The Trouble with Harry | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Sprightly is the word for Hitchcock's direction; neither moral nor gruesome, neither childish nor yet quite adult, neither in the world nor quite outside it, it gives the impression of taking you straight into a peculiarly vivid dream.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 comedy has long been overshadowed by the masterworks that surround it, but it's a wonderful, fanciful film, the most optimistic movie he ever made -- a fairy tale among nightmares.

The acting is perfection, with MacLaine (in her debut) quite wonderful, and Hitchcock was mighty proud of this adaptation of Jack Trevor Story's novel, always naming it among his personal favourites.

Assimilating the black humours of the comedie noire into the gentler comedy of village eccentricity, Hitchcock and his scriptwriter, John Michael Hayes, have concocted an entertainment insidious in its charm.

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.