Classic Movie Review: To Catch a Thief
By Josh Spiegel
April 24, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Though this was the first time I saw To Catch A Thief, with each title that I see of his, I'm confident that Hitchcock, who's my favorite director, was the greatest, or one of the top two or three greatest, auteurs of his time. Though he rarely wrote any of his films (and his most major contribution, to his 1946 classic Notorious, was uncredited), seeing a Hitchcock film has unmistakable hints. Take this film. Any common Hitchcock film has a beautiful blonde; To Catch a Thief has his most glamorous female lead, Grace Kelly. Is there striking music? Yes, though not by Bernard Herrmann this time. Does Hitchcock show up in a walk-on role? That he does. Is the lead under a case of mistaken identity, accused of a crime he didn't commit? Yes, yes, yes.
As thoroughly enjoyable as To Catch A Thief is - and don't get me wrong, this is one fun movie to watch - it's not as complex as some of Hitchcock's best, such as Vertigo, Rear Window, or Psycho. It's almost — not quite, though — as gripping as North by Northwest, but...well, not quite. It's hard to say what didn't work for me with To Catch A Thief, because there's nothing I can pinpoint. This is just a case of not completely going wild for one of the great master's works. Still, this is a classic movie we're talking about here and I'm not going to try and rag on two straight movies with that brand.
The plot here is just a cool excuse to see beautiful people in beautiful places. Grant plays John Robie, a man who lives comfortably in the south of France after being a notorious thief known as the Cat. When someone begins thieving around the Riviera, the police believe Robie's to blame. For once, though, Robie's not up to his old tricks, so he enlists the help of his old buddies from the French Resistance to deduce who's pretending to be the Cat. In doing so, Robie ends up following an elderly, rich American widow who's a prime target, with her expensive jewelry and gallivanting ways around the area and falling in love with the widow's daughter, Francie (Kelly). Though the sparks don't initially fly between these two, a long car ride, some fireworks, and a fling at the beach all add up to some serious chemistry.
That chemistry is the best reason to see To Catch a Thief. Every so often these days, someone will make a movie that pits two beautiful people against each other in hopes that sparks fly. Rarely does it work (even in this spring's Duplicity, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen often have some chemistry, but not nearly enough), but you wonder how often these filmmakers run back to To Catch a Thief for both inspiration and confusion as to how their experiment didn't sail off as smoothly. It's admirable and amazing that Hitchcock had the stones to pull off such a famous sequence as the one where Robie and Francie, in a darkened hotel room, finish their titanic game of foreplay as a series of fireworks explode outside their window. The analogy is meant to be simple, but the idea that Kelly and Grant are actually that wildly compatible is made all the more impressive.
Most of the second act of To Catch a Thief is all about Robie and Francie falling for each other. Part of the initial fun comes with Robie attempting to sell himself as a know-nothing lumber manufacturer from Oregon, while we and Francie are clear to his ruse. During a lengthy sequence set entirely in a car, Francie reveals knowing his real identity. Granted, this scene is a bit more morbid these days than when it was originally released. In 1982, Kelly, now the princess of Monaco, died after suffering a stroke and driving her car off a mountainside. Rumors have always persisted that the same road we see her zooming and curving around with Grant in To Catch a Thief is the same one that she suffered that stroke on, though we may never know that much. Just the fact that she died while driving on a similar roadway is enough to give you pause while watching this scene. Try and do as I did; think about it for a passing second, if that, and then marvel and bask in the glow of these two great actors giving their best.
Still, as awesome as it is to watch Cary Grant and Grace Kelly ooze charm all over France, I feel like To Catch a Thief doesn't measure up to Hitchcock's best. Even more, both Grant and Kelly made better films with and without Hitchcock; for Kelly, that's saying something, as she only made 11 films in a span of six years, three of which were from Hitchcock. If you want to see Grant at his best for the master, check out Notorious, a film that features him in one of his darkest, least matinee-idol-friendly roles; or North by Northwest, a film so great that even recent action movies like Eagle Eye try to copy it for success. Kelly had, as I mentioned, a limited filmography, but whether it's High Noon or Rear Window, she had strong work to back her beauty. Her work as the beleaguered lover of James Stewart's wheelchair-bound voyeur in the latter film is arguably her best.
So why am I telling you all about movies better than To Catch A Thief? Well, like I said...this is a good movie. But if you're someone who's not fully initiated to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, this is both a good place to start and a fair warning that most of his other films aren't like this one. Long before a director like Steven Soderbergh was, perhaps, rightfully accused of making Ocean's Twelve simply to spend some quality time with his famous friends as they went globe-trotting, from Italy to Amsterdam to Los Angeles, there was Hitchcock, Grant, Kelly, and To Catch a Thief. If anything else, you will watch this movie and be fully jealous of this entire production. The beaches, the mountains, the villas...how could a person not want to live their lives out on the French Riviera when you see the character known as John Robie doing so in style? Sure, Robie's a fictional character, but maybe, just maybe, that could be any one of us.
With its sly wit and clever characters, To Catch a Thief is a charming film to sit through and one that will make you wonder if you might well cancel that trip to Walt Disney World and look towards Europe instead. If, however, you're looking for one of the best from the master of suspense, you'd be well advised to look elsewhere, as you'll find frothy, fast-paced fun here but little else.