The Man Who Knew Too Much
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Film
The Man Who Knew Too Much
1934United Kingdom
General Film Distributors
Distribution company
General Film Distributors
Distribution company
35mm nitrate master positive
Gift of Selznick Properties, Ltd.
2001.1149.0001
TextAbout the print
A reissue print from 1943 with a dual bilateral variable area sound track, it has the British Board of Film Censors logo and the General Film Logo distribution card. George Eastman House acquired the copy 1n 1999. As usual in vintage film material, this print shows some scratches on the heads and tails of each reel. It has very few splices throughout—proof that the copy was well maintained over the years. Shrinkage rate: 0.98%.
About the film
“The British cinema, never notable for its command of filmic pace, goes in for a blistering style of story-telling in ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much.’ . . . Directed with a fascinating staccato violence by Alfred
Hitchcock, it is the swiftest screen melodrama this column can recall. . . . ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ is distinctly Mr. Hitchcock’s picture. Although the photography and lighting are inferior according to Hollywood standards, the film is an interesting example of technical ingenuity as well as an absorbing melodrama.”
—A.S., The New York Times, March 23, 1935
“We might ordinarily assume that the direction (or production) of a picture is simply the making of the picture, out of things, events, people. Yet these matters are often spoken of with an air of technical distinctions too fine for the lay eye, the critic seeming to say, There is something going on here that doesn’t escape me; it is direction and happy I am to find it. . . As a sort of case study along these lines, there is ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much,’ a recent British thriller that, if reports are to be believed, is directed to a point that would make a person gasp.”
—Otis Ferguson, The New Republic, May 1, 1935
Nitrate Picture Show program notes, May 2015
A reissue print from 1943 with a dual bilateral variable area sound track, it has the British Board of Film Censors logo and the General Film Logo distribution card. George Eastman House acquired the copy 1n 1999. As usual in vintage film material, this print shows some scratches on the heads and tails of each reel. It has very few splices throughout—proof that the copy was well maintained over the years. Shrinkage rate: 0.98%.
About the film
“The British cinema, never notable for its command of filmic pace, goes in for a blistering style of story-telling in ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much.’ . . . Directed with a fascinating staccato violence by Alfred
Hitchcock, it is the swiftest screen melodrama this column can recall. . . . ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ is distinctly Mr. Hitchcock’s picture. Although the photography and lighting are inferior according to Hollywood standards, the film is an interesting example of technical ingenuity as well as an absorbing melodrama.”
—A.S., The New York Times, March 23, 1935
“We might ordinarily assume that the direction (or production) of a picture is simply the making of the picture, out of things, events, people. Yet these matters are often spoken of with an air of technical distinctions too fine for the lay eye, the critic seeming to say, There is something going on here that doesn’t escape me; it is direction and happy I am to find it. . . As a sort of case study along these lines, there is ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much,’ a recent British thriller that, if reports are to be believed, is directed to a point that would make a person gasp.”
—Otis Ferguson, The New Republic, May 1, 1935
Nitrate Picture Show program notes, May 2015
