The Bickering Blanche and George

One little side-bar of Hitchcock's later movies is that a lot of his characters are pretty mean to one another. I'm not talking about those who KILL other people; I'm talking about everyday anger and snottiness and confronation.

"Frenzy" opens with a three-way argument among a pub manager, the bartender he's firing, and the barmaid who wants to stop it, that is so nastily REAL you want to turn away from the screen as these people tear into each other.
And then the "hero" goes on to snarl at a lot of people, and get snarled back at by a friend's arrogant wife.

"Marnie" has Sean Connery bullying and threatening Tippi Hedren a lot ("Right now, I'm fighting the urge to punch you in the face.")

"Psycho" has Vera Miles' self-righteous Lila Crane getting in the face of anybody (usually slow-poke men like Sam, the detective, the sheriff) who dissuades her from her task of finding her missing (dead) sister.

And so on.

Which brings us to "Family Plot" and the "loving couple" of Madame Blanche Tyler and George Lumley.

A LOT of the character comedy of "Family Plot" stems from how Blanche and George are rather always bickering, from their first cab ride ("Without my research, you'd be about as psychic as a salami") to their whispered argument over the keys to Blanches' car, to George's nasty refusal to have sex with Blanche one night ("You're an ungrateful b--tch.")

Things are pitched more humorously with Blanche and George than in the other Hitchcock movies listed above, and occasionally, the two express legitimate affection but...the arguments are more prevalent.

Two little exchanges I like (paraphrased)

Blanche: We'd been onto Eddie Shoebridge by now, but you had to go and lose the bishop!
George: (Wearily) I didn't "lose him," Blanche. He was kidnapped.

(George can't convince his taxi-dispathcer boss to give him the night off --Danny DeVito, perhaps?)

George: Will you just do me a favor, Blanche, just a favor, and not bug me about this?
Blanche: Well...you could have tried harder.

Funny stuff.

But the greatest thing of all is this:

The runaway car drive. Here are Blanche and George in a sabotaged car, George at the wheel of a car with no brakes and a stuck accelerator on a mountain road. Death on every curve.

And how do Blanche and George handle it? By ARGUING.

"Leggo of the goddamm wheel!"

"Pull on the brake! Pull on it!"

And jostling and pushing and Blanche grabbing George by his necktie (GEORGE!!) and George arguing back ("It's not me, woman! It's the BRAKES DON'T WORK!")

Perfectly organic, character-to-incident, very Hitchcockian.

Flawed it may be, but "Family Plot" at least had the arguing Blanche and George to keep thing lively.

(Oh, and the smoother Adamson and Fran don't escape, either. At film's end, Adamson throws a hissy fit at Fran when Blanche shows up,and Fran comes right back at him: "I can't BELIEVE this is happening!" "Well, what are we going to DO?")

P.S. For all their arguing, you can tell George loves Blanche. He looks heartbroken when he finds her bloodied purse at the end.