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Death can be funny, as Alfred Hitchcock demonstrates in this black comedy about a corpse that just won’t stay buried. Overshadowed by masterpieces that the director made during the same period, such as Rear Window and Vertigo, this offbeat satire reveals a gentler and more whimsical side of Hitchcock. In a delicious twist on the conventional murder mystery, several of the characters involved, rather than proclaiming their innocence, remain convinced that they are responsible for the death of the eponymous Harry. Shirley MacLaine makes a charming screen debut here as the dead man’s ex-wife, while Edmund Gwenn (who had appeared in Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent and Skin Game) does a nice turn as the old sea dog who happens upon the hapless stiff while hunting. The Trouble with Harry is also notable for being the first film in Hitchcock’s long and fruitful collaboration with composer Bernard Hermann, who provided the marvelous score. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

The trouble with Harry is that he's dead. The scene is a autumnal Vermont village, where a pre-Leave It to Beaver Jerry Mathers stumbles upon Harry's corpse in the woods. Mathers alerts his mother Shirley MacLaine (making her film debut), who recognizes Harry as her ex-husband. Later on, retired sea captain Edmund Gwenn likewise comes across the moribund Harry. Both MacLaine and Gwenn have reason to believe that they're responsible for Harry's demise; MacLaine thinks that she killed Harry by clobbering him with a bottle, while Gwenn is certain that he shot the poor fellow while hunting. As the day draws to a close, seemingly every person in town is convinced that he or she has had some hand in Harry's death, thus they conspire to hide the body from the authorities. Visiting artist John Forsythe, dumbfounded at the calm, collected reactions of the villagers regarding Harry (whose ubiquitous body pops up at the most inopportune moments), solves the "mystery." Though not his most successful film, The Trouble with Harry was one of director Alfred Hitchcock's favorites. The story's whimsical black-comedy elements are perfectly complemented by Bernard Herrmann's playful music score. Best bit: Mildred Natwick, coming upon Gwenn as the latter is strenuously dragging away Harry's corpse, asking offhandedly "What seems to be the trouble, Captain?" The Trouble With Harry was adapted by John Michael Hayes from the novel by John Trevor. Hal Erickson

All Movie Guide

Alfred Hitchcock rarely allowed his dry and barbed sense of humor to rise to the surface as fully as in The Trouble With Harry, one of his only real comedies, and a film that he often cited as a personal favorite. Like a Charles Addams or Gahan Wilson cartoon come to life, The Trouble With Harry finds its characters amusingly unconcerned with the fact that Harry is dead, and his remains repeatedly dug up, dragged about, and reburied are shown a casual disrespect that is both funny and jarring. Hitchcock had a fondness for eccentric comic-relief characters, and here he gave them a film to themselves; Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Dunnock, and Mildred Natwick are all in fine form. While it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to accept John Forsythe as a bohemian artist, Shirley MacLaine was an inspired choice, in her first screen role, as his love interest, displaying a sharp, pixie-ish charm that was a welcome alternative to the high-gloss glamour gals of the period (and Hitchcock's usual ice-queen heroines). The Trouble With Harry is not one of Hitchcock's best films, but the Master was clearly enjoying himself, and anyone who appreciated the eccentricity of Thelma Ritter in Rear Window or Leo G. Carroll in North by Northwest will have a lot of fun with this movie. -- Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 025192831621
• Source: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Language: English, Español
• Subtitles: Français
• Time: 1:40:00
• Sales Rank: 9,395

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Alfred Hitchcock - The Masterpiece Collection

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