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The Man Who Knew Too Much - Not the '56 color version with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. This is the original B&W from 1934 with Leslie Banks and Edna Best as the vacationing couple entangled in a far reaching global assassination plot. I watched the remake a few years back so it's been awhile but I think I actually prefer this one for it's no-frills narrative and brisk pacing. It also has what might be Hitchcock's best villain in Peter Lorre's fey and diminutive Abbott. With his doleful yet bemused countenance, his scarred face and a white streak in his hair Lorre certainly looks the part but he also imbues the character with a quiet menace.
WARNING: spoilers below
Bob and Jill Lawrence are on vacation in the Swiss Alps and a French acquaintance of theirs, Louis Bernard, is competing in a ski jump contest while Jill is a participant in a skeet shooting match. She loses to marksman Ramon, who figures heavily into the story later on. That night while on the dance floor with Jill, Louis is shot and killed by an unknown assailant. Before he dies, he tells her to look in his room for some vital information that she is to pass on to the British consul. When the bad guys get wind that the Lawrence's are indeed in possession of the info they kidnap their daughter Betty and instruct them not to contact the authorities. The rest of the story unwinds expeditiously with Bob and family friend Clive attempting to locate and rescue Betty. This eventually leads them to a nefarious dentist, a secretive sunworshipping cult, hypnosis, a pretty nifty chair throwing melee and an ultimate shootout between the gang of anarchists and tons of policemen.
All in all this was a very entertaining 70 or so minutes of intrigue and dry British wit. I'd have to rewatch the '56 version to honestly tell which was superior but as it stands this one was loads of fun and Lorre makes for a perfectly hissable villain.
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