In Marrakech, with Hitchcock and his most free-willed heroine

Photo: Doris Day and James Stewart in “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, 1956, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount Pictures

Only Alfred Hitchcock could make a remake of one of his own films that is better than the original. He famously told François Truffaut that the original The Man Who Knew Too Much, made in England in 1934, was made by an amateur and the remake by a professional. Hitchcock himself wasn’t keen to make remakes of his movies at all, but he owed Paramount a film and he thought that was the film that could be adapted to the present day. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was the only film Hitchcock shot on location outside of Europe or the United States. The second part of the film does indeed take part in London, but in the first part, Hitchcock takes us to Marrakech.

These two parts of the movie feel so different though that I have somehow always felt that they could be two different films. And that works beautifully for the final outcome. Marrakech, the attraction of exotic, sunny, colourful Morroco, in perfect contrast with the grey London and the escalating underlying tension and dark plot that’s about to unfold. “All this sunshine, day after day, doesn’t seem natural somehow,” remarks Lucy Drayton, a key English character in the plot. Almost too good to be true. I’ve come to associate it with the lure of the summer, and, once you get to experience it, with the realisation that there’s no such thing as an endless summer, or a perfect summer. And Hitchcock couldn’t have chosen two more contrasting locations. The difference in scenery is definitely very stark once the story gets to London. The suspense however is there from the very beginning, inserted throughout the entire film where you least expect it, a suspense that was brilliantly relieved now and again through the use of humour. And as soon as the film is over, it only urges me to watch it again. With that whirlwind of Moroccan colours and emotions rolling in again.

Jo and Ben McKenna (Doris Day and James Stewart) are on vacation with their son, Hank, in Marrakech. The mother and son had accompanied Ben, who’s a doctor, to a medical convention in Paris, and then they all three have stayed on as tourists in Europe and now Morocco. What starts as a holiday will end up as a nightmare. After witnessing the death of a man disguised as an Arab who manages to pass on a message to Ben McKenna before his last breath, their son is kidnapped and the McKennas have two choices: either they stay silent about what Bernard told them, saving their son’s life, or they tell the police about the plot to assassinate a statesman and lose their son.

James Stewart was one of Hitchcock’s favourite actors. In an interview about the making of the film, Hitchcock’s daughter remembered that the reason Hitchcock liked so much to work with Jimmy Stewart, who he was also friends with, was that Stewart typified the ordinary man. He reminded Hitchcock of himself, just as he reminded the audience of themselves. James Stewart was also a great actor, and, in Hitchcock’s films, he was always at his best. But it is Doris Day who is a pivotal element in the story here, and although I believe that Tippi Hedren will remain the ultimate Hitchcokian heroine, with Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall in North by Northwest a close runner-up, it is Doris Day about whom we can truly say that she is the furthest away from the typical Hitchcockian blonde. Day’s character of Jo (short from Josephine) McKenna is resourceful, observant, outspoken, funny, self-reliant, grounded, warm. She is an excellent performer. In fact, she takes over the entire film. It is Doris Day who fascinates, beyond Hitchcock’s master mind and masterful skills. Furthermore, she takes action, as she is the one who saves her son in the end. Not only that, but we find out that she gave up her musical career in order to raise her son, a decision she wasn’t forced to but wanted to take, being completely responsible for it. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think of going back to singing again or that she isn’t sometimes bickering with her husband about it. When she is asked why she is giving up the stage, she dismisses her husband’s explanations and replies: “What my husband is trying to say is that Broadway musical shows are not produced in Indianapolis, Indiana. Of course, we could live in New York. I hear doctors are not starving there either.”

And it is exactly her singing – of her iconic “Que sera, sera” – that she brilliantly uses to lead her son to safety in the now classic climactic scene at the Albert Hall. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, more than in any other Hitchcock films, music is a character, very scarcely yet skillfully used throughout the film, from the very opening titles, to Doris Day’s singing – her display of human emotion, love, desperation and hope when she realises her missing son might hear her, is mesmerising – to the culminating clash of the cymbals, when music truly becomes the story.

It’s a pleasure to get to know Jo McKenna, starting with her modern look in Marrakesh. Although Doris Day’s wardrobe (designed by Edith Head) also includes the tailored grey suit that would be reproduced and pored over by film historians when Kim Novak wore it in Vertigo two years later, in 1958, the shirt dress look Doris Day wears to the market in Marrakech is worth the focus of our attention. First of all, isn’t it a genius invention? A garment imbued with the insouciance of a man’s shirt, only with more length and polish, and, in this fifties version, a cinched-waist and full structure.

But even in this silhouette and buttoned just to the waist, it still carries a feminine-meets-function-meets-tomboy-charm, perfect for the film location. There is nothing more feminine than a piece of clothing thought to be used in the male universe, that has been reshaped on the body of a woman. And yet, the most interesting part of Jo’s outfit may be the white basket bag. It was 1956, long before Jane Birkin popularised her wicker basket. Once again cinema foresaw fashion, but nobody seemed to take notice of this original piece of accessory before the 1960s.

Another look Jo McKenna is wearing in Marrakesh is the floral-print frock she dresses in for dinner with her husband after she sings “Que sera sera” and dances with her son in their hotel room. In the 50s and 60s, Edith Head didn’t use prints much in her costume designs, because she was worried that the picture could be delayed and the prints would look dated. She had used a print two years before, for Grace Kelly’s floral dress in Rear Window and she did it because it served a certain dramatic purpose. It is a look that makes Lisa “more vulnerable, more natural, more foolhearty,” signaling Jeff’s (James Stewart) realisation of how much he loves Lisa. Doris Day’s dress here has all the femininity, elegance and grace that make such a wonderful team with the strength and determination this mother will show just a little later on.

Photos: “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, 1956, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount Pictures

In Marrakech, with Hitchcock and his most free-willed heroine

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