The Man Who Knew Too Much / To Catch a Thief

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1956, Universal, 120 min. Alfred Hitchcock remakes his own entertaining but lightweight 1934 thriller as a melancholy examination of the pleasures and nightmares of family life. When the son of James Stewart and Doris Day is kidnapped while on vacation, the couple’s long-simmering resentments threaten to get in the way of their attempts to rescue him. Although the film is rightly celebrated for setpieces like the famous Albert Hall assassination sequence, the depth of Hitchcock’s vision is more effectively felt in the film’s quieter moments.

TO CATCH A THIEF, 1955, Paramount, 106 min. Retired cat burglar Cary Grant and ravishing American party girl Grace Kelly fall in love against a backdrop of fireworks, the French Riviera and a string of unsolved jewel robberies -- all the while wearing some of Edith Head’s most singularly stunning costumes.