To Catch a Thief

This was the first of 5 Alfred Hitchcock films made in VistaVision and the last of 3 with Grace Kelly; he and Cary Grant would work together once more, on North by Northwest. The money was not split evenly: Grant drew more than 700,000 dollars from his 10 per cent of the gross, while Hitchcock took less than 50,000. The French material was shot in the Alpes-Maritimes, at Cannes, Nice, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Saint-Jeannet and Tourrettes-sur-Loup, but the bulk of the picture was built at the Paramount lot in Hollywood. Kelly drives a metallic blue 1953 Sunbeam Alpine, and the costumes, including the gold lamé gown for the ball, are by Edith Head. 3 nominations came at the 28th Academy Awards: Robert Burks won for colour cinematography, while colour art direction and Head’s costumes lost. Hitchcock takes his own cameo about 10 minutes in, sitting beside Grant on a bus. It is the only Hitchcock title Paramount still owns; the other 5 he made at that studio passed to him 8 years after release under the terms of his contract. A good fit if you want the weight placed on loaded conversation between two stars rather than on pursuit. Not for viewers expecting the usual Hitchcock dose of suspense; that was the most common complaint when it opened.