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Years ago I read about Cecil B. DeMille’s adventures with The Squaw Man. If you’re unfamiliar with that title, it’s the first movie DeMille ever directed, a silent Western shot in 1914. It was also the 33rd movie he directed, depending on which uncredited assists you count, in 1918. And it was the first sound Western he ever made, in 1931. At a certain point, people close to him must have asked, “Geez, what is it with you and The Squaw Man?!” Surely, if he’d lived into the 1960′s, he would have figured out a way to give it one more go, maybe with Eli Wallach this time. Whether he was trying to perfect it, make lightning strike three times or just loved the story that much, DeMille clearly felt the first time wasn’t as good as it could have been. Not being able to endlessly ruin the original with CGI updates, he simply made it again. Three years after DeMille’s last attempt, Alfred Hitchcock, in 1934, made his first attempt at The Man Who Knew Too Much, with Leslies Banks, Edna Best and Peter Lorre in his first English-speaking role. Twenty-one years later, he gave it another go, this time with Jimmy Stewart, Doris Day and Bernard Miles, who was given the impossible task of filling Peter Lorre’s shoes. The differences between the two are minimal but the reputation of the two are quite different.
When the 1956 version was re-released back in the 1980s, I watched Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel review it, and found their critique a bit strange. Stranger still, I began hearing that opinion parroted by other movie fans who were clearly just taking their cue from the two famed critics. They kept saying how The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was a collection of good scenes but not a good movie. It had great setups but not much of a narrative. The original was much better. Balderdash! I still hear such things, but oddly, only from older fans who would be familiar with Siskel and Ebert’s critique. To paraphrase Paul Simon, still parroting after all these years. The fact is both versions have much to offer but I prefer the second one a little more. So did François Truffaut and he told Hitchcock as much, to which Hitchcock agreed. The second, he felt, was far more professional, more realized. Although that very professionalism, with the high-end production values and a number or two by Doris Day, could be a point in favor of the original. But one could go back and forth like that forever. For instance, on just the opening sequence and then the murder of Louis Bernard (played by Pierre Fresnay in the original and Daniel Gélin in the remake), each movie wins one.
The original opens with a thrilling ski jump that ends in near disaster as a girl chases her dog into the ski-jumper’s path, while the remake opens with a dentist joking with his wife and son about how he paid for their vacation.
The first movie’s setup is far better. We meet the couple’s daughter (not son, as in the remake) when her dog runs onto the track. Then, when the skier crashes into the crowd, we meet Peter Lorre, having a good time (even if he is, as the song goes, contemplating a crime). Then the wife, who is a sharp-shooter in a clay pigeon competition. She loses when Lorre’s watch chimes and throws her off just as she is about to shoot. So everything we will eventually need to know about the characters, especially the sharp-shooting and watch chiming, is setup immediately. The remake takes forever getting us there and it’s a pretty dull ride to the station.
For Louis Bernard’s murder, on the other hand, the remake clearly wins. In the original, he is shot through a window. People react slowly. The assassin is insinuated by jump cut. Louis whispers instructions to Edna Best. Then there’s the remake: Wow! The knife in the back, the stumbling walk, the makeup coming off in Jimmy Stewart’s hands, Stewart’s expression as the victim whispers his dying words… just all it. The winner by a mile.
And so on.
One could endlessly argue the pros and cons of both but the two strongest cards held by both come in the form of an actor. In the original, that’s Peter Lorre. In the remake, it’s Jimmy Stewart. Peter Lorre has a small part in the first film and that is, ultimately, and ironically, a mark against it. Lorre is so charismatic and imposing, the rest of the movie lags when he is not on the screen. Leslie Banks and Edna Best were both fine actors, but Lorre commands the screen.
In the remake, Jimmy Stewart commands the screen and Bernard Miles in the Peter Lorre role never seems like much of a threat. And since Stewart occupies far more screen time than Lorre did in the original, it makes for a more consistent result.
Both movies are very good, neither is great. The biggest problem? Hitchcock never followed in DeMille’s footsteps and made it a third time. Maybe then he could have combined everything strong from both, casting both Jimmy Stewart and Peter Lorre. Cut Stewart’s scenes by a third, increase Lorre’s scenes by a third, and make the movie a real showdown between the two. And let Doris Day shoot the assassin, like in the original. At least that would make up for having to hear “Que Sera Sera” two excruciating times. Well, maybe.
Greg Ferrara
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