“The Man Who Knew Too Much” Shows What Happens When Women Know Too Much.

     ​Alfred Hitchcock made two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The plots of both movies are basically the same. In each movie a stolid English-speaking couple has their child kidnapped after the husband learns of an assassination plan against a foreign dignitary.

     Each movie has an iconic climax scene in a massive concert hall. The assassin is supposed to kill a politician (Hungarian in the 1934 version, from an unnamed country in the 1956 version) during a moment in the concert where there is a massive crash in cymbals. The cymbal crash is supposed to mask the gunshot, allowing the assassin time for a clean getaway before people realize that the politician is dead.
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    The 1934 movie starts with British tourist Jill Lawrence (Edna Best) competing in a sharpshooting contest with creepy assassin Ramon Levine (Frank Vosper). Levine makes a pass at Lawrence. She rebuffs him. Levine then allows his pocket watch to chime at the moment Lawrence takes aim at a clay pigeon, causing her to miss. She loses the contest but remains friendly, suggesting to Levine that they may compete again one day in a sharpshooting contest.

    ​Jill Lawrence in the 1934 film is a great example of stiff-upper-lip early 20th century feminism. She is a deadly shot with a gun. She matches men in any competition, whether it be shooting or exchanging witticisms. Her marriage with her husband is clearly an equal partnership. She even stops the assassination attempt at the movie’s climax. Lawrence screams at the opportune moment during the concert so Levine (the assassin charged with killing the minister) misses his shot. The moment is a call back (of course) to the first scene where Levine deliberately distracts Lawrence when she tries to take her shot in the sharpshooting contest.

      ​The film does not end there. Lawrence’s adolescent daughter Betty has been kidnapped by Levine and his associate Abbott (Peter Lorre, who frankly stole the whole damn film). After the assassination plot fails police officers surround the kidnappers’ hideout. Levine tries to kill Betty but Betty scrambles out through a window. Levine follows Betty onto the roof, his gun drawn. The police officer on the ground takes aim at Levine but he doesn’t dare pull the trigger for fear of accidentally hitting Betty. Lawrence grabs the gun from the trembling officer and she shoots Levine dead.
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     Lawrence and Levine, in a way, did indeed have their sharpshooting rematch. And this time, Lawrence won. She shot Levine before Levine could shoot her daughter.

    ​The film then ends with Betty being taken safely off the roof by her father.

    Hitchcock made several more films in the UK during the run-up to the Second World War. He then fled London and landed in California where his golden age began.
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    By 1956 Hitchcock was extremely successful. He remade The Man Who Knew Too Much with Doris Day in the Jill Lawrence role and Jimmy Stewart as her husband. In the 1956 version the wife’s name is Jo McKenna, a successful Broadway star who gave up her career to happily become a wife and mother.
The difference between Jo McKenna in 1956 and Jill Lawrence in 1934 is stark.

     ​Jo McKenna lives almost entirely under the thumb of her husband. Unlike her predecessor Jill Lawrence in the 1934 film Jo clearly has no inclination to compete against men. She isn’t shooting guns or bantering with male assassins. The marriage between Jo and her husband Ben McKenna is not an equal partnership. In one (unintentionally) horrifying scene Ben forces his wife to take sedatives when she doesn’t want to. The intent is supposed to show Ben as a caring husband. He wants his wife to be calm when he breaks the news to her that their son has been kidnapped.

        Because, you know, women are so goddamn emotional.

       The scene is meant for a 1950s audience. Look at this man taking care of his weepy wife! It’s a scene, however, that has thankfully aged very badly. You can’t imagine Jill Lawrence the 1934 sharpshooter allowing her husband to treat her in this manner let alone a woman from the 21st century.

      When the 1934 Man Who Knew Too Much was made women enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. Men had died and countries were devastated first by WWI, then Spanish Flu and finally the Great Depression.

        Misogyny is an unaffordable luxury when everyone is hungry and the men are dead.

      Women had to pitch in just to supplement the household income. This was especially driven home during WWII when women simply had to work to keep the country going when the men went off to war.
The Nazis were defeated. America was victorious. The men came back from the front, saw a bunch of women working jobs that they wanted, and the backlash was swift. “Give us back our jobs and get back to the kitchen!”

       And of course men get what they want.

     You can see the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much as a retort to the 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much. Do you know what happens when women are given too much freedom? World War! Flu! Depression! Catastrophe! Dammit, we’re safer when the women stay at home where they goddamn well belong! And if women start mouthing off about it, well, just make sure they take their sedatives.
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    The danger is not with spies or assassinations or kidnappings or guns. The danger is women and making sure women do not know too much.