Over the decades of countless tense moments that he gave his audience and took away their breath, Alfred Hitchcock also brought some light moments to the big screen. The Trouble with Harry (1955) is one of Hitchcock’s unusual comedic works that came out at the peak of his career in directing the most popular crime thrillers.
Being a Hitchcock movie, The Trouble with Harry isn’t free of the murder mystery kernel but the dark-colored fruit around it has a lightening-up effect on the viewer who never gets to see the titular Harry, far as seeing the face counts. Instead, we meet a small group of townsfolk who know each other and three of them believe they accidentally killed Harry while the struggling artist in the town Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) falls for Harry’s widow Jennifer (Shirley MacLaine).
In most black comedies with the hiding-the-body storyline, the characters are usually in a panic mode, slipping and struggling to distract the police, investigator, or any curious eyes. And the movie’s humor rests on that panic as its foundation. On the contrary, The Trouble with Harry draws its humor from the nonchalance of its characters for whom hiding the body isn’t so much out of fear but annoyance that it lies in their way and is better buried, only to be unearthed again to verify a point during their discussion about the deceased. One can see it as trivializing death to the comical effect or simply a spoof on black comedies around a murder.
The Trouble with Harry is visually pleasing with bright outdoor shots in the wooded area as well as indoor scenes in cabin houses and stores. The dialogue delivery is the ultimate key to the chuckles in this story and Hitchcock made sure he got the best out of his cast. For a fall-themed black comedy, this one passes with flying colors.
