The Second Annual Mystery, Murder, Mayhem and Monsters film festival continues with the final film of Alfred Hitchcock's career.
Family Plot was Hitchcock's 53rd motion picture and even at the age of 76, he was not done experimenting. His previous film was Frenzy in 1972. Frenzy was his most successful film since Psycho in 1960. So many were surprised when his next film turned out to be something completely new and different. Hitchcock invented the black comedy/noir thriller about eight years before the Coen Brothers released their first film.
Family Plot follows two couples and we watch as their paths cross and then collide. The first couple is Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) a fake psychic, and her boyfriend actor/cab driver George Lumley (Bruce Dern). One of Blanches' clients, the aged Mrs. Rainbird, has been asking Blanche to use her psychic powers to find her long lost nephew. Years ago she convinced her sister to give the illegitimate child away. Now she wants to find him and make him heir to the Rainbird fortune. She has promised Blanche $10,000 if she can locate him.
While Blanche is telling George all this in his cab he almost runs down a pedestrian in the street. The camera leaves George and Blanche and follows this woman dressed in black. She is Fran (Karen Black) and she is on her way to receive a ransom for a shipping magnate that she kidnapped along with her husband Arthur Adamson (William Devane). By day Arthur runs a respectable jewelry shop and by night he and his wife are master criminals who engineer elaborate kidnappings for diamonds.
It so happens Arthur is also the long lost nephew of Mrs. Rainbird. Through some luck and some detective work Blanche and George are on Arthur's trail, but considering the life of crime he leads, he assumes the worst and decides they must be eliminated.
The film has many signature Hitchcock moments, but it is a definite departure in style and tone for the director. It is acknowledged that his first assistant director Howard G. Kazanjian did most of the location shooting, including the out of control car scene, because Hitchcock was to infirm to go on location. But Hitchcock was so meticulous in his notes and storyboarding that Kazanjian was able to shoot the scene exactly as Hitchcock envisioned it, without the director being there.
Much of the dialogue is overtly sexual in nature: Hitchcock often explored the connection between sex and danger and modern attitudes allowed him to be more open about it in Family Plot.
The movie has two unique features. The first is the fact that Hitchccok chose not to identify where the action took place. The film was made in southern and northern California, but Hitchcock removed all referneces to actual places. The second is the films score. On his last film Hitchcock hired a young composer who was working at Universal Pictures, John Williams. When working with Hitchcock on the score the director told him "remember, murder can be fun". The resulting music is quite playful and diffenet than previos music associated with a Hitchcock film.
The film manages to be both funny and suspenseful at the same time. All the actor's turn in great performances with Devane being especially sinister. I personally felt the director let the critical car scene become to comical, but aside from that I found it to be a perfectly delightful thriller and another outstanding film by the best director who ever lived.
At The Movie House rating *** 1/2 stars
Other Films of Interest:
Seance on Wet Afternoon
Hopscotch
The Amzing Mr. X
Foul Play
Charade
Raising Arizona
The Big Lewbowski
Burn After Reading
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