Family Plot

I got a boxed set of Hitchcock DVDs for Christmas, so I'm currently working my way through the ones that I have not yet seen. I watched 'The Trouble with Harry' just after Christmas, but that was truly awful and so I wont waste any more time than necessary on it: do not watch it.

It was with some trepidation that I watched 'Family Plot' then. I sort of had it in my mind that anything Hitchcock made after 'Psycho' was probably rather shite. Maybe the grand master of suspenseful cinema kind of lost it during the 1960s? Maybe his later output was all just a holding pattern until he finally gave up?

'Family Plot' is actually a rather entertaining film. It's about how an unlikely couple (a shyster clairvoyant and a taxi driver) try to get some money out of an old lady by finding the long lost son of her dead friend. The guy they're after is a local jeweler and part-time serial kidnapper. They investigate him without realising that he suspects they're after him for the police reward, and from there all kinds of hi-jinx ensues.

It's a film which doesn't have any of the great set-pieces or slowly-building mystery of some of Hitchcock's early classics; but that's mainly due to the plot rather than any kind of directorial failure. It's actually a rather good film despite feeling a little long (just under 2 hours and a LOT of talking) and ending rather abruptly. There are enough of funny moments to make it all worthwhile.