Foreign Intrigue (1956)

When, in 1959, Hitchcock made North By Northwest, he had to have been aware of this 1956 thriller which features a suave hero - here, it's Robert Mitchum with a suit and slicked hair playing a personal secretary to one of the world's richest men - who becomes embroiled in an foreign intrigue after the death of his employer, and like Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill, Robert Mitchum's Dave Bishop ends up in exotic locations around the world romancing a mysterious blonde, encountering mysterious trenchcoats, in a plot involving identity mix-ups and duplicitous femme fatales (and their mothers), all presented in a richly-detailed, unhurried technicolour - a solid romantic suspense movie, albeit one that flags a little at the two-third mark unlike the rivetting from start to finish North By Northwest.

★★★★☆

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The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

The similarities between this 1956 Alfred Hitchcock thriller and the director's one in 1934 stop at the title and the fact both movies tell the story of a couple and their child becoming embroiled in a international intrigue, (this time in Marrakesh, Morocco, not Switzerland) so there is no point in comparing the two - viewers should sit back and enjoy this grand, elaborate and largely mindless thriller- a grand bubble of thrilling nothing - beautifully, interestingly filmed in exotic locations with terrific performances from unlikely Hitchcock blonde Doris Day and Hitchcock regular James Stewart as the couple thrust headlong into a long string of elaborate Hitchcock setpieces including the extended scene, unnecessary and entirely indulgent, at the taxidermist's office and the 12-minute dialogue-free Rififi-esque finale.

★★★★☆

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The Wrong Man (1956)

Alfred Hitchcock refrains from many of his tricks and lets a harrowing true story do all the work in this 1956 thriller about a New York musician (Henry Fonda) accused of a string of armed robberies and his wife (Vera Miles) who suffers a psychological breakdown during what becomes a protracted Kafkaesque criminal investigation.

★★★★☆

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A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

The clever trick of the Ira Levin book can't be played out in film, certainly not three times, but this 1956 film adaptation starring a young Robert Wagner does a great job telling the suspenseful and at one key moment terrifying neo-noir story of a "talented mr ripley" who will do anything, even murder, to worm his way into his girlfriend's family's fortune.

★★★★☆

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