The Man Who Knew TWO Much (1934 & 1956) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this months episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron find no reason to remake this episode so they’re covering both versions of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934 & 1956).

Original Movie (free on YouTube):

Remake Trailer:

The Picture:

Picture Title: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Written by:

(Original) Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham Lewis, Scenario by Edwin Greenwood and A.R. Rawlinson, additional dialogue by Emlyn Williams

(Remake) John Michael Hayes, based on the story by Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham Lewis

Starring:

(Original) Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Frank Vosper, Hugh Wakefield, Nova Pibeam, Pierre Fresnay

(Remake) James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles, Ralph Truman, Daniel Gélin, Christopher Olsen

Directed by:Alfred Hitchcock

Year Released: 1934 & 1956

Our Favourite Trivia:

DIRECTOR CAMEO: 

(Original) Just after the dentist office scene on the lamp post corner, entering stage right in a raincoat as a bus passes.

(Remake) In the Moroccan marketplace in a crowd watching the elevated acrobats with his back to the camera

ORIGINAL

When Peter Lorre arrived in Great Britain, his first meeting with a British director was with Sir Alfred Hitchcock. By smiling and laughing as Hitchcock talked, the director was unaware that Lorre, a Hungarian, had a limited command of the English language. Hitchcock subsequently decided to cast Lorre in this movie, and the young actor learned much of his part phonetically.

The crucial cantata for the Albert Hall sequence was composed specifically for this movie by Arthur Benjamin, and the same piece was used again in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). When Sir Alfred Hitchcock remade this movie, he offered Composer Bernard Herrmann the opportunity to compose a new work for the scene, but Herrmann chose not to, citing an appreciation of Benjamin’s original cantata.

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS or DVD copy of the 1934 movie. Therefore, many versions of this movie available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the movie.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock told François Truffaut that the first The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) was “the work of a talented amateur, and the second was made by a professional.” Nevertheless, Hitchcock preferred the earlier version, largely because it wasn’t so polished.

REMAKE

It was during the making of this movie, when she saw how camels, goats and other “animal extras” in a marketplace scene were being treated, that Doris Day began her lifelong commitment to preventing animal abuse. She was so appalled at the conditions the animals were in, that she refused to work unless they were properly fed and cared for. The production company actually had to set up “feeding stations” for the various goats, sheep, camels, et cetera, and feed them every day before Day would agree to go back to work.

One of the “Five lost Hitchcocks” (with Rear Window (1954), Rope (1948), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Vertigo (1958))

At first Doris Day refused to record “Que Sera, Sera” as a popular song release, dismissing it as “a forgettable children’s song”. It not only went on to win an Academy Award, but also became the biggest hit of her recording career and her signature song. She sang the same song in two more movies, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), and it was used as the theme song for all one hundred twenty-four episodes of her television series, The Doris Day Show (1968).

The Albert Hall sequence lasts twelve minutes without a single word of dialogue, and consists of one hundred twenty-four shots.

The Random Draw for Next Picture:

Next up, we’ll be discussing “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.”

Feedback:

Follow the show on Facebook or Twitter @PresentingHitchcock

Subscribe to Presenting Hitchcock