Hitchcock believed, with good reason, that his first version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH was "amateurish" (his own words) and felt he could do more justice to the story by giving it a modern remake with Bernard Herrmann's magnificent music adding dimension to the suspense.
He even used Herrmann as a conductor for the Albert Hall concert sequence--which is much more complex in execution than it is in this version and changed the setting for the story. In this version, however, that sequence is probably the most Hitchcockian of all the scenes in the movie with some clever editing touches.
LESLIE BANKS and EDNA BEST are nowhere as charismatic as James Stewart and Doris Day in the '56 version. The opening scenes are crude enough to be laughable and Peter Lorre's villainy was much more refined once he understood the English language, instead of learning his part phonetically, as he did here.
Furthermore, the shootout at the end is not only awkwardly staged but is undercut by the unrealistic sound effects of dummy bullets. Edna Best is less than convincing as a sharpshooter for that final scene. The whole rooftop scene is excruciatingly amateurish as a wrap-up for the story. Clumsy ending. And it must be said that all of the events leading up to the scene in the church tabernacle, are more than a little absurd. Hitchcock tried to get comic effect out of some of these scenes, to little effect. The strain shows.
It's a story that cried for a remake--and Hitchcock did a marvelous job of visualizing it as a highly successful vehicle for James Stewart and Doris Day years later in exotic settings and more realistic touches to the story with the villains not appearing like stock caricatures, but humanized.
Summing up: Hitchcock was right to remake it as a much better film.
He even used Herrmann as a conductor for the Albert Hall concert sequence--which is much more complex in execution than it is in this version and changed the setting for the story. In this version, however, that sequence is probably the most Hitchcockian of all the scenes in the movie with some clever editing touches.
LESLIE BANKS and EDNA BEST are nowhere as charismatic as James Stewart and Doris Day in the '56 version. The opening scenes are crude enough to be laughable and Peter Lorre's villainy was much more refined once he understood the English language, instead of learning his part phonetically, as he did here.
Furthermore, the shootout at the end is not only awkwardly staged but is undercut by the unrealistic sound effects of dummy bullets. Edna Best is less than convincing as a sharpshooter for that final scene. The whole rooftop scene is excruciatingly amateurish as a wrap-up for the story. Clumsy ending. And it must be said that all of the events leading up to the scene in the church tabernacle, are more than a little absurd. Hitchcock tried to get comic effect out of some of these scenes, to little effect. The strain shows.
It's a story that cried for a remake--and Hitchcock did a marvelous job of visualizing it as a highly successful vehicle for James Stewart and Doris Day years later in exotic settings and more realistic touches to the story with the villains not appearing like stock caricatures, but humanized.
Summing up: Hitchcock was right to remake it as a much better film.