TO CATCH A THIEF: 'Paramount presents...' Blu-ray (Paramount, 1955) Paramount Home Video

A seminal masterwork in the romantic/thriller genre and an elegant romp through the moneyed landscapes of Monte Carlo besides, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955) is a gorgeous affair, oft' mistakenly critiqued as 'lightweight' entertainment from the master of suspense. I wholeheartedly disagree. What seems to throw most critics off is Robert Burks' absorbingly lush cinematography that takes the already elegant playground of the super-rich and transforms it into a plush and fantastical backdrop, fairly reeking of class. And yet, this pervasive style never negates the taut story elements. John Michael Hayes’ expertly crafted screenplay is perhaps one of the best shooting scripts a Hitchcock movie has ever had. The deliciousness in those prose, dipped in double entendre, stems from an acerbic sense of comedic timing, and, from the uber-cleverness Hayes manages to balance with an underlay of eeriness to document the rash of jewel robberies. Cary Grant – perhaps the most handsome actor ever to grace the movie screen, marks a most handsome rake, while Grace Kelly, positively emanates feminine wiles as his vogueish, headstrong, cosmopolitan girl. Grant and Kelly, two of the most sophisticated and alluring movie stars the world has ever known, populate this mythic French Riviera as though they were living monuments to its chic good taste. The ‘who’ of this ‘who done it?’ is hardly at the crux of the narrative. Rather, we are lured by Hitchcock into exploring the virtually aborted aspects of this thriller, only to become utterly absorbed into the mélange of a well-tailored tale of danger from which a combustible sexual chemistry positively ignites the screen on fire. The ploy thereafter becomes not ‘whodunit’ but ‘how long’ will it take for Kelly’s Francie Stevens to bait and concur the intercontinental man of mystery, John Robie (Grant) whom she desperately desires yet seems too quick to believe is the cat burglar stealing everyone’s jewels.  To Catch A Thief is therefore pursuing another kind of ‘thrill’, carefully calculated to be ogled as a true cinema bon-bon – visually, a rare feast for the eye.

Take just one moment – the oft’ resurrected ‘fireworks’ sequence in which the caustic sparks and bursting bombshells, pirouetting beyond the window of Francie’s hotel suite, are but a prelude to the inflamed desire playing out between Francie and John within this darkened room. Hitchcock and Burke frame Francie in a series of ever-tightening close-ups, gradually redirecting our gaze on her spectacular jeweled necklace. At one point, Burke even casts a shadow over Kelly’s peerless Patrician beauty, as if to say to the audience, “No, silly. Look over here.” Tempting John to take hold of her paste, and by extension to possess her completely, he instead offers her an astute observation that threatens this seduction. “These are fake.” Francie leans her back against the couch, “But I’m not” she confides. And, indeed, her desire to be taken and made love to is beyond question. Yet, from here, Robie is a hooked fish and destined to remain so despite his best intentions to finagle himself free from Francie and her disarmingly frank mother, Jessie (Jessie Royce-Landis) before the final reel. Aside: Royce-Landis would play Grant’s mother in 1959’s North by Northwest. Grant’s lean into Kelly and their subsequent embrace was the subject of some consternation for the censors who ordered Hitchcock to either cut or shorten the length of this sequence, lest audiences assume kisses enjoyed were but a prelude to great sex. Instead, to maintain his vision, Hitchcock rather cleverly chose to interpolate close-ups of the actual fireworks with the scene as already shot. And while the censors were satisfied, what Hitchcock actually managed to do was heighten, rather than diffuse the eroticism in this moment, punctuating its sensuality and even to suggest the orgasmic release in that frenzied display of exploding colors, ably assisted by a crescendo in Lynn Murray’s immaculate underscore.

To Catch A Thief is so obviously a movie framed in such set pieces some critics have demeaning referenced it as ‘travelogue film-making’. Rubbish!  Each vignette builds, in either the dramatic intensity of the central ‘who’s chasing who’ lover’s pursuit, or the more superficially laid out and executed thriller – the picture’s clever dialogue, intriguingly to provide the connective tissue between these seemingly bipolar interests. Take the scene at the flower market where Robie, having acquired the participation of anxious insurance investigator, H.H. Hughson (the sublime John Williams) is thereafter forced to flee detectives already suspecting him of the robberies. Hitchcock begin with Hughson’s obvious hesitation at allowing a former jewel thief access to his list of clienteles. Hughson informs Robie that he must serve two masters – his wife “Felicity, God bless her” and “the home office.” He must return “worthy of both of them.” Robie toys with Hughson in much the same way a cat might with its captured prey. But only a few moments into their conversation, Robie realizes he is the one being hunted. In his failed escape he incurs the wrath of an elderly flower seller after accidentally knocking over her tented display, the old crone struggling to hang onto Robie’s striped pullover, even as he cannot bring himself to strike her in order to make his getaway complete. The end of this sequence dovetails into a perfect reunion between Hughson and Robie at the latter’s fashionable mountainside villa; Hitchcock leaving out the details of the anticipated and subsequent police interrogation upon his apprehension, and, instead, cutting to the chase of his burgeoning camaraderie with the nervous insurance man.

Later on, under false pretenses, Francie offers to take John in search of some prime real estate that Robie, still professing to be an American ex-pate from Oregon, is supposedly interested in buying. Francie drives her silver sports car at breakneck speed, careening in and out of oncoming traffic, her blonde tresses and coral scarf violently trailing behind her, all the while tempting Robie to insist she put on the brakes – both figuratively and literally. To heighten the suspense of their playful exchange, Hitchcock has the couple tailed by two policemen, placing several obstacles in their oncoming path; a bus, an old woman with a laundry basket, and finally, the proverbial chicken crossing the road (get the joke?); the latter, causing the police to crash into a retention wall, thus affording Robie and Francie their momentary respite for a picnic lunch on a secluded perch, overlooking the Riviera. Asked by Francie to choose between “a leg and a breast” for his chicken luncheon, Robie playfully replies, “You decide.” When Francie prods him about his real identity, Robie responds, “I must remember to occasionally holler ‘timber!’” And yet, he has no intention of letting this obstinate thrill seeker cut him down to size. Upon inspecting one of the villas, presumably the cite where the penultimate heist will later occur, Francie again chides John for toying with the affections of Danielle Foussard (Brigitte Auber), the oversexed early-twenty-something daughter of a wine steward, suggesting he told the girl all his ‘trees’ were Sequoia – about as sexually overt and daring as Hayes’ screenplay gets to inferring the overconfidence celebrated by the male erection. However, these moments do more than titillate. They steadily advance the grand seduction that is at the heart of our heroine’s pursuit. As with all women in love, Francie divulges more than she gains, allowing female jealousy to play its part, even as Robie’s ego, while undeniably stroked, is strangely never stirred to a frenzy.  

To Catch a Thief’s penultimate set piece is undeniably its sublime and gargantuan masquerade ball where Hitchcock arbitrarily exposes the true identity of the real jewel thief. However, before the big reveal, comes the spectacle; an eye-popping finale featuring Edith Head’s extraordinary costumes and jewelry on loan from the house of Harry Winston; Head, outdoing herself on a flamboyant gold lame ball gown for Grace Kelly. And while Hitch’ and Head have undeniably conspired on producing one hell of a glamorous fashion show, as in the ye old days when MGM afforded its resident couturier, Adrian, the opportunity to stop the action with a blatant display of his new line of clothing, this moment in To Catch a Thief is about so much more than the clothes. In fact, the apparel here is all about mis-direction and deception, as Robie – costumed almost entirely from head to toe in black - deliberately reveals himself to Commissaire LePic (Rene Blancard) before exchanging places with Hughson, who carries on the charade until the wee hours past midnight, thus throwing everyone off his scent while he takes to the rooftops to set his trap for the real thief. If anything, the ‘travelogue’ aspects of the production elevate the unsettling mood; its regal hotels, pristine sandy beaches and nocturnal festivities, pitched in their devil-may-care gaiety as the perfect counterbalance against Hitchcock's 'wrong man' McGuffin.

To Catch a Thief begins with a round of perilous jewel robberies inside the posh hotel suites of some very ritzy guests. The police suspect the crimes are being committed by John Robie (Cary Grant) a onetime jewel thief who fought for the resistance during the war and was pardoned for his pre-war crimes. Robie lives obscurely in a fashionable villa with his loyal housekeeper, Germaine (Georgette Anys) - who once strangled a German general with her bare hands. But Robie's perfect world is about to implode. Danielle (Brigitte Auber), the daughter of wine steward, Foussard (Jean Martinelli) - one of Robie’s former accomplices during the war years - believes John has come out of retirement. She goads Robie with prospects of a life together in South America, but to no avail. John is not interested in surrendering his cushy lifestyle for romance. Or is he? We move on to glacially elegant girl-about-town, Francie Van Allen (Kelly) and her icy cool infatuation with Robie. Francie’s mother, Jessie (Jessie Royce Landis) is a flirtatious matchmaker with her eye on John. Eventually, Francie warms to the idea too. But the police take Robie in for questioning and even tail him as he and Francie tour lavish estates along the coast. However, when Foussard is accidentally murdered during yet another attempted robbery, the police conclude he was their man all along. But was he? Unfortunately, that is precisely the moment when John recognizes that his life is most of all in danger. Now, he begins to have second thoughts about Foussard’s daughter, Danielle. Inevitably, the truth is revealed. Robie stalks the rooftops and intercepts Danielle after her latest heist. Before everyone, Danielle is forced to confess her crimes, leaving Robie and Francie to be reunited in the end.

To Catch a Thief is Hitchcock's most slickly packaged entertainment for the masses, deceptively to never allow our eyes to be lulled into mere appreciation of its lavish escapism, perhaps because the screenplay (and of course the characters themselves) are constant reminders something is remiss in this fabulous realm of the ultra-sophisticated elite. Robert Burks' photography takes locations like the beach club at Cannes, fashionably mesmerizing in and of themselves - and puts everything slightly askew. As example: consider our first intro to John Robie’s villa, accompanied by a deathly silence, and then, the faint sound of screeching tires and the omnipotent blank stare of a black cat, whose claws have dug into the morning paper revealing a headline about the latest crime on the Riviera. This is not the set-up for a place to come in, visit and relax (as cozy and isolated as these visuals establish), but a prelude to a moment of pitched escape from a mountain top lair, beginning with a staged gunshot, and ending, rather humorously, with the police pursuing the wrong vehicle while on a bus, Robie finds himself seated next to none other than Hitchcock himself (appropriately droll for his cameo). Like the best of Hitchcock's thrillers, nothing is as it first appears. The master is at his most chic and edgy in this sex fantasy with a double-edged twist. If the focus is more on romance than suspense - and it is - this never negates our anticipated tension for thrills - and there are certainly plenty of those throughout To Catch a Thief.

Remember that when we are first introduced to the Beach Club at Cannes it is from a low angle shot between bare manly legs planted firmly in the sand, the man, Claude (Roland Lesaffre), yet another sinewy goon working for Bertani, and, looking down with modest contempt at Robie who has just emerged from a dip in the sea. Claude is one of those minor, but nevertheless menacing characters who remains ever-present in the background, returning to the forefront during Foussard’s funeral, then again, smoking a cigarette at the Sanford’s soiree, as one of the wait staff cautiously serving drinks to the well-heeled crowd. Nothing he does is directly foreboding, and yet, he gives every indication of being tied into this organized crime syndicate at its highest levels. Even the most innocuous moments in the picture remain marginally unsettling, as in Robie and Francie's luncheon date. This takes place on a precariously narrow cliff overlooking the panoramic Riviera? One slip of the brake and the meal may turn deadly. And, of course, Hitchcock has primed us for this possibility by preceding Robie and Francie's verbal sparring with a daring chase that leave the usually restrained Robie white-knuckled. Aside: the original ending of To Catch a Thief actually had Francie and Robie return to this picnic spot for an embrace in the front seat of Francie's car. The brake was to have slipped, allowing the car to slowly roll to the cliff’s edge. At the last possible moment, Robie tenderly reaches over and sets the hand brake with the back wheels of the car gingerly hanging over the cliff's edge and loosely spinning. Later on, when Robie is invited to Francie's room for the fireworks, the well-lit interior is plunged into relative darkness, with only moon glow and the bomb-bursting illumination from beyond to backlight the couple. Yet, if Francie truly believes John Robie is responsible for the most recent spate of jewel heists, might she not also fear for her life by exposing, then luring, a known criminal to her bed chamber? After all, what is Robie's freedom worth to him? Like the original marketing campaign for 1945’s Spellbound - that reads "Will he kiss or kill me?" Hitchcock is ever priming his audience here with unsettling subliminal messages, even as our eyes are mean to be beguiled by Kelly’s allure, and that of her priceless necklace.

Viewed today, To Catch A Thief remains one of the best made thrillers of all time - and not just by the master of suspense. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly have a genuine and undiluted romantic chemistry. The cloak and dagger are slickly packaged and the movie, while hardly a roller coaster ride in the traditional sense, nevertheless, remains an iconic escapist fantasy, pre-lit by the bright lights of Monte Carlo. Regrettably, behind the scenes, To Catch a Thief also proved a bittersweet occasion. Hitchcock worked with his favorite ‘cool’ blonde, Grace Kelly, knowing it would be for the last time; Kelly, trading in Hollywood’s high society for even higher society as Princess Grace of Monaco. Commencing in the south of France, Hitchcock was challenged by Paramount's insistence to shoot extensively on location – something Hitchcock abhorred. The studio also imposed VistaVision – their newly patented widescreen process on Hitchcock, a decision that immensely benefited its plush and precise pictorial value. To Hitchcock’s testament, the locations in France and photographic composite work, achieved back on sound stages at Paramount, is seamless – mostly, and, even under close scrutiny. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes contains plenty of razor smart repartee and engaging situations to divert our attentions away from the fact our story is not about the apprehensions faced by a reformed criminal, but the cleverness applied by a young woman eager to catch herself a thief for a husband. In the last analysis, To Catch A Thief remains a high watermark in Hitchcock’s peerless canon - one of his best and undeniably one of his most extravagant outings.

Paramount Home Video re-issues Hitchcock’s classy escapist romantic-fantasy-thriller in a new Blu-ray to inaugurate their new ‘Paramount Presents…’ film franchise – a fitting choice for inclusion, albeit, described as remastered in 4K, dumbed down to 1080p. Paramount has, indeed, gone back to the drawing board on this deep catalog release. Time and money have been spent. But spent correctly? Ah, now there is a very good question. This new incarnation of To Catch A Thief exhibits a radically different image from the previous Blu-ray, and yet, I am not altogether certain, a more ‘accurate one. For starters, it is widely known and discussed in many books devoted to Hitchcock’s movie-making that he employed a green filter for night scenes in the picture – purely for stylistic reasons. Hitchcock was criticized for its use at the time, and, in at least one interview given much later in life, Hitchcock himself somewhat regretted this decision.  Regret or not – this is the way, Hitchcock intended audiences to see his movie, and, in fact, the way it was presented theatrically and on Blu-ray the first go-around. On this newly authored Blu-ray, Paramount has re-tinted all of the night sequences in a deep azure blue. It should also be noted, the entire image here and throughout, favors the color blue – not a blue caste, as egregiously plied on a good many Fox Cinemascope catalog remastering efforts in which the entire palette becomes de-saturated as a result. Rather, on To Catch A Thief we get an overall ‘cooler’ palette while still preserving much, though not all of the richness in these VistaVision elements. More on this in a moment. But getting back to the green-tinted day-for-night shots. On the previous Blu-ray, these sequences were printed decidedly darker, providing less information and fine detail – a sort of murky sense of mystery. On this new 4K remaster, in addition to the removal of the green filter, these sequences have been printed ‘brighter’. This affords us the opportunity to see a lot more of the background detail - though perhaps, too much, as it now becomes quite apparent these scenes were shot day-for-night as opposed to night-for-night.

Moving on: I stated the image favors the color blue, so much that Grace Kelly’s sleek sports car is now a sort of robin egg hue. On the previous Blu-ray, it was decidedly silver. The back splash tiles in Bertani’s kitchen are now also blue instead of hospital green on the earlier Blu-ray.  Flesh tones have been radically altered. While the previous Blu-ray featured flesh that always appeared a tad too burnt orange – as in, everyone suffering from severe sun tan – especially Cary Grant, whose complexion looked downright ruddy, flesh on this new 4K remaster now adopts a more pinkish tone. Again, precisely which tint of flesh is more accurate to the original VistaVision theatrical presentation is anyone’s guess. The original Blu-ray exhibited an image that was ever so slightly more translucent in its adoption of film grain. The new Blu has a slightly homogenized – even, perhaps, digitally scrubbed appearance. Indeed, the visuals are silky smooth. In close-ups, the results are rather pleasing. But in long shot, they present an illusion of a much softer-looking image that belies VistaVision’s declaration of razor-sharp ‘motion picture high fidelity.’ Those expecting an eradication of the shimmering of fine detail in Cary Grant’s navy thin-stripped pullover will be disappointed. The same ‘shimmering’ anomaly exists here and, depending on one’s monitor, continues to shimmer uncontrollably. Contrast appears about the same on both the old and new 4K discs. As before, this disc contains two audio tracks; the first, in 5.1 DTS, and the second in 2.0 DTS. Although the 2.0 more closely resembles the original theatrical release, the 5.1 has added some welcomed spatial effects and spread to the score.

Now, for the unforgivable sin – extras! For a franchise Paramount is hoping to market under a ‘comprehensive’ banner, they have certainly dropped the ball on To Catch a Thief. While this disc adds barely a 7 min. featurette with noted historian, Leonard Maltin, who looks positively bored with it all, and provides barely the most scant details on the making of the piece, and, retains the original audio commentary by Drew Casper, along with a single, barely 7 min. featurette on Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, virtually all of the other noteworthy extras that made for a comprehensive ‘behind-the-scenes’ experience on the previous Blu-ray have been inexplicably excised here. So, gone is A Night With The Hitchcocks, 23 min. of Hitchcock’s daughter and granddaughter waxing affectionately about the man and the movie; ditto for Unacceptable Under the Code – a behind the scenes look at how Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes were forced to alter the screenplay, and also Writing and Casting, and, The Making of…’ that, cumulatively totaled more than an hour of detailed recollections, combining vintage interviews with then, newly recorded ones expressly derived for the previous Blu-ray release.  How Paramount could have so completely overlooked all of these extras is beyond me. And, given the aforementioned alterations made to the transfer, which may or may not be true to the director’s original intent, what we have here is slicker packaging with vintage art work, but decidedly not much else. I do not know what this means for the rest of the titles being lined up for the Paramount Presents… franchise. But with regards to To Catch a Thief, I’d say the series is off to a very rocky start! Regrets!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

1