The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) on Netflix
On vacation in Morocco, Dr. Ben McKenna hears a dying Frenchman whisper of an assassination planned in London. When their son Hank is taken, the kidnappers warn them to stay silent.
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- IMDb7.4/1076,997 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Ben McKenna, his wife Jo, a retired singer, and their son Hank travel from Casablanca to Marrakesh, where they meet a Frenchman, Louis Bernard, whose questions make Jo uneasy. In the market the family sees a man stabbed in the back; he reaches Ben and whispers of a statesman to be assassinated in London and of a name, Ambrose Chappell, for Ben to give the authorities, then dies. While Ben and Jo are questioned at a police station, their son vanishes, and a caller warns that Hank will be harmed if they repeat what Bernard said. The English couple the McKennas befriended has left the hotel. Ben and Jo fly to London to find Hank and to stop the assassination.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Alfred Hitchcock rated his own remake above his 1934 original, telling fellow filmmaker François Truffaut: “Let's say the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.”
- Screenwriter John Michael Hayes was hired on condition that he never watch or read the original 1934 film's script, working purely from Hitchcock's oral briefings, and pages for scenes not yet written were mailed to the production by airmail as filming was already under way.
- Doris Day sings the Livingston and Evans song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” at two points in the film, a performance which won the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song; her recording reached number two on the US pop charts and number one in the UK.
- Rather than compose a new cantata for the climax, Herrmann found Arthur Benjamin's Storm Clouds from the original 1934 film so suitable that he declined, expanding the orchestration and inserting several repeats to make the sequence longer; it runs for 12 minutes without any dialogue.
- Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the film score, cameos as the conductor at Royal Albert Hall, the only time Herrmann ever appeared on camera in a film.
