Family Plot

Pick a favorite director and look at his/her last movie. In some cases, they tried to go out with a bang, a big message movie, a huge epic, or sometimes just a middle of the road story that is neither great or awful, just somewhere in between. Making his last movie in an illustrious career, Alfred Hitchcock went down that last road with his 1976 comedy/thriller Family Plot. It is not highly regarded as many of his other movies still has that charm we've come to expect from the director.

It's odd because watching the movie I didn't chuckle once, didn't think I was watching a comedy at all. I'll have to chalk that up to previous Hitchcock movies which never even touched comedy. Sure, there were moments that you chuckled here and there, but that was usually a result of the script providing some odd, funny moment. So I finish Family Plot and read up on it some and the IMDB genre listing has it as 'comedy/crime/thriller.' I was okay on the last two, but comedy? Really? Maybe I missed something.

Working a scam as a spiritualist/psychic, Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) stumbles into a job that will pay her $10,000. One of her customers (Cathleen Nesbitt) wants Blanche to find out the whereabouts of the rightful heir to her family's fortunes. The man -- then a 17-year old kid -- was supposedly killed in a tragic house fire that claimed his mother and father, but his body was never found. Blanche takes the offer and with some help from her cab driver/private detective boyfriend, George Lumley (Bruce Dern) begins to investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding the boy's death from 25 years earlier.

George quickly figures out the boy didn't die and starts to follow the clues. The boy is now a man, Arthur Adamson (William Devane), who is leading a double life, one as a diamond distributor, and two, as a kidnapper who ransoms people off with his girlfriend, Fran (Karen Black). Blanche and George somewhat innocently pursue him with no idea of what's really going on, thinking they will be helping Adamson out. Arthur on the other hand wants nothing to do with them and must figure out what to do with a rather high-up official locked in his basement as his next kidnapping victim with these junior detectives tailing him.

Looking back on the movie, there were parts that I can see now were going for laughs, but they ended up just pissing me off. At one point, the brakes on Blanche and George's car have been cut (check it out here) as they maneuver down a mountain road. Blanche's hysterics aren't funny, they're just annoying. What to do as the car veers out of control? Grab the driver and the wheel while screaming hysterically! As for other Hitchcock updates, much of the humor (I guess) comes from sex jokes and swearing which comes across as lazy. Dealing with all sorts of Hollywood censorship codes earlier in his career, Hitchcock dealt with sex subtly -- think Notorious or North by Northwest. But here, it's just awkward.

The story itself is a good one although Blanche and George never seem to figure out that if this person disappeared years ago there's a good chance he doesn't want to be found. The coincidence that Arthur and Fran are kidnapping masters is a little much, but because Devane is such a strong, reliable villain with his gigantic smile and shifty eyes, you hardly notice it. Black is given little to do as Fran but make the couple more sympathetic...if that's possible with kidnappers. Dern is at his best and does get a few laughs because his character is so off the wall, but then again, when wasn't a Bruce Dern character a little crazy? Juggling his cab driving duties while helping his girlfriend does provide some lighter moments. Harris gets to overact as she dupes customers, and the twist at the end isn't really a twist at all. Just listen closely in the last scene, and you'll know what I mean.

With all that said, I still enjoyed the movie. An average Alfred Hitchcock movie is still better than many of the movies out there. The comedic elements didn't work for me, but it is not enough to say this isn't a flick worth watching, especially because it was Hitchcock's last in a long, distinguished career. If you'd like to see this movie, it's available on Youtube broken up into parts, starting here with Part 1 of 13. A good but not great Hitchcock movie that tries too hard.

Family Plot <----trailer (1976): ** 1/2 /****