Main Cast: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers
Release Year: 1955
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
The trouble with Harry is that he's dead. The scene is a autumnal Vermont village, where a pre-Leave It to BeaverJerry Mathers stumbles upon Harry's corpse in the woods. Mathers alerts his mother Shirley MacLaine (making her film debut), who recognizes Harry as her ex-husband. Later on, retired sea captain Edmund Gwenn likewise comes across the moribund Harry. Both MacLaine and Gwenn have reason to believe that they're responsible for Harry's demise; MacLaine thinks that she killed Harry by clobbering him with a bottle, while Gwenn is certain that he shot the poor fellow while hunting. As the day draws to a close, seemingly every person in town is convinced that he or she has had some hand in Harry's death, thus they conspire to hide the body from the authorities. Visiting artist John Forsythe, dumbfounded at the calm, collected reactions of the villagers regarding Harry (whose ubiquitous body pops up at the most inopportune moments), solves the "mystery." Though not his most successful film, The Trouble with Harry was one of director Alfred Hitchcock's favorites. The story's whimsical black-comedy elements are perfectly complemented by Bernard Herrmann's playful music score. Best bit: Mildred Natwick, coming upon Gwenn as the latter is strenuously dragging away Harry's corpse, asking offhandedly "What seems to be the trouble, Captain?" The Trouble With Harry was adapted by John Michael Hayes from the novel by John Trevor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Alfred Hitchcock rarely allowed his dry and barbed sense of humor to rise to the surface as fully as in The Trouble With Harry, one of his only real comedies, and a film that he often cited as a personal favorite. Like a Charles Addams or Gahan Wilson cartoon come to life, The Trouble With Harry finds its characters amusingly unconcerned with the fact that Harry is dead, and his remains -- repeatedly dug up, dragged about, and reburied -- are shown a casual disrespect that is both funny and jarring. Hitchcock had a fondness for eccentric comic-relief characters, and here he gave them a film to themselves; Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Dunnock, and Mildred Natwick are all in fine form. While it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to accept John Forsythe as a bohemian artist, Shirley MacLaine was an inspired choice, in her first screen role, as his love interest, displaying a sharp, pixie-ish charm that was a welcome alternative to the high-gloss glamour gals of the period (and Hitchcock's usual ice-queen heroines). The Trouble With Harry is not one of Hitchcock's best films, but the Master was clearly enjoying himself, and anyone who appreciated the eccentricity of Thelma Ritter in Rear Window or Leo G. Carroll in North by Northwest will have a lot of fun with this movie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Royal Dano - Calvin Wiggs; Parker Fennelly - Millionaire; Barry Macollum - Tramp; Dwight Marfield - Dr. Greenbow; Ernest Curt Bach - Chauffeur; Philip Truex - Harry Worp; Leslie Woolf - Art Critic
Credit
John B. Goodman - Art Director, Hal Pereira - Art Director, Herbert Coleman - Associate Producer, Edith Head - Costume Designer, Howard Joslin - First Assistant Director, Alfred Hitchcock - Director, Alma Macrorie - Editor, Bernard Herrmann - Composer (Music Score), Mack David - Songwriter, Raymond Scott - Songwriter, Wally Westmore - Makeup, Emile Kuri - Production Designer, Robert Burks - Cinematographer, Alfred Hitchcock - Producer, Sam Comer - Set Designer, Emile Kuri - Set Designer, John P. Fulton - Special Effects, Harold Lewis - Sound/Sound Designer, Winston H. Leverett - Sound/Sound Designer, John Michael Hayes - Screenwriter, Jack Trevor Story - Book Author
The quirky but down-to-earth residents of a small village in Vermont in the fall are faced with the freshly dead body of a man, which has inconveniently appeared on the hillside above the town. The problem of what to do with the body, and more importantly how and why he was killed, is the eponymous "Trouble with Harry".
Three of the main characters in the film imagine that they are the one who actually killed him. Captain Albert Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) is sure that he must have killed the man with a stray shot from his rifle when rabbit hunting. Miss Ivy Gravely (Mildred Natwick) feels that the man died after a blow from her hiking boot, and so on. Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), an attractive and free-spirited artist, is quite open-minded about the whole event, and is prepared to help his good-natured friends and neighbors in any way he can.
It turns out that the dead man is in fact Harry, the estranged husband of a feisty young woman called Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine), who lives in the village along with her small son Arnie (Jerry Mathers). Jennifer Rogers thinks that her husband may possibly have died after she hit him with a bottle. In any case, no-one is actually upset about what has happened.
However, none of the principal characters want this death to come to the attention of the "authorities" in the form of cold, humorless, Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano). The main characters conceal the body by burying it, and then have to dig it up again. This happens several times. The body is also concealed at one point by hiding it in a bathtub.
In the end we discover that Harry actually died of natural causes, and no foul play was involved. In the meantime, Sam and Jennifer have fallen in love, as have the Captain and Miss Gravely. Sam has been able to sell his paintings to a passing millionaire. The artist refuses to accept money, and instead requests a few simple gifts for his friends and himself.
Production
The title shot in the film trailer shows the discovery of Harry by Arnie (Jerry Mathers).
Although one of Hitchcock's few true comedies (though most of his films had some element of tongue-in-cheek or macabre humor), the film was a box office disappointment.
The film also contained what was, at the time, frank dialogue. This is seen when John Forsythe's character unabashedly tells Shirley MacLaine's character that he would like to paint a nude portrait of her. Comparatively tame by today's standards, the statement by Forsythe's character was quite racy for its time.
The film was unavailable for nearly thirty years after its initial release, after Hitchcock bought back the rights to the film. It was finally reissued in 1984, and has since been issued on VHS and DVD.
The Trouble with Harry is also notable as a landmark in Hitchcock's canon as it marked the beginning of several highly regarded collaborations with composer Bernard Herrmann, who went on to score some of Hitchcock's best known films including Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. A song sung by John Forsythe's character, "Flaggin' the Train to Tuscaloosa" was written by Raymond Scott.
Several scenes in the film had to be shot in a rented high school gym because of rain. In the gym, a 500 lb Technicolor camera fell from a great height and barely missed hitting Hitchcock.
While this movie was a financial failure in the U.S., it played for a year in England and Rome, and a year and a half in France.
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In The Trouble with Harry he can be seen (25 minutes into the film) as he walks past a parked limousine while an old man looks at paintings for sale at the roadside stand.
Other media references
A 'cash-in' single titled "The Trouble with Harry" by 'Alfi & Harry' was released in March 1956. It charted in the UK at its peak position of number 15. The title aside, the record had no connection with the film.
