This is Ted, TV Australia, Norman.
This program is proudly brought to you by Cafe Pacific and Bankers Trust.
Good evening and welcome to the Golden Years of Hollywood.
Tonight something rather exciting for those of you who like the odd competition every now
and then with an exciting giveaway.
This will be tied in with our first film tonight which continues our Alfred Hitchcock season.
His 1950s remake of one of his 30s movies, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Dramatically far and away it is superior to the original version with Peter Lorry of 1934.
And then later tonight for our Academy Award winner season I'm presenting Loretta Young
in her Academy Award winning performance in The Farmer's Daughter.
What a delightful movie this is.
As fresh and sparkling as it ever was you'll laugh quite a lot with The Farmer's Daughter
and with elections going on and a lot of talk by politicians at this time I think you'll
find the film even more pertinent.
Having said that, a word about our competition.
I'm going to ask you three questions tonight.
As usual answers on the back of an envelope.
As usual you put your name, address and so forth on the back of the envelope.
You will get details of where to send your entry later.
There will be two questions on The Man Who Knew Too Much and one question on The Farmer's
Daughter.
What's the competition all about?
Well two more movies have been added to CEL's Bill Collins movie collection and the two
movies introduced by me on the tape are Stage Door directed by Gregory La Carver with Hepburn
and Rogers and also Anne Miller, Lucille Ball, Andrea Leeds, Gail Patrick and Constance Collier.
The other is Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons with a great cast and a reproduction
of a poster originally done by Norman Rockwell.
So they're the two new titles and here are the other titles in the Bill Collins movie
collection or at least some of them.
Now all the winners and there will be one main winner from each state will have a choice
of five of the titles from the Bill Collins movie collection as well as the two new titles
Stage Door and The Magnificent Ambersons.
May I advise you, it's very unlikely that you'll be seeing Magnificent Ambersons and
Stage Door on television in the near future.
Believe me on that one.
So there you are, more details later and I'll refer to the cassettes again.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is quite an extraordinary film.
I have said before and I'll say it again, the more one sees some Alfred Hitchcock movies,
for example Marnie or Torn Curtain, the more one understands and the more imaginative one
realises the film actually is.
Now the screenplay for The Man Who Knew Too Much was written by John Michael Hayes.
I have a story for you and I'm not going to keep you waiting until intermission for this
one.
It shows the dark side of Alfred Hitchcock.
After Rear Window, John Michael Hayes who'd written the screenplay received an award from
the Mystery Writers of America.
It was the highly coveted Edgar Award named after Edgar Allan Poe.
According to John Michael Hayes, I thought Hitch would be delighted but he didn't come
for the ceremony and when I brought the little ceramic statuette into his office, he pushed
it back to me and said, you know they make toilet bowls from the same material.
I felt that he resented my receiving award when he didn't receive one.
A few weeks later I wrote a piece for the New York Times on Working with Hitchcock.
It was a benevolent piece and praised his films.
He called me in and tore up the article in front of me and said, young man, you are hired
to write for me and Paramount Pictures, not for the New York Times.
How churlish.
And then he had to settle down and write the screenplay for the man who knew too much.
That is the other side of Alfred Hitchcock.
And now to the better side which is On the Screen, a very exciting film, suspense beautifully
sustained and developed and superb performances to make the characters believable.
We have in the leading roles James Stewart and Doris Day, a couple whose marriage is
in a precarious position partly due to his overbearing attitude towards her life and
her former career.
She's a woman who is now less fulfilled than she ever was before.
Now I don't detract at all from James Stewart's excellence in this film.
He's the lovable, likeable man who can, without trying to do so, make another person's life
difficult and unfulfilling.
But Doris Day is quite remarkable in this film and Doris Day has some of the best scenes
in the pictures, including the climax itself.
One of her best scenes is the one you'll now see in still form.
This is a brilliant moment in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Now Doris felt that Hitchcock was not directing her and was quite upset.
She went to him and she said, you know, Mr Hitchcock, I feel that I'm not pleasing you
for making a comment.
And he said, my dear, I would make a comment if you weren't, you would know.
So Doris's performance is largely generated from within and is brilliant.
In this shot, an important character who doesn't appear for very long, Daniel Jelin.
Interesting, very important.
Watch out for the little bit of blue dye that appears in the film.
I'll mention that to you again later.
Just keep your eyes exploring the image and see if you can see the blue dye in the scene
involving Daniel Jelin.
And finally, two favourite actors of mine whose appearance in The Man Who Knew Too Much gives
it that little extra something.
Bernard Miles, or I should say now Lord Miles, and that wonderful actress, Brenda de Bansy.
Brenda was so brilliant in Hobson's Choice that I loved it from then on.
Interesting people, wonderful locations.
And I'll have something else to say about a famous Australian's contribution to the
success of this film in intermission.
Three questions tonight.
Here's your first question.
What is the locale in the first sequence of The Man Who Knew Too Much?
Repeat the question.
I could say simply, where are they?
What is the locale of the first sequence of The Man Who Knew Too Much?
And I'm not referring to a bus.
And now Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.