(Man) There are moments in life when we all need a little help.
(Woman) Mr Bernard is a very mysterious man.
| know this is mysterious Morocco, but we're not gonna lose our head.
- (Woman) We're being watched. — Oh, come on.
(Whistle Blows)
Hey, look there.
A statesman is to be killed, assassinated in London soon.
(Man) If you tell even one word, your little boy will be in serious danger.
{Man 2) Those people kidnapped your boy in order to keep your mouth shut.
(Sobbing) | want my boy!
{Man) | don’t care who you fellas are gonna kill. All | want's that boy.
- (Woman) Why didn’t you tell me? - Where is he?
- Now sit down. - How dare you!
Ben, what can we do by ourselves?
You have a very nice little boy, madam.
Where is he?
Hank McKenna!
Where's our son? Where have you got him?
(Screams)
Daddy!
It's a scene from our new picture, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
As you know, Alfred Hitchcock has an uncanny knack
for coming up with the unusual in entertainment.
Well, The Man Who Knew Too Much can certainly be put in that category.
{O'Connell} In the early ‘30s, my father developed, with Charles Bennett,
a project based around the Bulldog Drummond stories.
Bulldog Drummond was a kind of amateur James Bond.
And one of the story lines they were working on
involved the kidnapping of a baby
and international spying.
When that project fell through,
they kept the frame of the story
and reshaped it into The Man Who Knew Too Much.
My father directed the first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much
in England in 1934.
The film was a huge success
and really built my father's reputation in England and in America as well.
The title was taken from a collection of short stories
entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much,
by English novelist, G K Chesterton.
My father owned some of the stories
and simply decided to use the title for the film.
{Murmuring) (Whispering) Don't breathe a word... to anyone.
There were a lot of amazing visual sequences in the film.
(Man) It smashed the window.
(0'Connell) A lot of humour, despite the grim subject matter.
Poor old boy.
- Five shillings. - Five shillings.
Give him five shillings for me, will you, please?
{0'Connell) And a great, climactic scene during a concert at the Albert Hall.
(Choir)
(Screams)
Sounds like it went off all right.
| hope so, for all our sakes.
(O'Connell) The film was released in December, 1934,
and was very well received.
My father discussed doing a remake of it in the United States in 1941,
but he set the project aside until 1956.
Although 1 think my father was proud of his original version
of The Man Who Knew Too Much,
he once told French filmmaker, Francois Truffaut,
that the first film was done by an amateur
and the remake by a professional.
As far as the second The Man Who Knew Too Much,
he didn't want to remake it at all
He didn't want to remake any of his films, but he owed one to Paramount,
and they felt that that was the one that could adapt
to present day better than any of the others.
Hitch said to me one day, he said,
"Do you think we oughta remake The Man Who Knew Too Much?’
| said, "The Man Who Knew Too Much’? | never heard of that title before.
He said, "Didn't you see any of my pictures before we worked together?”
1 said, "Well, I certainly never saw that one.”
He said, "Will you get a print and look at it
and see whether we should remake that picture or not?”
So, I was able to get a print and looked at it.
Darling... where are you?
(Girl} Mommy...
Darling?
Betty!
(Sobbing) Steady, old girl, steady.
(Coleman) So, after | saw this, 1 went back to the set
and Hitch said, "Well, what do you think?"
| said, "Well, Hitch, all | can say is you and films have progressed together.”
I never would have said that to him if I'd known how much it'd hurt him
but it really hurt him.
And forever after that, | was sorry for saying it.
And he said, "Well, what about the gun coming around the curtain to fire?”
I said, "I love the touches in there, but I'm talking about the whole story.”
Hitch was, of course, forming in his mind a new story completely.
And, of course, that's what we finally ended up making
was a completely new story about The Man Who Knew Too Much.
In the case of The Man Who Knew Too Much,
uh, Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't let me see...
the early picture or read the script.
He wanted me to stay away from it.
What he did was sit me down and tell me a story.
And | took notes from it and went home and did an outline based on that.
I had no knowledge at that time of the early picture.
If | did, | saw it when | was 12 years old or something and didn't recall it.
Betty. You know your child is going to cost me the match, don't you?
Well, she's your child as well as mine, isn't she?
Well, if | lose this game, I'l disown her forever.
(Hayes) I created those characters partly out of what Hitch told me,
and partly out of what | envisioned they should be like.
Daddy, you sure I've never been to Africa before?
It looks familiar.
We saw the same scenery last summer driving to Las Vegas.
(Hayes) Hitch thought intensely about each scene.
He'd start to dissect it and tell me how he would use the camera.
On the way to the studio, he'd pick one scene
and think about it all the way, on how many ways he could do it.
And going home, he may have picked the same scene or another one.
And so used his time valuably.
Well, this eases the pain.
- What pain, Mommy? - Just an expression,
Can you take care of the driver?
My name's McKenna, Dr McKenna.
I'll take care of everything, sir.
(Hayes) Hitch would insert his own little Hitchcockian touches.
There's no question of it. And it's, of course, what made the films good.
They had solid people.
They had good dialogue.
And mechanically, he had such an expertise for suspense.
He inserted it where you least suspected it was going to be.
(Speaking French}
(Coleman) While Hitch started working on his screenplay,
Doc Erickson, our production manager, and | flew to Marrakech
and met with the officials there.
You couldn't make a film there
until they had read and approved the screenplay
as is the case in most countries.
And | told this story to the superintendent...
that was in charge of people coming there to make films.
Then he told me about Ramadan.
He said, "You know, Ramadan starts about the third of June,
and you will not be able to film here during Ramadan,
because the people, they go without food or water
from sunrise to sunset.
‘It's very difficult for you, so you must plan to be here early enough
to finish filming before Ramadan starts.”
We went out and looked for locations
that we thought would be fine for the picture.
- Isn't this exciting? - Just like the county fairs.
They got everything but the balloon ascension.
And then Hitch had to concentrate on the casting.
What's so funny about that?
Hitch and Jimmy Stewart had already agreed
to make The Man Who Knew Too Much
so that part of the casting was settled before we worked on the screenplay.
Daddy, come with us. We're going to see the medicine man.
- Maybe you'll learn something, Daddy. - | wouldn't be a bit surprised.
{0'Connell) With Jimmy Stewart, they were very, very good friends.
And the reason that he loved using him so much is that...
he typifies the ordinary man.
So that a man goes to the movies with his wife,
he can sort of imagine him doing the things up on the screen ,
because Jimmy Stewart, you know, reminded bim of himself.
Just a minute. Just a minute.
| want you to take these. They'll relax you.
Relax me? I'm so relaxed, I'm tired.
(Coleman) Then Hitch started talking about casting his wife,
and he had made up his mind he wanted Doris Day.
And | didn't want Doris Day cos | only knew her as a singer.
She's a beautiful singer and a beautiful voice,
but | knew her as a singer with those famous bands.
And | was afraid she couldn't do the dramatic scenes in Marrakech ,
where she finds that her son has been kidnapped.
And so | fought Hitch constantly against her, but he finally won out
and cast her, and she turned out to be absolutely perfect for that scene.
They've taken him away.
But Mrs Drayton brought him back to the hotel.
Mrs Drayton never got back to the hotel. Neither did Hank.
- But Mr Drayton - - Listen, Jo.
Mr Drayton checked out of the hotel 40 minutes ago.
Now come on, Jo. Now sit down.
How dare you! You gave me sedatives!
Sit down. (Sobbing)
- Jo, please. - Why didn't you tell me?
- | wasn't sure until now. - You did! You did!
{0'Connell) The sequence where Doris Day is given the drug
before Jimmy Stewart tells her that their son has been kidnapped...
Doris Day was excellent in that. She was wonderful in that.
And that's when he realised what a good actress she was.
- (Mumbling) - Jo, please. Jo.
Where is he, Ben?
(Hayes) I felt the relationship between the husband and wife
was a reasonably sound relationship.
They loved each other. They had their spats now and then.
She made the decision to marry a doctor in a small town...
instead of staying on the stage.
So she had... He didn't force her to.
She may have regrets about it, but she was solely responsible.
Honey?
Now we don't have much time. You'll have to get up and start getting ready.
Please, Jo.
(Man) | was at Paramount, and 1 was kind of under contract there,
and | was doing a picture called Vagabond King.
And Bob Burks was the cameraman.
And, of course, Bob had worked with Hitchcock.
And apparently, Hitch asked Bob, he says,
"You know of any young art directors you think I'd get along with?”
And he says, "Yeah, I'm working with one right now.”
In my wildest dreams, | never thought I'd ever work with Alfred Hitchcock.
| had a meeting with him, and we got along fine.
And so he chose me to do The Man Who Knew Too Much.
It was, it was quite an experience, and, gee, it was hot.
You just couldn't stand on the tarmac, you had to get in the shade.
Towards the end of the picture,
Hitch was directing from the front seat of an old Chevrolet.
The driver would honk the horn, and then the assistant would come over
and Hitch would tell him what they wanted him to do. I'll never forget.
In those days, we all - especially with Hitch -
we aff wore suits and ties.
You know, nowadays, you got to look like you're shot out of a cannon.
They'd think you were off to a funeral if you wore a jacket and a tie.
But Marrakech was the first time I've ever seen Hitch in a T-shirt
But it was buttoned right up . But it was short-sleeved.
And he was cute, | remember.
And the flies buzzing around. He was... (Blows)
He could do it better than me, but he was blowing the flies off of him.
(Coleman) When Hitch came to Marrakech,
he said, "Ask Doc to send down some Dover sole from London.”
And | said, "Hitch, you won't have to have it sent down from London.”
| said, "We're gonna take you to dinner tonight,
and they have the best Dover sole in the world.”
He said, I don't believe it.” So, we went to this restaurant.
We walked in and, of course, everybody was sitting on the floor.
(Chuckles) He says, "You mean | gotta sit on the floor?”
I said, "No, they have another room for people that want tables.”
That scene was always in, but Hitch decided to do it that way
when he saw the way people sat on the floor.
{O'Connell} | think my father always wanted to have humour in his pictures.
And in The Man Who Knew Too Much,
obviously the greatest humour is the eating in the restaurant.
(All Laughing}
And | think he and Jimmy just worked that out.
Boy, could | use this hand now. | can't...
It's all right. Nobody minds. No one minds.
(Stewart) I play the part of an American doctor.
Doris Day's my wife.
And the story's about our trip abroad
that started out as a holiday and ended up as a nightmare.
{Whistle Blowing)
Hey, hey, look there.
You'd better stand back. Go on. Stand back.
(O'Connell) When Louis Bernard is murdered,
my father wanted the paint on his face to come off
on Jimmy Stewart's hands.
They made many tests, but the make-up would not come off.
So, finally, Daniel Gelin, who portrayed the victim,
came up with a great idea.
He said, "Jimmy Stewart should have white powder on his hands,
And that's how they did it, and it looks very convincing.
(Coleman) As Ramadan came closer and closer,
and the people began to realise it, we rushed all of Hitchcock's work
to have it done before Ramadan.
And as soon as he finished, then he flew out for London
to get ready to work in the Royal Albert Hall,
And | started my work there, and | had about ten days work there,
but after the fifth day, we were now in the third day of Ramadan,
and the people were getting very unruly.
On the fourth morning when | arrived, there were armed, uniformed soldiers
on the roofs of all the buildings...
to be able to control the crowd.
And we started working, but before noon,
the superintendent said to me, "Mr Coleman, will you please stop now,
because I'm not going to be able to control the people.”
We had to stop. | had, oh, | guess two or three days work left,
but we had what we needed.
And that was just the beginning.
From there, we flew to London,
for backgrounds of a whole strange series of events
that ended up that final night in the great concert hall,
where the cue for murder...
was one single crash of the cymbals.
(Coleman) Before | arrived in London, I sent Kay Selby,
who was the head of the Paramount office in London,
the scenes about the taxidermist shop.
And when we arrived, she said, "I have it all set for you,
to go and see the taxidermist shop.”
So, we got in our car and drove to a place.
We got out of the car, and | looked at this beautiful, great, big glass window,
a beautiful polished wooden floor, with white bear rugs on the floor,
and heads and things all on the walls.
A beautiful place. Not what we wanted at all.
And Kay Selby went into the office and brought out a man in a tail coat,
and with morning clothes, you know,
and introduced me to him and he says,
"Why can't you Americans do things in a proper English manner?”
You know, and | looked at him and said, "What do you mean?”
He said, "Why couldn't you have communicated with me directly?”
| said, "Kay, | don't have to listen to this kind of story. Let's go.”
So, we turned and walked out. | said, "Kay, didn't you understand
that this had to be in a working shop?”
So she said, "I have one place for you to see.”
“It's, it's in the low-rent district.”
And we went out, and it was just ideal.
And the owner of this place, he said, "It's fine.”
He says, | won't accept a penny from you. I'd like you to use my shop.”
Good afternoon, sir.
| am Ambrose Chappell. What can | do for you?
(O'Connell) My father loved to put
a few little red herrings in his pictures.
Such as using the name "Ambrose Chappell,”
and them thinking it was a taxidermist,
and then finding out it's a place.
William! Edgar! Davis! Help!
(McKenna) I made a mistake.
{O'Connell} My father felt that he had to have a break in the suspense...
Because you can only take suspense for a certain amount of time.
It can't stay with you for an hour and a half, or a two hour movie.
You have to relieve it.
And one obvious example was Ambrose Chappell.
And then, you know, then they go on this wild-goose chase.
- Jo? - Ben, what happened?
- No, it was a wild-goose chase. - It must be the chapel. | found it.
It's just a short way from here.
(Bumstead) Hitch was a master at going on location
and getting all the long shots and everything.
And, in other words, he gets the meat on location,
and then you do everything else back in the comfort of the stages.
There it is.
Whenever he shot the exterior of a building
that | had to do the interior of,
| always went inside and took some photos and looked at the building,
cos many times Hitch would ask me,
‘Bummy, does this set look anything like the interior of the building
we filmed the exterior of, you know?"
And apparently, he'd looked at it, you know, and I'd say "Yes".
So, you know, | mean, | was very careful that way.
(Congregation Singing)
{Bumstead) One thing about Hitch, when you did a set for him,
he shot the whole set, you know what | mean?
Some directors, you do a nice set, and they get themselves in the corner
and all you ever see is the corner.
Well, this is a pleasant surprise, Doctor.
Where's my boy, Drayton?
He's upstairs. As a matter of fact,
you've come just in time to help my wife with his food.
It seems Hank doesn't care very much for our English cooking.
What do you want? I'll give you money.
I'll keep my mouth shut. All | want is my boy.
And what about your wife? Did she go out just to get a breath of fresh air?
(Bumstead) | learned how Hitch laid out shots, how he cut films.
You know, Hitch shot very little film,
and there's really only one way you could put it together.
| mean, from what | noticed, you know,
he knew what he wanted to do so well.
As far as we can make out, there's no sign of life.
- Report back here. - Very good, sir.
Walden, you standby till the car arrives from The Yard.
- You're not leaving. - Orders. Can we give you a lift?
- Take me to Albert Hall. - I'm afraid it's a bit off our beat.
- We could drop you at a taxi rank. - Alright.
My father, of course, knew the Albert Hall so well,
because he was a great lover of music when he was,
you know, a young boy in England.
And he loved to use famous places in his movies.
He loved to travel early on. He and my mother loved travelling.
And we would go to Switzerland almost every Christmas.
So, he would find a place,
and then he would see how he could incorporate it into the story.
{Bumstead) We started shooting in Albert Hall and we shot in the lobby.
And the long shots in the hall.
- Your tickets, madam? - I'm sorry. I'm looking for someone.
And then |... We did the boxes,
and a lot of that stuff | reproduced back at the studio.
Hitch liked to go up to a certain point, then I'd have to duplicate it back here.
(Applause)
{Man) More than any of the other Herrmann-Hitchcock collaborations,
music is almost a character in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
It's very important. It's right there in the opening titles,
letting us know that music is going to be key to this story.
And, naturally, that was a wonderful opportunity for Bernard Herrmann,
because he loved projects when music was featured very prominently,
and it's a sign of just how much Hitchcock trusted Hermann...
after just one previous collaboration.
The filming went very well, and the orchestra was very impressed
with Bernard Herrmann's knowledge, his musicality,
his ability to work in both the film and concert media.
After filming, the London Symphony gave him a book, which they inscribed,
"To Bernard Herrmann, the man who knows so much.”
1 think it's no accident that there is so little dramatic scoring
in The Man Who Knew Too Much, because Herrmann knew...
how important music was going to be at the climax,
so he doesn’t over score the rest of the film.
In a way, he makes us wait for the big musical statement.
But there are a few wonderful cues before that sequence at the Albert Hall,
There's a very exciting main title,
which utilises percussion very effectively and dramatically.
And there are some very imaginative Herrmann cues throughout the score.
For example, when they get the telephone call about the kidnapping,
there's a wonderful cue that sort of looks ahead
to some of the Herrmann music for films like, say, Vertigo.
{Phone Clicking)
Or when Jimmy Stewart is going to the taxidermist,
there's a wonderful kind of music that Herrmann could write to suggest
the anxiety that people were feeling in this situation,
as well as to make that anxiety be felt in the audience as well.
But, by and large, Herrmann makes us wait
until we reach the Albert Hall and finally music becomes part of the story.
The original work was "The Storm Clouds Cantata,”
written by an Australian-born composer named Arthur Benjamin.
Hitchcock gave Herrmann the chance to write a new concert work
for the climax of the film, set at the Albert Hall,
and it was a wonderful showpiece for a composer.
Most composers would have jumped at the chance to write something new.
But Bernard Herrmann so admired the music
that had been written by Arthur Benjamin
for the earlier 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much,
that he chose to keep that music.
He said that he didn’t think anyone could write anything better
than what Benjamin had done.
Herrmann did reorchestrate the music to some degree.
He made it bigger. He took advantage of the fact
that he had the London Symphony at his disposal.
And | think it is even more effective in the remake than in the first film.
(Hayes) In the end of that picture, Jimmy Stewart made a comment
that they threw out all of the dialogue in the Albert Hall scene.
Well, it's not true that they threw it out.
We had written a scene and written it with dialogue
to see if we could do it silent or we needed the dialogue.
And discovered we didn't need it.
We had it in case we needed it.
(Smith) In the original film of The Man Who Knew Too Much,
we don't really see the conductor.
He isn't a character, if you will.
And when Hitchcock reimagined the sequence for the remake,
he wanted to make the conductor more featured in the sequence.
Well, then, the question was, "Who do we hire to be the conductor?”
His choice was finally made,
and I'm guessing it was Hitchcock's decision to use Bernard Herrmann,
the man who was writing the score for the movie.
So, it becomes almost an in-joke,
that we have the composer of the dramatic score,
who is appearing as himself conducting the London Symphony,
and he's featured rather prominently in the sequence.
The idea to have the cymbals play such an interesting role in the story,
was inspired by a comic strip that showed a little man
known as "the one-note man” in his daily routine -
getting up in the morning, going to work,
doing a single note with the cymbals and going back home.
(Screams)
(Screaming)
(Smith) Hitchcock needed a song for the film,
since, after all, Doris Day was in the movie,
and Paramount wanted a song more than Hitchcock did.
So, the team of Jay Livingstone and Ray Evans was brought in.
And Hitchcock met with them and told them very frankly
that Paramount wanted a song more than he did in the movie,
and he said, "I don't know what kind of song | want in the movie,
so go write me a song.”
They came back with the song Que Sera, Sera.
They played it for Hitchcock. He listened in somewhat stern silence,
and at the end, he said to them,
"Gentleman, | told you I did not know what kind of song | wanted.”
"Well, that's the kind of song | want.”
He walked out. That was it. The song was in the movie,
and it proved to be a tremendous commercial success,
as well as | think a very dramatically effective one.
In fact, it won the Academy Award for the best song of 1956.
# Que sera, sera
# Whatever will be will be
(Hayes) We consciously thought about Doris Day,
uh, in relationship with her husband,
as far as leaving the professional circuit that she did.
And she missed something in her life.
And as the events took place, she got it back,
at least for a short time.
# The future's not ours to see
# Que sera, sera
# What will be, will be #
We accomplished everything we set out to do
in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
I don't think we gave up anything at all.
(O'Connell) I loved the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much.
| didn't remember the first one, because | was too young,
so | loved the second one.
That's one of my favourite movies.
Movies meant a tremendous amount to my father and my mother,
cos that was their life.
We keep going to see his movies because they are pure entertainment.
(Bumstead) He was a master filmmaker.
On every film | worked with Hitch, he knew every shot -
every shot really was in his mind.
I remember Hitch is sitting there, you know,
and they're lighting,
and | said, "Hitch, what are you thinking about?”
And he says, "I am thinking about my next film.”