The Trouble with Harry
Short description
The Trouble with Harry is a comedy mystery set in a Vermont village during autumn. A man's body is found in the woods, and several residents separately come to believe they are responsible for his death. A retired sea captain who was out hunting, a local unmarried woman, and the dead man's estranged wife each suspect their own actions killed him, and their efforts to deal with the corpse lead to it being buried and dug up more than once as they try to decide what to do.
Alfred Hitchcock directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes. It was the thirty-first of the forty-three features Hitchcock directed, following To Catch a Thief and preceding The Man Who Knew Too Much. The cast includes Edmund Gwenn as the captain, John Forsythe as an artist, Mildred Natwick as the unmarried woman, and Shirley MacLaine as the wife, with Mildred Dunnock and Jerry Mathers in supporting roles. Made for about one million dollars, it returned roughly seven million worldwide.
Audience response has been favorable but moderate: on IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 44,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 7 out of 10 from a smaller pool of 931 votes. A critics' rating of 7.7 out of 10 from 33 reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Hitchcock anonymously purchased the rights to the novel for $11,000.
- Philip Truax (1911-2008)'s last on-screen appearance in a minor role.
- Prolonged rains interfered with filming in Vermont. Many outdoor scenes had to be shot on sets specifically built in the local school gymnasium, but the dialogue recorded there proved unusable due to the loud drumming of raindrops on the metal roof, and much of the dialogue had to be re-recorded later.
- Hitchcock can be seen walking past a millionaire's parked limousine while looking at Sam's paintings.
- For three decades, the film was not shown in theaters because Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to it (and to four other films from the same period) and left it as an inheritance to his daughter, Patricia (1928-2021). Among film fans, they became known as the “five lost Hitchcock films.” Their theatrical screenings resumed in 1984. The director's other “lost” films are considered to be “Rope” (1948), “Rear Window” (1954), “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1955), and “Vertigo” (1958).
- Alfred Hitchcock singled out Shirley MacLaine (something he didn't do with other leading actresses who worked with him), spent a lot of time with her, and they had breakfast together every morning before filming. Hitchcock wasn't courting her; he simply believed she needed to be well-fed. MacLaine had once been a nearly penniless chorus girl from Broadway, but her acquaintance with Hitchcock changed everything. As a result of the attention the director paid her, she gained almost 7 kg during filming, to the point where the studio even called her and told her to stop eating so much, or her career would "end before it even began."
- Heavy rain interfered with location shooting in Vermont, so many scenes were filmed on sets built in a local high school gymnasium.
- While filming this movie, director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) wanted to see how audiences would react to a film without so-called stars in the cast. He believed that a star in the cast hindered the development and flow of the plot. In addition, he wanted to see how the American public would react to a more subtle black humor than they were accustomed to in his films.
- Shirley MacLaine's debut role. The film was shot in Vermont.
- Due to the cold weather in Vermont, many boxes of autumn leaves were sent to the studio in California, where they were carefully attached to the branches of trees in the soundstage.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
