I don’t think I have ever seen a bad Hitchcock movie. He was good.
Psycho was great! He didn’t need explicit nudity or direct gore. Instead he let you use your imagination and that can be much worse than what they could have portrayed.

william couch
william couch
5 years ago
Reply to  robert v g

My fav is “An Affair to Remember”. debra Carr..

robert v g
robert v g
5 years ago
Reply to  william couch

Cool.

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

Great movie! We always like Cary Grant. During an interview he was asked about the character he played and was this how he was in real life. His reply was something like he wished he could be that smooth debonair gentlemen. Grace Kelly was a total STUNNER! He remained close friends with her till her death. It’s too bad she lead such a sad life after she married Prince Rainier.

Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as,
“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant”

AlgorithmicAnalyst
AlgorithmicAnalyst
5 years ago

One of my all-time favorite movies.

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

He’s no James Bond, but he’ll do.

Joseph
Joseph
5 years ago

I remember “North by Northwest,” another Hitchcock/Grant delight.(1959)

spacearcadian
spacearcadian
5 years ago

nobody could catch mohammad. and his legacy islam is alive and kicking

poetcomic1
poetcomic1
5 years ago

Oh for a time machine to go back to the Riviera in the 50’s. Technicolor you can eat with a spoon. Gorgeous. Love John Williams who plays the insurance investigator – he was also the detective in Dial M for Murder and was a favorite of Hitch’s who even built several of his TV shows around him.

freedomfrind
freedomfrind
5 years ago

One of the great films of all time, and a reminder to all what living in a totalitarianist era is like: “Lives of Others”.

Though set in East Germany in the Stasi era, a reminder of where the very Leftist Democratic Party wants to take up. Don’t think so. Take a look at what is going on on US college campuses today.

Bandit
Bandit
5 years ago

One of my favorite Hitchcock movies is “THE BIRDS” THAT was a good one full of thrills and a few chills, but all around good.

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Thanks for sharing!