To Catch a Thief

I have never watched this the whole through, strange given my enjoyment of both Hitchcock films and caper films.

Quickly, Cary Grant is a retired jewel thief, cleverly called The Cat, who is suspected of getting back in the game after a series of heists on the Riviera. So he does get back in the game, to try and capture the copycat, with the assistance of an insurance agent. He ends up following a wealthy American widow (Jessie Royce Landis) and her daughter (played by Grace Kelly), the latter of whom is excited once she figures out he's a burglar. You know, until she thinks he robbed her mother.

How fickle.

It's weird, because the banter between Grant and Kelly is entertaining, they play off each other well, but I did not buy the moment where she says she's in love with him. It didn't feel earned, they hadn't been around each other enough. Actually, I probably would have bought it between Grant and Landis more, since they seemed to hit it off right from the start.

It's not a long movie, but it feels like it takes a while for Grant to actually start trying to catch the true thief. Most of that is Hitchcock laying groundwork. That Grant was a thief, but he, along with several other guys, received a parole because they worked in the French Resistance during World War 2. And so those guys aren't happy, because if he's off the wagon, they all go back in. The French government, a bastion of compassion and gratitude. Maybe they're just embarrassed these guys did a better job resisting the Nazis than they did.

So there's a reason for the slow start, but it is still a slow start. I can see Cary Grant being glib in any movie.

I like the use of, I'm guessing a green filter over the camera, to make it seem dark for the nighttime scene, but not so dark you can't see what's going on. Some of those older movies, you can barely tell what you're looking at.