Rated: Unrated

Here's a weird one. What to make of this film? You wonder whether Hitchcock's heart and soul was really behind the making of this film for it has a feel of filming by numbers about it. It's as though Hitch, then in his mid-fifties, was looking back at his catalogue of films and, with a view to his legacy and posterity, decided there wasn't enough light romantic mysterious in it and decided with this film to address the balance. Pure conjecture on my part but with a classic like Rear Window just a year or so before this film, there has to be a reason behind the great man's sudden though fleeting loss of form.

Moreover, although a thread of sophisticated eroticism runs through this romantic - comedy thriller, it remains an unconvincing tale of a reformed jewel thief attempting to catch his imitator. Otherwise, it's one long MacGuffin, lacking suspense and credibility, and another reason behind it's relative failure may have been that this was no more than a hasty vehicle cobbled together to team his current blonde obsession, Grace Kelly, with his old favourite, Cary Grant. The real star, however, is the French Riviera, captured, along with an Oscar, by cinematographer Robert Burks.

Unlike most of Hitch's films, time has not been kind to this one, but the leads remain an eyeful of elegant beauty, and there is the odd moment of wit, mostly provided by Jessie Royce Landis. Some French dialogue.