9 - The Trouble with Harry

    In a tiny town, the recently-deceased body of a man named Harry lay in a meadow.  A variety of townsfolk run across the body, and most of them think they are somehow responsible for his death.  While they aren't worried about the person, they are interested in hiding the body.
    This is an unusual movie for Hitchcock.  It has a sense of dark humor that he liked, but other than that, there's no tension, and the direction isn't especially noteworthy.  In fact, it reminds me a little of Neil Simon's work.  It's amusing, but it rarely reaches the point at which the audience would laugh out loud.
    I suppose that the kind of lazy pacing is part of the point.  The humor is mostly focused on how blasé the characters are about the dead body, even as they are romantically entangled with one another.  It doesn't work as a comedy exactly.  It works as something else.  Almost like a homage to 50s Americana.  Except… that this came out in 1955.
    There are some interesting things that happen in the script.  There are a lot of sexual references sprinkled in, which seems out of place for the time period.  It's kind of refreshing, but the approach to it seems ham-handed nowadays.
    There's a chance that I will return to this movie eventually, and like it more.  In the meantime, it seems a bit slow for Hitchcock.  And while the performances are enjoyable, they don't sell the comedic angle in the way I'd like.