Bright Lights Film Journal | Hitchcock Photo Essay: The Man Who Knew Too Much

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Alfred Hitchcock

A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone

From the universal to the particular:
The Man Who Knew Too Much

By Alan Vanneman

See the introduction to this nine-part photo study.

In his 1953 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock created a "universal to particular" sequence that included two of his particular obsessions, staircases and houses. The sequence occurs late in the film, when distraught parents James Stewart and Doris Day have managed to gain entrance to a baroque embassy (which looks only slightly less imposing than Buckingham Palace) where their son is being held prisoner by kidnappers. While Jimmy and Doris try to develop a plan to search the place, the camera, through a series of jump cuts rather than a single tracking shot, moves silently up a massive staircase and down a hallway, finally focusing on a doorknob. Behind the door, of course, is Stewart's son. The omniscient camera knows the way, but Jimmy does not. The superhuman/inhuman opulence of the embassy's interior seems to mock the possibility of a mere mortal being able to impose his will upon it.

Click any of the links below for additional categories/motifs, or to return to the intro page:

Houses † Staircases † Women's Hair † Hands † Eyes

The Uncanny † The Vortex † Notorious Sequence

The Man Who Knew Too Much Sequence

ALSO: Check out other fine articles and reviews by the author.