ViewGuide

Created Mar 15, 2012 11:31PM PST • Edited Dec 12, 2023 12:12AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Before It Takes a Thief there was To Catch a Thief, an exercise in high style, sumptuous settings and 1950s thrills, featuring the most glamorous couple in Silver Screen history.

   Cary Grant & Grace Kelly are über attractive as a rich heiress and a cat burglar … who was also a hero of the French Resistance. Central casting, send over the greatest moviestars you’ve got ’cause Hitch has got a movie made for moviestars.

   Alas the script disappoints, never rising above paint-by-numbers plotting, characterizations and dialog.

   Ah well, all’s well that sparkles on screen. To Catch a Thief sparkles spectacularly.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Cary Grant pegs the smoothly handsome moviestar meter. Cavorting around the French Riviera in cravats by day and tuxes by night, he set the stage for Sean Connery’s James Bond several years later.

   Grace Kelly’s cool blond beauty makes her the ideal Hitch girl, here playing to type as a wildchild heiress.

   Jessie Royce Landis apparently made a career for herself with her role as Grace Kelly’s rich mother.

   Brigitte Auber adds a jolt of French charm and spunk as a young mademoiselle besotted with Cary Grant.

   Hitch’s de rigueur cameo comes early and amusingly.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Hitchcock knew how to mount a romantic thriller. You could even say he’s a man who knows too much. The Master misses little, his superlative direction and visuals creating a delightful cinematic experience.

    As to the TV series It Takes a Thief —

    It Takes A Thief was inspired by, though not based upon, the 1955 Cary Grant motion picture To Catch a Thief, directed by Alfred Hitchcock; both of their titles stem from the English proverb “It takes a thief to catch a thief.” – Wikipedia

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    The dresses, the Riviera, the sleek sports cars, the casino…

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.6

    Sexy without being salacious, exemplified by Grace Kelly reaching up in the doorway of her hotel room to shock Cary Grant with a surprisingly titillating first kiss.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Glib 1.9

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.4

23. Biological Glib 1.7

24. Physical Glib 1.5