To Catch A Thief (1955)

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock Starring: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly,  Brigitte Auber, Georgette Anys,  Charles Vanel, Jean Martinelli,  Jesse Royce Landis It was while watching Roman Holiday and wondering idly whether I would have preferred Cary Grant in the lead (For the record, no. I liked Gregory Peck quite well, though the role had the Grant imprint all over it.), that I realised I needed to review a Cary Grant film soon. I had been on a Cary Grant kick since November, what with The Bishop's Wife, Charade, and Notorious making an appearance on my blog; the others were awaiting their turn.  The question was which film do I review first? Then I realised I had never reviewed a single Grace Kelly movie, even though Dial M for Murder was one of my favourite Hitchcock films. To Catch a Thief had the cachet of being a Hitchcock film, so the choice was made for me. As the film opens, a series of well-executed robberies are taking place; the thief is quick, the work is clean, and all that is left behind are the screams of the many anguished women who wake up to find their jewellery gone. The modus operandi reminds the exasperated Commissaire de Police of a notorious cat burglar nicknamed, well, The Cat (Le Chat). The Cat is exasperated as well. Not quite for the same reasons, though. John Robie (Cary Grant), now retired, is living rather well, but quietly, on the French Riviera, tending his vineyards. Robie is not very pleased that there is a copycat criminal on the loose, and has no intention of letting the Sûreté arrest him before he finds out who it is. A clever ruse allows him to escape. Once he gives them the slip, Robie makes his way to his old comrades, who are none too happy to see him. Ex-convicts all of them, they were granted parole for their part in the French Resistance on condition that they steer clear of their old lives. Now, with the spotlight on The Cat, they - Bertani (Charles Vanel), Foussard (Jean Martinelli), all of them - are under suspicion.  If they break their parole they will all be back in jail. Robie is furious. If he broke his parole, they would throw away the key! Besides, how did  this thief imitate him so perfectly? It had to be someone who knew every detail of his technique. If the police caught him, Robie and the others would be off the hook, but they are busy chasing the wrong man. Someone had to begin chasing the right one! Bertani is not convinced, but for old times' sake, he decides to help Robie. A man had come into the restaurant some days ago, asking about crime and jewels. Perhaps he is the new Cat? As they ponder over this, the police arrive, and Bertani gets Robie out of his restaurant. Foussard's daughter Danielle (Brigitte Auber) will take him to Cannes.  Robie and Danielle had had a fling before, and she is mischievous enough to tease him about it. Not only that, she makes it quite evident that she not only believes he is committing these robberies, but, unlike the others, she is also not furious with him - she just wants him to take her to South America with him - she knows how to cook, she tells him, and to keep quiet, and to peddle stolen jewels. Once at Cannes, Robie is told by Bertani to go to the flower market at Nice - the man he talked about would meet him there. The man is HH Hugheson (John Williams), an insurance agent with Lloyd's of London. Lloyd's is tired of paying off claims; officially, they cannot be associated with a burglar. Unofficially, however... The men from the Sûreté are still on his heels and amidst the fracas at the flower market, Robie manages to escape from the police, only to be caught on the wrong foot. He's given ten days to come with evidence to prove his innocence. Even more reluctantly does Mr Hugheson give him the list of jewellery owners who are insured with Lloyd's. The first names on the list are an American woman, Jessie Stevens (Jessi Royce Landis) and her beautiful daughter, Francie (Grace Kelly). Robie sets his plan in motion - they are to be the bait who will bring the copycat to the trap. He strikes up an acquaintance with the mother and daughter without seeming to be doing so. In fact, the mother - 'Call me Jessie' - is more than interested in furthering his acquaintance - with her daughter! The evening ends rather unexpectedly for Robie. Happily, but unexpectedly. And it ends unexpectedly for Hugheson. Unexpectedly, and sadly. One of his clients has just lost jewellery worth $35000 dollars. Hughes has come to entreat Jessie to place her jewels in the safe, but she is not very cooperative. What will I wear when I want to go out, she asks. The safe? Francie, on the other hand, seems to be pursuing Robie with a vengeance, much to Danielle's dismay.  She is in Cannes too, and she warns Robie that his old friends from the Resistance are willing to kill him if it would mean they wouldn't go back to prison. Robie is less than thrilled - the police want him in jail, his old pals want him dead, and The Cat (the imposter) wants him out of town. Francie is not as demure as she seems either, and Robie soon finds out that he'd much rather be chased by the police than be caught in the middle of a catfight between the two women.    Francie is definitely more than she seems to be. She chases Robie unapologetically, can be a speed fiend (enough to make Robie's fingers curl on his knees while she drives), is not beyond dangling her jewels (and herself) in front of him, and, much to Robie's discomfiture,  makes it very clear that she knows exactly who he is. She offers to be his accomplice, is not ashamed of her attraction to him, and even blackmails him into having dinner with her in her suite. Her smug complacency is shattered the next morning when Jessie's jewels are discovered stolen. Angered by the feeling that she had been taken advantage of, she calls the police, only to find that her mother doesn't share her certainty. In fact, so sure is Jessie that Robie is not the thief that, much to her daughter's chagrin, she helps him escape. In fact, Francie is just angry, says her mother, because Robie "didn't roll over and play dead" when he met her!   But it means that Robie is on the run again. And the police are mad. Mad enough to round up every single one of the old gang and put them into prison. Meanwhile, Robie's put his nose out of water to enlist Hugheson's help. Robie had been watching one of the villas on Hugheson's list and has spotted a prowler three nights in succession. He's also had a note warning him off, and is sure the villa is going to be the next target. He wants Hugheson's help in getting the police there at the right time. Hugheson is sure it is a trap, and he is proved right when Robie is attacked. In the wild melee that follows, the attacker falls over the wall onto the rocks and dies. The Commissaire is overjoyed - here lies the new Cat! It is the burglar, and he is dead.  The news is announced, and Jessie is quite pleased to inform Francie that she now needs to practice her apologies - in two languages. Meanwhile, Robie is not convinced at all. In front of Hugheson, he offers the Commissaire proof that Foussard could not be the new Cat. Foussard had a wooden leg; he couldn't climb roofs! Robie is now sure he knows who the burglar actually is, but he needs proof. He decides to go to Foussard's funeral where Danielle, overwrought by her father's death accuses him of being his murderer. When Francie apologises to him outside the cemetery, Robie convinces her to let him escort her to the masquerade ball at the villa where he is sure the cat burglar will attack next. Soon, they are all assembled there. Francie and Jessie and Robie (completely unrecognisable in his costume); the police who are hovering around, also in costume and wigs, forgetting that since they do not have ladies hanging on to their arms, they are totally recognisable; Bertani, who is catering the ball, along with Danielle and all of Robie's old pals...  Is Robie's guess right? All this while, Robie has been on the run, the police one step behind, and the cat burglar one step ahead. He has been very clever, this copycat, and thus far, luck has been on his side. Will he ever be caught? Will Robie ever clear his name? Or has this all been an elaborate charade?  Based on a novel of the same name by David Dodge, To Catch a Thief  was Alfred Hitchcock serving up a light-as-a-cloud romantic comedy with an undercurrent of eroticism and very little mystery. That he succeeded so well was because of the scintillating chemistry between his two goodlooking lead actors. There is much to like about the film. Monte Carlo had never been shot so lovingly before. Place Grace Kelly on the French Riviera and you have two impossibly beautiful things to look at simultaneously! It was like taking a tour of Monte Carlo with Grace Kelly as your guide.  Cary Grant was Cary Grant, suave and sophisticated, handsome and charming, dashing and witty; add a soupçon of sexual innuendo to the banter between his and Grace Kelly's characters, and their romance smouldered. (Yet, when Francie tells him that she is in love with him, his retort is "That's a ridiculous thing to say!" Grace looks very young and uncertain in this scene - and as always, beautiful. ) Grant was 50 when he did this role (John Robie is 35 in the book), having come out of retirement only a couple of years previously. Grace was 26. Scriptwriter John Michael Hayes handed Jessie Royce Landis the droll lines, and you knew there was only one thing to do - sit back and enjoy the film! If you are in the mood for a light, romantic comedy that is fuelled by starpower, I guarantee you will enjoy this film.   Trivia:   This was Grace Kelly's last film with Hitchcock. Immediately after this, she finished shooting for High Society in 1956, and took up her last and final role as the Princess Grace of Monaco. Hitchcock wanted her for Marnie but the people of Monaco resented their princess going back to her past life.    The sequence where Francie leaves the police behind while she speeds away, was shot on the winding roads of Monte Carlo - years later, Princess Grace would die in a car crash on these very same roads.   Alfred Hitchcock did his usual cameo in the film, sitting pretty beside his leading man.  In a scene early in the film, Robie, an American expatriate, tells Hugheson that he had been in a trapeze group that travelled around Europe. Before Archibald Leach became Cary Grant, he had been part of an acrobatic group that travelled around Europe. Only, Leach was English.