Family Plot

A film set in California. Blanche is a medium. She says she talks to the dead and holds séances for her clients. All of it is an act. Her boyfriend George gathers the information and she uses it. An old woman gives her a job. Julia Rainbird is rich. Years ago she had her sister's illegitimate child given away. Now her conscience troubles her. She wants that child found. She offers ten thousand dollars. From there the film is a search. George goes about in the guise of a cab driver and asks questions. Records, cemeteries, old neighbours and a name. At the same time another line is running. Arthur Adamson is a jeweller. With his girlfriend Fran he kidnaps people. Their method is clean. They take someone rich and ask for a diamond as ransom. Then they release them. They hide the diamonds in a chandelier. The narrative runs the two lines separately and the viewer sees the connection first. The child being sought is Arthur. He buried his own past. He set a fire and had himself declared dead. George and Blanche looking for him becomes a threat. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but coincidence: its idea is that all four people misunderstand each other and that nobody knows what they are looking for. One section takes place on a mountain road. A car with its brake line cut and a long descent. The scene sits between comedy and tension. The last scene is on a staircase and ends with a wink. This is Alfred Hitchcock's last film. He made it at seventy-six. The source is Victor Canning's novel. The screenplay is by Ernest Lehman. The music is by John Williams. Barbara Harris, Bruce Dern, Karen Black and William Devane are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hitchcock's lighter vein and 1970s American cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting suspense; the narrative is mostly comedy and the sense of danger is low.