[The Trouble with Harry] opens with a characteristic flourish, an incisive transition from tranquility to violence…. Unlike The Ladykillers, which broke wholly with reality, or Bunuel's Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, with its ambiguous terrors. The Trouble with Harry establishes a setting neither entirely fantasticated nor disturbingly close to the real. (pp. 30-1)
Relaxed and deliberate, The Trouble with Harry spins out its single joke—the calm acceptance of the fact of violence that is the basis of comedie noire—with an alert regard for the possibilities of a situation…. Although the corpse is kept persistently in the foreground, the film blandly skirts the macabre, Harry exists merely as an inapposite feature in an idyllic pastoral scene. Quietly concentrated, the film's humour is largely a matter of a balance precariously sustained: the blazing splendour of the landscape sets off the grim little joke of a plot: the characters are normal people who in unguarded moments reveal fantastic preoccupations. In its insolent determination to explore the limits of good taste, the comedy is poised on a knife edge.
This is a free excerpt of 176 words. There are 348 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our (Sir) Hitchcock, Alfred 1899–1980: Critical Essay by Penelope Houston Access Pass.
