June Film Club: The Man Who Knew Too Much
It’s been a few years since watching the film, but whenever I think of The Man Who Knew Too Much, I always first think of the infuriating scene where James Stewart’s Dr. Ben McKenna sedates Doris Day’s Jo before revealing to her that their son has been abducted. The trope of a man withholding information from a woman “for her own good” has been the downfall in my esteem of many a great movie. I was particularly disappointed that Hitchcock, who so adeptly portrayed the subtle social/workplace indignities of women in 1960’s Psycho, could have been the architect of such a moment. However, in revisiting The Man Who Knew Too Much, I remember that this is, in many ways, a portrait of masculine postwar unrest and that this horrific moment is just one of many in which Ben struggles to retain relevance in this film wherein he is the titular character. Whether the gender discussion has the same weight as a film like Psycho is something that we will explore a little later, but first, I’d like to unpack the strange relationship between “Dr. and Mrs. McKenna,” as the film is, first and foremost, a story about a marriage.
As the couple sits down to dinner with their newfound friends, the Draytons, they see Louis Bernard, the man who stood them up for dinner that evening, entering with a beautiful young woman. At first, Jo is offended and Ben lets it slide: “Well, we just met him today…”and “You can’t blame him turning down an old married couple like us…” However, Ben, who seems to merely acquiesce to Jo’s outrage, begins to stare daggers at Bernard, threatening to go say something to him, while Jo has to calm him down, “I don’t know why he gets so worked up about unimportant things.” At this point in the film, I am completely taken aback by the dynamic between Jo and Ben. I feel like I’m watching some sort of absurdist play depicting a marriage that is absolutely in a state of collapse, to the point where neither member knows what they want or feel themselves. Cut to the next scene of Jo and Ben playfully listing the surgeries that have paid for this trip (of course, Ben would love this back and forth, and it details all of the work that he’s done to get the family to this position). And then Jo pops that question that often signals a relationship in crisis, asking when they’re going to have another baby. So much of Jo and Ben’s relationship revolves around performance, social, professional, and otherwise, that it becomes abundantly clear that the pressure of outside perceptions has been putting a strain on both of them, particularly the good doctor.
I’m a massive fan of Jimmy Stewart, but gosh, it’s so difficult to find Ben at all redeemable in this film. Like the male subject of many films in the 1940s and 1950s, McKenna is a veteran of WWII and is faced with the issues of demasculinization that gave birth to the film noir genre. But Ben McKenna is a family man, not a hard-boiled detective, so instead of reclaiming his fragile sense of manliness with violence and crime-fighting in the city, he does so by subjugating his wife in Indiana. Despite her once flourishing singing career, Ben always positions her as a doctor’s wife and a mother. Even to those who recognize her in public, he introduces them as “Dr. and Mrs. McKenna.” His discomfort when he slips to the background of conversations is painfully apparent, and he’s all-too-eager to lay out his entire life story to Bernard at their first meeting on the bus. To Jo’s suspicion that Ben told Bernard everything about himself while learning little in return, Ben accuses her of jealousy that she wasn’t inquired about as well. No, Dr. Ben McKenna is nowhere near in the running for greatest film husband, with all of this toxic masculinity coming to a head in the aforementioned sedation scene, wherein we learn that McKenna, once critical of Jo’s supposed overuse of sedatives, has no problem administering them to her when she might be too emotional, or maybe get in the way of the manly business of international intrigue and his desperation to the matter. The whole situation feels like a discontented man’s fantasy come true, albeit not quite as he might have imagined.
The film picks up after Jo has regained consciousness, a time jump that I appreciate as Hitchcock reveals that Ben made little progress in the interim without Jo. Indeed, the rest of the film may as well be Into the Woods, with Ben and Jo as the Baker and his Wife. At every turn it is Ben who rushes into a situation, while Jo, left in the “secondary” roles of entertaining guests, calling the police, and playing the distraction, is the actual hero time and time again. While I appreciate Jo’s pivotal role in the film, I am left dissatisfied with her overall arc: how she must forgive Ben almost immediately after his betrayal, and how he never admits her importance in the events leading to the reunion with their son. This may be too far-fetched for 1956, but I have no reason to believe anything other than that things will fall “back into place” for the McKennas once the credits roll. I mean, at least Marion Crane got a bit of revenge against the sexist client in Psycho. I would expect a tad more from Hitch here.
While my preoccupation with the central marriage of the film may lead you to think this wasn’t a particularly pleasant watch (also I could write a whole other piece about the cultural depictions throughout this film that would support this). However, I do enjoy a good portion of this film, particularly its space for humor. The red herring taxidermist scene is always good for a laugh, and I always giggle with glee whenever Stewart has to attempt to blend his outstandingly tall body in with his surroundings, or behind household objects. And let’s not forget the stellar punchline that ends the film, “Sorry we’re late, we had to pick up Hank.” Yes, The Man Who Knew too Much has the classic Hitchcockian thrills and laughs, (not to mention the stunning use of music), and while not providing the most satisfying character arc, the film is worth a watch. – Bailey (🐯⛪)
Where do I even begin…? The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is probably one of the lesser-known films within the greater canon of the works by director Alfred Hitchcock. Apart from the film winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be),” written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, plus being included in the list of four films that James Stewart made with Hitchcock, and being Hitch’s only remake, the film really isn’t all that great, nor that memorable.
I had seen this film several years ago when I went through an obsessive ‘Hitchcock phase’ (back during those deeply dark days, also known as ‘middle school’) and devoured every film from this director that I could get my hands on. I remember hunting down obscure early, British Hitchcock pictures, you know, those titles nobody else was renting that were tucked away in hidden corners amongst the shelves at my local video stores. I also borrowed as many of Hitch’s more popular films from my local library as I was allowed to check out at any given time… Those were the days when I was far more impressed with this director than I am now. Part of my problem with The Man Who Knew Too Much is its blend of genres. The film straddles the line between being a political thriller and a domestic melodrama, but doesn’t manage to do either all that well.
As a thriller, the film attempts to connect two storylines, one being an assassination attempt and the second being a kidnapping, but neither scenario is really all that compelling. Certainly, you end up rooting for our leading couple, Jo and Ben (portrayed by Doris Day and James Stewart) to be reunited with their son, Hank, but the pacing and build-up of the suspense (that Hitchcock is most often known for) is sadly lacking.
The more fascinating storyline surrounds the melodramatic elements that play out via the marital problems and constant bickering between Jo and Ben. Jo, as a mother, is in stark contrast to many of Hitchcock’s usual ‘mother’ figures, think “Mrs. Bates” from Psycho (1960) or “Bernice” from Marnie (1964), who are murderous, abusive, and/or neglectful. Jo, on the other hand, is more-so the picture ‘perfect’ 1950s housewife, having given up her career on the stage in order to become a “doctor’s wife” and doting mother to her son, Hank (this is particularly built up in the scene of Jo singing with Hank and getting him ready for bed in their hotel room). However, Jo’s status, as an ex-career woman and mother, constantly puts her at odds with her husband, Ben, who comes across as a domineering patriarchal figure and attempts to control his wife at every turn.
Ben, at one point, literally suppresses her emotions by sedating her in the film’s most uncomfortable and problematic scene. While forcibly administering tranquilizers, in a rather complicated reinterpretation of the Hippocratic oath, and much to Jo’s protests (Day gives a rather convincing dramatic performance in this scene), Ben looms over her and holds her down on the bed, playing into the greater societal tensions and expectations that exist for this couple. One could even go so far as to read into the scene a surprisingly feminist undertext, as, in very roundabout way, Jo’s muffled cries and helplessness mirror that of many women throughout our history, and become evocative of greater cries for help and liberation for women in a male-dominated society.
Even with Ben’s attempts at stifling her emotions, and voice, Hitchcock ultimately gets the greatest last laugh over Ben, in that Jo’s voice is literally what saves two people from being murdered. Jo’s scream in the Royal Albert Hall not only saves the foreign prime minister from an assassination attempt, but becomes representative of a female voice protesting against the controlling male influence in her life. (This ‘scream’ is mirrored later on in the film when Mrs. Dayton screams thinking that her husband is about to kill Hank. Both women use their voices as a last resort to bring about unexpected changes to the circumstances when events become completely out of their control.) Then, Jo’s singing at the embassy provides the needed distraction allowing Ben to search for Hank. With his reluctance to even have her sing in the first place, Ben clearly wants his wife to be a submissive homemaker, and doesn’t like to even discuss or acknowledge that Jo had a successful stage career before marrying him. Throughout the film he keeps reminding her that it was her “choice” to marry him and become a ‘doctor’s wife,’ but, really, one can certainly question the level of so-called ‘choice’ that Jo would have had as a woman in 1950s America…
I didn’t really find either lead’s performances to be all that ‘enjoyable.’ It was easy to become annoyed by Stewart’s portrayal of Ben, and his character’s constant dismissal of his wife at every turn. Although, it felt good to laugh at this character as he squirmed uncomfortably while sitting on the low cushions in the Moroccan restaurant, and again when he made an absolute ass out of himself in the taxidermist’s studio. The shop owner trying to save the sawfish, and visually cutting back and forth in front of the character became a figurative way for pantomiming sawing off Ben’s head, absolutely left me in stitches, as Hitchcock can certainly make a buffoon out of anyone – even James Stewart. With Jo (Day), I had a more positive reaction, as she is clearly a more assertive person than her husband; from the more masculine spelling of her name to the common sense she displays, and being more suspicious of the events and people ultimately involved in the assassination plot and her son’s kidnapping, Jo is the saving grace of the film. Her scream, and singing, literally changes the course of people’s lives, eventually proving her ‘voice’ is an asset to those around her.
Throughout The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock plays with the idolization of the ‘nuclear family,’ which can be seen in the film’s punchline: “Sorry we’re late, we had to pick up Hank,” a misplaced comedic moment that completely undermines the seriousness of the events that transpired throughout the film. Did the simple ‘family vacation’ fix the struggles this couple was clearly facing, and ultimately bring the family unit back together in the end? Perhaps, but the ambiguity of Ben and Jo’s relationship by the end of the film leaves a lot to be desired… and certainly does not resolve the melodramatic elements and marital tension that has been building throughout the film. If I were Jo, I would think twice about staying within that marriage.
Ultimately, my reaction is that The Man Who Knew Too Much is an average (at best) Hitchcock thriller, and most certainly not one of his better pictures. The film is remarkably similar in plot to the earlier 1934 British film of the same name, as it retains many of the character’s names, and at times is a true shot-for-shot remake, especially seen in the gun emerging from behind the curtain in the theater sequence (for a more detailed breakdown of the similarities and differences between these films, check out Robin Wood’s chapter, “The Men Who Knew Too Much (And The Women Who Knew Much Better),” in Hitchcock’s Films Revisited – Revised Edition, 2002). My favorite element of the film is the score, and cameo (as the orchestra conductor), featuring composer Bernard Herrmann, but even Herrmann chose to keep and reuse the same music featured during the Royal Albert Hall scene from the previous film! There really weren’t that many improvements made from the first film to the second… Even with Hitchcock having been famously quoted as stating (whilst in an interview with François Truffaut) that his first version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” was the work of an “amateur,” but his second was clearly that of a “professional,” I think that response was merely Hollywood talking and a rather flippant way of hiding the fact that he was probably dissatisfied (on one level or another) with both films. – Sarah 👪
What did you think about The Man Who Knew Too Much? What do you think about our reviews? Share your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for some fun summer themed posts!
Copyright © 2021 Sarah Crane & Bailey Lizotte
