Hitchcock's Great Last Lesson (SPOILERS)
OK, so "Family Plot" isn't one of the Hitchcock greats. It's most famous for one thing: it was Hitchcock's last movie (though he didn't know it would be at the time.)
Hitch was old and sick when he made it. The budget was fairly low (so was "Psycho"'s, but this movie needed more size and scope to it). He couldn't get really big stars. The first hour, especially, is too slow and talky.
However, it gets a lot better in that second hour. Plenty of set-pieces (the church, the runaway car, the cemetary). And Hitchcock's youthful players do their best to overcome the lethargy of his direction.
Aside from the good set-pieces and the performances (of Barbara Harris and William Devane in particular), I think the best thing in "Family Plot" comes near the end: a spectacular "final lesson" from Hitchcock in how to maximize the impact of your climactic story-telling, turning the story itself into the set-piece.
Allow me to explain: What attracted Hitchcock to "The Rainbird Pattern," the book from which "Family Plot" was made, was how two seemingly unrelated stories slowly come together, and eventually collide.
Story One: Fake psychie Madame Blance Tyler and her boyfriend George Lumley hunt for a missing heir to a fortune, a man who should be 40 by now.
Story Two: Jewler Arthur Adamson and his helpmate Fran kidnap dignataries for diamond ransoms, holding each victim in a secret room off the Adamson townhouse garage.
The collision comes when Madame Blanche accidentally arrives at the Adamson home and sees a kidnap victim being moved by the villains.
In the book, this incident played in the driveway of the villains' country home. It was a "one-shot" deal.
But Hitchcock (and scenarist Ernest Lehman) turned that single collision in the book into a witty series of "mounting collisions"in the movie that show Hitchcock's plotting skills at their best. Observe.
Madame Blanche has found the home address for Arthur Adamson and drives off to tell him he's the heir to a fortune. We kind of forget about her. Now things play out:
1. Cut to the Adamson home. Adamson and Fran prepare their recent kidnap victim, a bishop, to be driven to safety in return for a diamond. They enter the secret room in the shadows where they keep him, and give him a knock-out injection. At that very moment, we HEAR THE DOORBELL RING. We realize: omg, Madame Blanche is here!
That's one.
2. Adamson and Fran leave the unconscious bishop, run upstairs to the front door hallway. Fran looks through the peephole, sees Blanche, tells Adamson. The heretofore cool, calm, collected Adamson suddenly throws a temper tantrum: "I can't believe this is happening!" We laugh at his upset.
That's two.
3. Adamson and Fran sneak back to the garage in hopes that Blanche will think they aren't home and leave. Meanwhile, Blanche leaves a note on the door and returns to her car parked just outside the Adamson garage, blocking the garage door.
In the garage, Adamson and Fran have put the bishop in the car, and Adamson pushes the button on his automatic garage door opener. It opens: revealing Blanche, and her car blocking Adamson's way. We laugh at Adamson's exasperation, but we're nervous: Blanche is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That's three.
4. Blanche shares with the angry Adamson the happy news that he's heir to a fortune. A perplexed Adamson realizes Blanche doesn't know he's the kidnapper, and all is well -- until Fran opens the car door to move the unconscious bishop's red robe and he falls halfway out. Blanche sees this, runs. Adamson uses the automatic garage door opener as a Hitchockian weapon: he closes the door and entraps Blanche inside with him.
That's four. And this great little sequence is over.
It's Hitchcock, through and through, with each little "twist" (the ringing doorbell, Blanche's car blocking the garage, Adamson using the garage door opener to entrap Blanche) building upon itself. This is the satisfaction of seeing a master storyteller tell us the tale in a masterful (and humorous, and suspenseful) way.
I loved it.
P.S. One more thing. I saw "Family Plot" at its Los Angeles premiere in 1976 at Filmex. Mr. Hitchcock was in the audience. When that doorbell rang on screen, the audience gasped -- who's that? It's BLANCHE! Oh, no! -- then the audience laughed. And then we gave Mr. Hitchcock a big round of applause for this, perhaps the last great moment in a Hitchcock movie, ever.