The trouble with Harry

USA 1955

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

99 mins

Cast: John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn

Rating: PG

On the surface, it looks quite atypical compared to Hitchcock’s more famous works, but this is a vintage story from a great director with a wry sense of humor, and it is also one of the liveliest works in his exceptional career. Although somebody is dead, there is no suspense or danger or blond lady in the movie, and all we have to do is leisurely enjoy a pleasant walk with its funny characters as they try to deal with bizarre trouble on one fine autumn day in their ordinary peaceful rural town in Vermont.

rogerebert.com

It flopped disastrously, nearly killed Hitchcock and has been scorned for decades. But it's time The trouble with Harry was recognised as a surrealist masterpiece.

The Guardian

Ask any casual cinemagoer what they know about Alfred Hitchcock and they’ll probably tell you about crazy motel clerks stabbing folks to death in showers, blondes set upon by birds, and other murders most macabre. But in 1955, Hitchcock’s new film was released worldwide — a comedy of all things: The trouble with Harry. The film, a radical departure for the director, is one of his most forgotten, and it’s also one of his best, a night-black portrait of small-town New England nonchalance and charm.

filminquiry.com

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 comedy has long been overshadowed by the masterworks that surround it (Rear window on one side, Vertigo on the other), but it’s a wonderful, fanciful film, the most optimistic movie he ever made.

Chicago Reader