IMDb >
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Watch It
Buy it at Amazon
Rent it at Blockbuster.com
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
BETA
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotesOverview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv scheduleAwards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage boardPlot & Quotes
plot summarysynopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotesFun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQOther Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDeskPromotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo galleryExternal Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clipsThe Trouble with Harry (1955) More at IMDbPro »
| Videos (see all 2) |
|
Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
3 October 1955 (USA)
more
Tagline:
A comedy about a corpse. more
Plot:
The trouble with Harry is that he's dead, and everyone seems to have a different idea of what needs to be done with his body... full summary | full synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards.
Another 1 nomination
more
NewsDesk:
(7 articles)
Q&A: Mark Seal on the Ciprianis
(From Vanity Fair. 2 November 2009, 7:21 AM, PST)
Geek Deal: Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece DVD Collection for $54
(From Slash Film. 28 October 2009, 9:32 AM, PDT)
(From Vanity Fair. 2 November 2009, 7:21 AM, PST)
Geek Deal: Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece DVD Collection for $54
(From Slash Film. 28 October 2009, 9:32 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
Cinema's Best Shaggy Dog Story
more (115 total)
Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Edmund Gwenn | ... | Capt. Albert Wiles |
 | John Forsythe | ... | Sam Marlowe |
| Mildred Natwick | ... | Miss Ivy Gravely |
| Mildred Dunnock | ... | Mrs. Wiggs |
| Jerry Mathers | ... | Arnie Rogers |
| Royal Dano | ... | Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs |
| Parker Fennelly | ... | Millionaire |
| Barry Macollum | ... | Tramp |
| Dwight Marfield | ... | Dr. Greenbow |
 | Shirley MacLaine | ... | Jennifer Rogers |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
99 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.50 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Certification:
Portugal:M/12 |
Spain:13 |
Brazil:12 |
USA:Approved (certificate no. 17335) |
Argentina:13 |
Australia:PG |
Chile:14 |
Finland:K-12 |
Ireland:PG |
Peru:14 |
UK:PG |
USA:PG |
West Germany:12 |
Canada:PG
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Goofs:
Continuity: In the second-to-last scene there is a large wet spot on Jennifer's blouse. A few seconds later, the wet spot is completely gone.
more
Quotes:
Sam Marlowe:
Perharps I'll come back tomorrow.
Arnie: When's that?
Sam Marlowe: The day after today.
Arnie: That's yesterday. Today's tomorrow.
Sam Marlowe: It was.
Arnie: When was tomorrow yesterday?
Sam Marlowe: Today.
Arnie: Oh, sure. Yesterday.
more
Arnie: When's that?
Sam Marlowe: The day after today.
Arnie: That's yesterday. Today's tomorrow.
Sam Marlowe: It was.
Arnie: When was tomorrow yesterday?
Sam Marlowe: Today.
Arnie: Oh, sure. Yesterday.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Remington Steele: Vintage Steele (#1.19)" (1983)
more
Soundtrack:
Flaggin' the Train to Tuscaloosa
more
FAQ
What is the trouble with Harry?Does Hitchcock have a cameo in this movie?
more
more (115 total)
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for The Trouble with Harry (1955) moreRecommendations
If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
Show more recommendations
|
|
|
|
|
| Strangers on a Train | Psycho | Snow Falling on Cedars | Volver | Mystic River |
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
Related Links
| Full cast and crew | Company credits | External reviews |
| News articles | IMDb Comedy section | IMDb USA section |
| Add this title to MyMovies |
With all humor, you either get the "joke" or you don't. If you don't, no amount of explaining can change your mind. If you do, the details are endlessly enjoyable.
Part of the joke that's "The Trouble With Harry" is that "nothing happens." Hitchcock's "anti-Hitchcock" film defies expectations for action, shock, mayhem, suspense, spectacular climaxes on national monuments, etc. Instead, it's a New England cross-stitch of lovingly detailed writing, acting, photography, directing and editing.
Saul Steinberg's title illustration tells you exactly what you're in for. One long pan of a child's drawing of birds and trees . . . ending with a corpse stretched out on the ground as "Directed by Alfred Hitchcock" briefly appears.
So meticulously is "The Trouble With Harry" conceived, the only two images in the title art that are NOT trees, plants or birds are a house with a rocking chair on its porch and that corpse. The film literally plays in reverse of the title sequence -- from little Arnie's (Jerry Mathers, pre-Beaver. The boy who drew the titles?) discovery of the corpse, back to the home with the rocking chair, as Hitchcock's final "joke" puts the audience safely to bed. A double bed, in this case.
What's the film about? Oh, Great Big Themes like Life and Death, Youth and Age, Love and Hate, Guilt and Innocence, Truth and Lies, Art and Pragmatism -- packaged with deceptive simplicity.
The "hero," Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), is an artist. The man the "child" who drew the titles (Arnie, or someone like him) might have become. His name is an amalgamation of two of hard-boiled fiction's greatest detectives: Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Indeed, Sam Marlowe functions here as a "sort of" detective. But enough of pointing out the detailed construction of this script and film: repeated viewings yield far greater pleasures.
"Introducing Shirley MacLaine" in her first screen role threw that enduring actress into an astounding mix of old pros: Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Dunnock, Mildred Natwick ("old" in more ways than one) and Forsythe. That MacLaine held the screen then, and still does 50 years later (! Name another major actor who can say that), validates Hitchcock's astute casting.
In fact, TTWH is a tribute to cinematic "acting" as much as anything else. These are among the finest performances ever captured of these terrific actors. Since there are none of the expected "spectacular" Hitchcock sequences, nor his nail-biting tension, all that's left is for the actors to fully inhabit their characters.
That they do with brilliance, efficiency and breathtaking comic timing. No pratfalls here. Just nuances.
Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick are the real stars. Had Hitchcock said so, the film would never have been produced. Their scenes (they receive as much if not more screen time together than Forsythe and MacLaine) are possibly the most delightful (and yes, romantically and sexually tense) ever filmed of courtship in middle-and-old age. Perfectly realized in every intonation and gesture. Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.
Theirs is paralleled by the courtship of the younger "stars," Forsythe and MacLaine. "Love" at both ends of life, young and old, and love's wonderful humor and mysterious redemption, even in the face of death -- that inconvenient corpse on the hill.
Perhaps the most surprising and powerful undertow in "The Trouble With Harry" (one hesitates to name it because it's handled so delicately) is Sex.
It is only barely present in the lines given the characters, but the subtext is always there. Occasionally, it boils over into an infinitely subtle burlesque, as in the exchange between Gwenn and Forsythe about crossing Miss Gravely's (get that name?) "threshold" for the first time.
The look in Gwenn's eyes and the repressed joy and romantic hope in his face -- even at his stage of life -- is bliss.
The coffee cup and saucer "for a man's fingers;" the ribbon for Miss Gravely's newly-cut hair (Wiggy cuts it in the general store -- Mildred Dunnock in another unbelievably subtle performance -- muttering, "Well, I guess it will grow back."); Arnie's dead rabbit and live frog; the constantly shifting implications of guilt in the death of "Harry" up there on the hill; the characters' struggles to regain innocence by "doing the right thing"; the closet door that swings open for no apparent reason (never explained); the characters' revelations of the truths about themselves; their wishes granted through Sam's "negotiations" with the millionaire art collector from the "city" -- ALL portrayed within the conservative but ultimately flexible confines of their New England repression and stoicism (yes, the film is also a satiric comment on '50s morality) -- these details and more finally yield a rich tapestry of our common humanity, observed at a particular time and place, through specific people caught in an absurd yet utterly plausible circumstance.
Nothing happens? Only somebody who doesn't know how to look and listen -- REALLY observe, like an artist / creator -- could reach that conclusion about "The Trouble With Harry." Only a genius, like Hitchcock, would have the audacity to pull the rug out from under his audience' expectations at the height of his career by offering a profoundly subtle morality play in the guise of a slightly macabre Hallmark Card.
When the final "revelation" arrives, in the last line that takes us home to the marital bed where love culminates and all human life begins -- yours and mine -- and draws from us a happy smile of recognition, so Hitchcock's greatest secret is revealed, more blatantly in this than any of his films.
"Life and death -- and all of it in between -- are a joke! Don't you get it?" It's there in all his pictures. Nowhere more lovingly and less showily presented than in "The Trouble With Harry." Thank you, Hitch.