‘The Trouble with Harry‘ is an unusual film in Alfred Hitchcock‘s filmography. Writing this introductory phrase, I realize that about half of Hitchcock‘s films can be called ‘unusual’. Of course, there is a ‘canonical Hitchcock’ in which corpses appear, with mysterious and ambiguous characters, men with immaculate knightly characters who get into all sorts of complications to win the hearts of beautiful women – usually blondes – and save them from all kind of trouble they got into, there is increasing suspense to a point of maximum intensity near the end that explains all the mysteries and in which the knight walls to the arm or drives behind the wheel with the beautiful blonde near him. However, many of the master’s best films do not follow these patterns, and this is also the case with ‘The Trouble with Harry‘. Here, too, we have a corpse that plays a pivotal role in the story, but no one seems to be too impressed, and not a single scream comes out of the mouths of those who discover it. Instead, we are dealing with a double love intrigue and a witty black comedy that permanently leaves a taste of ‘good feeling’, in which the main heroine is not blonde but red-haired. It is perhaps Hitchcock‘s most British film made in America (adapted actually from a novel by English writer Jack Trevor Story) and the most beautiful of all his films from a visual point of view.
In the genial opening scene of the film, a child discovers a corpse. About six more characters will also discover it one after the other, and we’ll find out that the name of the deceased was Harry. Not only does no one care who the murderer is, but almost all of the characters feel guilty or under suspicion of having turned Harry into a corpse. Captain (of ship, retired) Wiles believes he accidentally killed Harry while hunting rabbits. The aged Miss Gravely was frightened and hit him in the head with the heel of her shoe. The young Mrs. Rogers is actually divorced from Harry, and the abstract painter Sam Marlowe would have had every reason to kill him because he is in love with Mrs. Rogers. All the characters feel some guilt, but no one is going to disturb the life of the picturesque town and report the corpse to the police which known for its intrusive investigations. The corpse is buried and reappears on the surface about three times, but everything happens in an atmosphere of joy and bonhomie due to which we sympathize with the characters despite their immoral and illegal deeds.
The atmosphere is one of the most relaxed in Hitchcock‘s films. Vermont’s fall foliage landscape is unique in the world and it’s beautifully filmed here (director of photography Robert Burks), even though the filming was made in California and more than half of it took place in the studios. Hitchcock‘s special-perspective frames are not lacking, but the effect is comic and not horror. The music score of Bernard Herrmann, the favorite composer and music arranger of Hitchcock and many other famous directors, accentuates and amplifies what happens on screen. The young couple is played by John Forsythe and by debutante Shirley MacLaine in her first film at the age of 21, already possessing the magnetism that would fascinate the audiences in the career that was just beginning. But the older couple is the one that steals the show, with Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick in roles that today we would call ‘character roles’. From a modern perspective, everything seems terribly outdated and unnatural, but it is this style that gives the film charm and gives us the feeling that we are witnessing a vintage theatrical show, but one of good quality. ‘The Trouble with Harry‘ proves that Hitchcock‘s talent was remarkable even when it manifested itself in unexpected directions and is a pleasant entertainment for today’s viewer.