Tortured: Doris Day in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much

James Stewart, Hitchcock's preferred leading man during much of this period, had started the decade with a series of westerns directed by Anthony Mann (Winchester '73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country, The Man from Laramie) that have passed the test of time as genre classics. Doris Day arrived in Hollywood as a band singer recruited for her voice and wholesome good looks, and made a string of films for Warner Bros. that made it look like she was coasting on these two attributes – nearly a decade of perky fluff punctuated by one notable dramatic role as a Klan member's wife in Storm Warning (1950). You could argue that The Man Who Knew Too Much was the director coasting on his momentum – the only remake in his whole career, of a film he made in 1934, a highlight of his career in Britain and the beginning of a string of thrillers that would make his reputation and send him to Hollywood just as war descended on Britain: The 39 Steps (1935), Secret Agent and Sabotage (both 1936), Young and Innocent (1937) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).

Author: SteynonLine

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