I’m probably to blame, but ‘To Catch a Thief‘ attracted me and interested me less than most of Alfred Hitchcock‘s other films that I remember seeing. Made in 1955, it was the third and last film in which the master of suspense featured Grace Kelly. In his book of dialogues with Truffaut, Hitchcock admits that he focused his attention on the love story between the rich American heiress Frances Stevens (Kelly) and the famous former jewelry thief John Robie (Cary Grant) who is forced to dispel the suspicions that hover over him in connection with a series of thefts committed using his methods. As a result, Hitchcock said, because of the emphasizing of the romantic line, this film probably had more success among female viewers than among male viewers. I’m not sure that’s the main reason why I liked the movie less. On the other hand, it is a film directed by Hitchcock and there are many good reasons to see it today, and there are good chances to please others even more than me.
‘To Catch a Thief‘ is the first film that Hitchcock shot on location in France, on the French Riviera, and the sunny landscape, the sky, the sea, the roads, the villas overlooking the Mediterranean, play an important role in the way the film is presented. visually. Robert Burks actually won one of the few Academy Awards received by a Hitchcock film for its cinematography. (Hitchcock himself has never received an Academy Award for directing). It is probably his most luminous film, although the key scenes take place at night, such as the heist whose author the hero will have to catch to prove his innocence. The color treatment is original and interesting, Hitchcock seems to have discovered in the palette of the film a new tool of cinematic expression with which he happily experiments here.
The police plot is original, but not too credible or too interesting. We don’t shed a lot of tears today for the jewelry on the necks of rich ladies. But what can we say about the romantic story, which, if we believe the director, was the important subject in the film for him? Honestly, this didn’t convince me either. Grace Kelly is truly a fascinating beauty in her exuberant toilets, and the scenes in which she drives madly on the roads of the Riviera today take on a macabre connotation unintended by the director, because we all know how the former actress turned princess ended her life. But she was 26 when ‘To Catch a Thief‘ was filmed and Cary Grant was over 50, so the idyll between them doesn’t seem true, and the women’s attraction to the hero doesn’t seem to be justified by anything other than that he’s played by … Cary Grant. But again, it could be just me. What do I know about the sex appeal of men?