Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot

Unlike most of Alfred Hitchcock's (1976) films where the director prefers to tell a story more in visual images than dialogue, there is a great deal of talk in his last film Family Plot, especially in the opening sequences. One of Hitchcock's most common themes is that of the innocent individual who wrongly finds himself in a terrible situation. In Family Plot, there are two near-innocent individuals caught in a situation that is over their heads and more terrible than they imagine. Madame Blanch and her boyfriend George are small-time grifters who use Blanch's pseudo-psychic business to milk customers out of their money. Blanch finds one old woman, Julia Rainbird, who wants to locate her now-adult lost nephew so he can inherit her fortune before she dies. In return, Blanch and George can collect a $10,000 reward.

Instead of pretending to find an heir, Blanch actually intends to find him with George doing the detective work. On their way home, in near-delirium over their new found good fortune, Hitchcock' provides one of his uses of construction when the pair nearly run down a woman who passes in front of their cab. She will turn out to be Fran, the wife of the missing heir George and Blanch seek, Arthur Adamson. Much more dangerous and experienced criminals, Fran and Arthur kidnap people and in return receive large diamonds they keep hidden. Ironically, neither wants to be found. Hitchcock keeps the two couples in contact with each other by a seri

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old you about danger, didn't I? First it makes you sick, then when you get through it, it makes you very, very loving" (Hitchcock, 1976). Hitchcock's usual tightly constructed plot and attention to detail are evident in Family Plot. His use of photography is also something that reinforces his themes of greed, crime, and innocence entrapped by danger. In one scene in the cemetery, we see this when George and a newly made widow are stalking each other. They are walking on grass paths, but Hitchcock uses an angle shot from above that makes both of them seem like they are trapped in a maze. This captive perspective reinforces Blanch and George becoming more captive to the evil and danger of Arthur and Fran. Hitchcock also uses his trademark irony to reinforce some of the minor themes in the film. Typically lacking any religious overtone in his films, in Family Plot Hitchcock makes a few pointed references to religion. When Fran wonders how Arthur was so readily able to kidnap the Bishop, he explains to her that religious people are so inhibited and "polite" and trained to follow the church that none of them dared moved in the cathedral (Hitchcock, 1976). In another scene, Blanche and George are in a diner. As they

Category: Film - A