The Trouble with Harry (1955)

 
Based on the novel by Jack Trevor Story, The Trouble with Harry is a rare test of tension that Hitchcock puts the viewers to through a weirdly smacking mix of death, mystery and humor. It rolls on with an intriguing plot of a dead body of a man called Harry mysteriously lying in the middle of woods and how that affects or in fact entertains a group of friendly residents from a nearby town who happen to stumble upon it.

After death, our body is just a plaything. Is that a difficult idea to deal with? Yes, if portrayed with out and out reverence and quick-witted humor. And only a filmmaker as crafty as Hitchcock could achieve a feel-good factor in a death mystery.

What’s the trouble with Harry? Is he is a stranger in the town? Why does his death have to bother a retired old Captain, who goes hunting for rabbits, and an ageing single woman whose threshold has never been crossed yet, and a single beautiful mother living with her kid who argues that tomorrow’s yesterday?

The movie begins with eye-popping shots of a quiet autumn countryside, introducing the characters with their routines and idiosyncrasies. You wish you were there sharing laid-back conversations over a light supper with those residents who are particularly fond of blueberry muffins and hot chocolate. There is something so admirable in the filmmakers of the previous generation who always captured portraits and landscapes in an inarguably aesthetic fashion. They understood expressions. They understood colors. They understood time. What could be more pleasing to the eye than watching an artist carrying his sketches walking from distance into the countryside singing a light song on love?

The Trouble with Harry is nothing short of a delectable flick that you will enjoy wide-eyed on a lazy Sunday afternoon. You will experience a rare Hitchcockian attempt to tickle your funny bone using a morbidly curious case.