The Trouble with Harry in Corrie
On Sunday, January 13th, the Corrie Film Cub offers this deadpan 1955 comedy directed by, of all the unlikely people, Alfred Hitchcock. Based on a tale by Jack Trevor Story, the plot centres round the eponymous Harry, who is dead. And the eponymous trouble is, several people in the small Vermont village are sure they have killed him. Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) thinks he potted him with his rifle while hunting. Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick) hit him with the heel of her hiking boot when he startled her in the bushes, and the wonderful Shirley MacLaine as Harry’s estranged wife, Jennifer, has hit him on the head with a milk bottle.
Nobody wants the body to come to the attention of Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs who gets paid per arrest, so they devise various lunatic schemes for hiding it. Harry gets shifted from one makeshift grave to the next and at one panic-stricken point, gets shunted away to a bathtub. All ends happily, however – except, of course, for Harry.
Shooting the film was as bizarre as the script. Set in an autumnal Vermont, the crew had expected a wealth of scarlet foliage, but an early chill meant the trees were bare and had to be made camera-worthy with stuck-on leaves. Torrential rain drove the cast into the gym of a local school when the downpour rattled on the roof and gave the sound men a tricky job to edit it out. However, The Trouble With Harry remains a quirky, highly amusing film – and watch for a trademark Hitchcock appearance in person as the man who walks past a parked car, 21 minutes into the action.
As always, the showing starts at 8.00 pm in Corrie Hall and is open to everyone, whether members of the Film Club or not. Admission is free, though contributions to heating of the hall would be – er – warmly welcomed.
