Recap: A vacationing couple with a kid get mixed up in a plot of murder. While in Marrakech they meet a mysterious man that eventually get murdered, but not before giving them a clue to an assassination plot in London. But before they can go to police their son get kidnapped, and now they have to stop the murder in order to save their son.
Comments: It's a nice crime/mystery story. Just a few clues, that leads ever onward. Another step to solve it but time is limited. That's not the problem. The problem is everything surrounding the crime story.
James Stewart and especially Doris Day plays good. But I don't buy them as a couple. There is no connection there, no emotion. And if I am to really care about them saving this boy, to really buy into the story on more than a casual level, I need to believe that they really care. And I don't.
I don't really feel their emotional connection, they seem distant and almost uncaring of each other. The only thing that seem to connect them is their son, and hardly that. And even if it is the crime story that drives the movie forward it is the emotional connection that should be in the family that should really catch the viewer and drag them in. I didn't feel that, and for me this never got past a casual movie. The crime story never got that interesting as it never seemed that important.
To really emphasize that is how the murder story is handled. You never get any whys, and hardly not even the who. Why is the McKenna's chosen in the beginning? Why is the would be assassins hanging around in Marrakech anyway? And we certainly don't get any conclusion. The story ends very abruptly when the son is rescued (yeah, major spoiler but are you surprised?). That tells me that this wasn't about the crime really, but about the family. And as I said before, I don't believe in them.
Supposedly a Hitchcock classic. But not one of his better ones, in my opinion. The intrigue is not complex enough, deep enough, and there is not enough other reasons to care.
5/10
Comments: It's a nice crime/mystery story. Just a few clues, that leads ever onward. Another step to solve it but time is limited. That's not the problem. The problem is everything surrounding the crime story.
James Stewart and especially Doris Day plays good. But I don't buy them as a couple. There is no connection there, no emotion. And if I am to really care about them saving this boy, to really buy into the story on more than a casual level, I need to believe that they really care. And I don't.
I don't really feel their emotional connection, they seem distant and almost uncaring of each other. The only thing that seem to connect them is their son, and hardly that. And even if it is the crime story that drives the movie forward it is the emotional connection that should be in the family that should really catch the viewer and drag them in. I didn't feel that, and for me this never got past a casual movie. The crime story never got that interesting as it never seemed that important.
To really emphasize that is how the murder story is handled. You never get any whys, and hardly not even the who. Why is the McKenna's chosen in the beginning? Why is the would be assassins hanging around in Marrakech anyway? And we certainly don't get any conclusion. The story ends very abruptly when the son is rescued (yeah, major spoiler but are you surprised?). That tells me that this wasn't about the crime really, but about the family. And as I said before, I don't believe in them.
Supposedly a Hitchcock classic. But not one of his better ones, in my opinion. The intrigue is not complex enough, deep enough, and there is not enough other reasons to care.
5/10