To Catch A Thief (PG)

To catch some rays, more like. Alfred Hitchcock’s follow up to Rear Window plays like a well-earned break, as historian and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich points out in his languid but lovingly detailed commentary. Thief opens on a picture in a travel-agency window and cuts to the French Riviera, using the then-young arts of VistaVision and helicopter shooting to amplify the setting’s seductions. It frolics, it flirts. It’s Hitch on hols and heaps of fun.

Cary Grant came out of semi-retirement to star and who wouldn’t? This must have been a breeze for the old smoothie, putting him back under the lens of his Suspicion and Notorious director. Typically for Hitch, it’s a wrong-man movie. Unusually for the roly-poly cine-Buddha, it’s a whodunnit. Grant’s retired cat-burglar has to catch a copycat thief so as to clear his own name of suspicion. En route, he befriends an heiress (an extravagantly clad Grace Kelly). Much fruitiness follows, with enough cleavage-sized gags and firework-hued innuendo to upset ’50s censors.

DVD Extras: Disc-wise, this isn’t quite the full shag: Bogdanovich and Laurent Bouzereau’s commentary is great, but the docs divide between an oldie on costumes and some more recent Making Ofs that pack decent archive footage alongside benevolent but underwhelming gush from Hitch’s daughter and grand-daughter. Still, Thief does give off a warm glow, not least because of its location. Wish you were there?

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