To Catch a Thief (DVD)

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Note: In the following joint DVD review, John, Eddie, and Dean all provide their opinions on the film, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.

The Film According to John:
For a guy who specialized, he wasn't bad. Maybe that says something for specialization.

Alfred Hitchcock made mystery movies. That was his principal job, and he did it as well or better than anybody before or since. Yet for a guy who dealt primarily with a single genre, he was also remarkably diverse during his fifty-odd-year career in movies. After making a name for himself in English films, Hitch's first Hollywood production, "Rebecca" (1940), earned eleven Oscar nominations, winning two (Best Picture and Best Cinematography). He went on in the 1940s and 50s to acquire the title "Master of Suspense," which people may overstate but with which one can hardly find any serious question. In the mid Fifties, he hosted his own television series, and the world came to know him for his wry and sardonic introductions. By the late Fifties he made "North By Northwest" (1959), whose tongue-in-cheek wit and urbane style would influence the first James Bond films a few years later. Then there was "Psycho" (1960), which would influence every slasher flick made since.

What was it that made Hitchcock's films so popular? Certainly, the mystery and suspense, the top stars, and the devious plots. But just as important was probably the director's wit. The fact is, most of Hitchcock's best films were also pretty funny. "Psycho" scared a lot of people, but its dark humor made them smile, too. In any event, this is all leading up to the film under discussion here, "To Catch a Thief," 1955, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It came at a time when Hitch was on another roll. Think of it: "Strangers on a Train" (1951), "Dial M for Murder" (1954), "Rear Window" (1954), "The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), "The Wrong Man" (1956), "Vertigo" (1958), "North By Northwest" (1959), "Psycho" (1960), and "The Birds" (1963), all within a span of little more than a decade and all of them thought of today as classics. Hitchcock would go on to make five more films before his death in 1980, and they, too, have their ardent admirers.

So, where does "To Catch a Thief" fit into the scheme of things? Well, it's not one of Hitchcock's best pictures, that's for sure. It's not particularly suspenseful, it's not at all scary or pulse pounding, and even the mystery is pretty easy to figure out. It's lightweight Hitchcock, yet it's glamorous and sophisticated enough to entertain us long after we've forgotten that it's not really a quintessential Hitchcock movie.

Part of its allure is the two stars, of course. Who wouldn't be entertained by Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, a pair of the most attractive performers who ever dignified the screen. I mean, how could anyone be more charming than Cary Grant or more beautiful than Grace Kelly? Yet Paramount execs worried about their age difference, Grant being about twice as old as Kelly. Apparently, the studio had forgotten about Bogart and Bergman ("Casablanca") and Bogart and Bacall ("To Have and Have Not") a few years before. Nor did it make any difference to movie audiences when Audrey Hepburn romanced much older men on screen, actors like Humphrey Bogart ("Sabrina"), Fred Astaire ("Funny Face"), Gary Cooper ("Love in the Afternoon"), Rex Harrison ("My Fair Lady"), and, yes, Cary Grant ("Charade"). Anyway, Grant and Kelly get away with the age difference, first, because Grant still looked younger than his fifty-one years; second, because the script mentions at one point that Grant's character is younger than the actor; and, third and most important, because audiences just didn't care. When we have characters as appealing as these are, age is not an issue.

But we mustn't forget the other star of the film: the French Riviera. Hitchcock generally eschewed location work, preferring to shoot his movies in a studio where he could control things like lighting, sound, and weather. Yet he found himself lured off the lot to shoot some of his most popular films at least partly on location, including this one and others like "North By Northwest," "Vertigo," and "The Birds." There is no denying the location shooting in "To Catch a Thief" is gorgeous (he shot about half of it on the French Riviera and half of it in the studio), helping to make the movie one of the biggest box-office draws of the Fifties (and the biggest moneymaker for Hitchcock up until that time).

Anyway, the plot is pretty straightforward. Grant plays John Robie, a retired (and presumably reformed) cat burglar and French Resistance fighter now living peacefully in a storybook hillside villa, tending his gardens. Until a series of jewel robberies bearing his mark lead the French police to suspect "The Cat" might have come out of retirement. He says he didn't do it, naturally, but he's sure the police won't believe him, so he determines to find the real thief himself. "Set a thief to catch a thief," as the old English proverb goes. It is one of Hitchcock's favorite "wrong man" themes. He used it famously in "The 39 Steps," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "North By Northwest," and "The Wrong Man," among others, and it works here as well.

Grace Kelly comes into the story when Robie is trying to figure out who the real burglar is, and he meets Kelly's character, Francie Stevens, and her mother (Jessie Royce Landis), a rich widower, vacationing on the Riviera. Grant and Kelly's characters don't fall in love instantly, however, and Francie seems more interested in helping Robie solve the crimes than in romancing him. Needless to say, things change as the plot progresses.

As I've said, "To Catch a Thief" is not a typical Hitchcock suspense movie, nor is it much of a mystery. It is, however, an amusing interplay among various characters, most obviously Grant's relationship with Kelly's character, but also his relationship with Francie's mother, with a stuffy Lloyds of London insurance man (John Williams), and with a young woman and old friend (Brigitte Auber). And, my, is the picture ever beautiful to look at.

Thank Robert Burks and his Oscar-winning cinematography of the French Riviera plus the film's original music by Lyn Murray (reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's scores for "Vertigo," "North By Northwest," and "Psycho"), and you get a movie as easy on the eyes as it is on the ears.

Incidentally, Hitchcock usually implied a lot more than he showed, even in movies like "Psycho." Owing to his innate good taste and to comply with the censorship rules of the day, in "To Catch a Thief" he simply suggests most of the action and sex. For example, when Grant and Kelly make love, instead of fading to black, Hitch cuts to fireworks going on outside their window. Now, that may seem like a hopeless cliché, and was a cliché in Hitchcock's time as well, but he was always a playful fellow and undoubtedly meant it to be as amusing as it comes off.

Also, I've mentioned how other Hitchcock movies have influenced future films, and this one is no exception. It influenced the original Peter Sellers "Pink Panther" a few years later; it influenced the Robert Wagner TV series "It Takes a Thief" a little later; and like "North By Northwest" it influenced the first Bond films. One look at Grant in a tuxedo standing at a gambling table in a Cannes casino, and you'll understand why the Bond producers wanted him as 007.

Trivia note: Look for Hitchcock's cameo about ten minutes into the story. Grant is sitting next to him on a bus, turns to him, and then gives the audience a knowing look.

John's film rating: 7/10

The Film According to Eddie:
Even while on cruise control, Alfred Hitchcock usually could direct a movie with better results than the vast majority of filmmakers on their best days. However, cruise control remains cruise control, and if a filmgoer's first Hitchcock experience is "To Catch a Thief", he/she may be left wondering about all the fuss concerning the "master of suspense." "To Catch a Thief" offers slick entertainment, but ultimately, it yields little that satisfies.

In the movie (based on a novel by David Dodge), a rash of jewel thefts in and around Cannes in southern France leads the police to think that "The Cat," John Robie (Cary Grant), has taken to his roof-climbing ways again. However, Robie hasn't stolen anything in fifteen years, so he allies himself with an insurance agent in order to catch the real thief. Robie also decides to use the American heiress Frances Stevens (Grace Kelly) as bait. Robie and Stevens fall in love, but even she thinks that he's the burglar.

The film's title refers to both Robie's quest to catch the real thief as well as to Stevens's seduction of Robie. However, despite the parallel plots unfolding simultaneously, you might be surprised to find that there's little that happens in "To Catch a Thief" that could sustain a feature-length narrative. Robie never seems to be actually trying to catch the new "cat", nor is there any sense of urgency in the pacing. The last act, which takes place at an elaborate costume ball, takes much too long to unfold. The denouement is both obvious and arbitrary.

"To Catch a Thief" also suffers from never maintaining a consistent point-of-view. Sometimes, we see the story from Robie's perspective. As the film progresses, the audience is shoehorned into Stevens's understanding of events. Just when we have become accustomed to seeing things from one limited angle, the movie lifts us to the position of third person omniscient observers. Since the kind of information that the viewer receives from the movie is inconsistent in feel, I got the sense that Hitchcock was cheating in order to keep the audience guessing about the outcome. The thing is, without a consistent mood, how could the director have expected to remain intimate with his audience?

The best way to enjoy "To Catch a Thief" may be to focus on little touches such as shots of a black cat skittering across tiled rooftops, Grace Kelly's gorgeous costumes (designed by the legendary Edith Head), and the French-ness of the production. There are numerous passages with characters speaking only French, and the movie does not supply subtitles (either burned onto the print or via the DVD's subtitle stream)--a gesture to the days when sophisticated people were conversant in that elegant language. There are the usual Hitchcockian touches, from a cameo by the director to the "an innocent man being wronged" theme, from height fetishes to food fetishes, from stunning ice queens to stunning settings. I think of "To Catch a Thief" as Hitchcock's "Hook."