Tropic Sprockets / To Catch A Thief

By Ian Brockway

Alfred Hitchcock directs “To Catch A Thief” (1955).

The film boasts stunning locations from Alpes-Maritimes in Southeastern France and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography by Robert Burks. Although relatively light in content for Hitchcock, the film is entertaining, breezy and engages from the start. [Showtimes and trailer at Tropiccinema.com.]

John Robbie (Cary Grant) is a retired cat burglar, tan and devil may care, who goes from resort to resort sunning himself. When the crimes strike again, Robbie intends to find out with the passing interest of a casino game.

The film is bright, colorful, and carbonated with the flavor of a New Yorker cartoon in motion. Grace Kelly is shiny, cool, and distant with a mischievous amoral streak. Her blonde hair is cinematic dessert. French actor Brigitte Auber is Robbie’s friend from a troubled past.

While in some ways the auteur is spoofing James Bond and the Pink Panther comedies, the film has genuine hallmarks of Hitchcockian apprehension and nervousness, including a suspenseful, fast ride along twisty, careening roads, and a bloodcurdling scream that starts the film.

Grace Kelly is visually fetishized like an ocelot, with satin closeups of her hair, eyes, face, and neck. A highlight is a shadowy dinner scene that features a brilliant firework display symbolizing romantic and sexual ignition.

Kelly’s face alone is obscured in darkness, while Cary Grant himself is a tan playboy figure head caught between two women: one an anarchist and the other an icy society woman with dominant aggressive tendencies.

With Hitchcock, play often leads to male anxiety and danger.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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