THE TROUBLEWITH HARRY

The Trouble with

The inside story on what happened when Hollywoodand Hitchcock came to Vermont in the 1950s

71

72 73

Alfred Hitchcock was upset. It was just past noon on a balmy October day in 1954 and the world-famousdirector was about to shoot a scene in Craftsbury Common for his movie, The Trouble With Harry. Momentsbefore he was ready to yell Action!, a boisterous horde of schoolchildren poured out of the CraftsburyAcademy and streamed onto the Common. The shot was ruined.Miffed, Hitchcock turned to an assistant and asked, What shall we do about the patter of little feet? Before

the assistant could answer, the portly, world-famous director offered his own one-word solution: Chloroform?While the exchange sounds almost too good to be true, it has been told, and re-told, by many who were there

to witness it. Not only is it vintage Hitchcock, its also an intriguing glimpse into the troubles he encountered inVermont while filming the black comedy that the New York Times in 1955 called a curiously whimsical thing.

The Trouble With Harry was a departure for Hitchcock. His thrillers Dial M for Murder and Rear Windowhad just been released, both to great acclaim, and the director had decided to try his hand at a quirky comedy.(Prior to Harry, Hitchcocks only other American-made comedy wasMr. and Mrs. Smith with Carole Lombardand Robert Montgomery, released in 1941.) The film tells the story of a group of rural New Englanders who

discover a corpse, the eponymous Harry, in their woods. As the movies trailer noted, The trouble with Harry is he is dead. Several of thefilms characters believe they are responsible for his demise.Paramount, Hitchcocks studio, was lukewarm about the movie but the director reportedly liked its understated humor and saw it as a nice lit-

tle pastorale. Because he set it in New England it also gave him a chance to shoot on location in Vermont and stayand eatat the Lodge atSmugglers Notch in Stowe, then nationally known for its fine cuisine. The crew stayed in the Mountain Road Motel and the Green Mountain Inn.As Shirley MacLaine, who made her film debut in Harry, later wrote, Hitchcock was a connoisseur of food and had great knowledge in this area.

We shot in Vermont because the hotel we stayed in, the Lodge, was famous for the best food in Stowe, Vermont. He liked the leaves of Vermont buthe really appreciated the food.

By Robert Kiener

THE TROUBLEWITH HARRY

State trooper Richard Carter, left, stands with Alfred Hitchcock and Sgt. Frank Constantine, Stowe 1954. The men were assigned to the production, and the studiopaid the state $1,500 for their services. Carter had a bit part in the movie. In a movie still Hitchcock chats with stars John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine, who madeher film debut in The Trouble With Harry. Preceeding pages: Craftsbury Common as it is today. (Photo by Glenn Callahan) Forsythe and MacLaine share a moment as agroup of local women look on. This photo is from a series of snapshots taken between September and October 1954 donated by Everett W. Demeritt to theCraftsbury Historical Society, which graciously allowed access to their collection of historical documents and photographs on the film.

Vermonts fall foliage was a big draw for Hitchcock because he thought itwould provide a strong contrast to the dark, macabre story line. As heexplained, Ive always been interested in establishing a contrast, in goingagainst the traditionalWith Harry I took melodrama out of the pitch-blacknight and brought it out in the sunshine. Its as if I had set up a murderalongside a rustling brook and spilled a drop of blood in the clear water.

A fter his location scouts toured much of northern Vermont,Hitchcock thought he had found the perfect bit of sunshine inpicture-postcard-perfect Craftsbury Common. The film crewfilled the Common with cows, built a few sets, renamed the villageHighwater and began shooting in the fall of 1954. But the skiesquickly darkened. Literally.Strong winds and persistent rain began stripping many of the trees of

their rich autumn colors. It was a terrible foliage season, remembersStowes Frank Lackey. Although Hitchcock expected a quick shoot, for 20of the 23 days of filming, the weather was overcast or raining. Undaunted,he built sets inside Morrisvilles American Legion Hall where he shot manyof the interior, and even some exterior shots. But he also encountered prob-lems there. Rain echoed off the buildings tin roof and ruined shots. A500-pound Technicolor camera crashed to the floor, narrowly missingHitchcock. At least one scene was filmed in Stowe, on Edson Hill.But the trees were another matter. As they continued to lose their

leaves, crew members used extreme measures to save Vermonts trade-mark Fall Foliage look.Anne Wilson, co-presidentof the CraftsburyHistorical Society,explains, I know the crewtried tying maple leaves toan old elm by theCraftsbury Academy.Townsfolk watched inbemusement as rattled artdirectors re-draped treeswith branches that werestill full of leaves. As onereporter later noted,Vermonters who saw thatsight said they wouldnever forget it. But in theend, Mother Naturerefused to cooperate. Theleaves continued to fall.

Frustrated that his production looked like it could soon be gone with thewind, Hitchcock sent some of the crew to as far away as Virginia to findlandscapes that might double for Vermont. But they returned with bad news;they couldnt find anything that matched the beauty of Vermonts landscape.But, hey, this is Hollywood. Hitchcock ordered his crew to gather up

boxes of fallen leaves and had a refrigerated train-car full of them shippedback to Tinsel Town where staffers painstakingly painted and glued thou-sands of them onto plaster trees. He then shot several of the exterior(rain-delayed) scenes against special effect mattes. Sharp-eyed viewerscan spot the changes in color between the scenes shot in Vermont and thosecreated on the Hollywood soundstage. The leaves, however, look great. Hefinished the film around Christmas, several months behind schedule.Despite Hitchcocks skill and determination, The Trouble With Harry

was a box office failurea rarity for himwhen it was released in theUnited States. As John McCarten of the New Yorker noted, AlfredHitchcock, whose work has been going steadily downhill ever since hearrived in Hollywood, skids to preposterous depths in The Trouble WithHarry. This is an over-blown joke about a corpse. Others complainedthat its humor was too subtle.However, the film played for a solid year in England and Italy and a

year and a half in France. In 1971 Hitchcock declared it was his favoriteof all his films. He also said it contained his favorite line from all hismovies. As Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) is dragging Harry away,the reserved Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick) sees him and asks, Whatseems to be the trouble, Captain?

Clockwise, from top left: A movie poster for the film. Shirley MacLaine, JohnForsythe, Edmund Gwenn, and Mildred Natwick discuss what to doabout Harry, whos lying in the bathtubdead. World premiere of TheTrouble With Harry at the Paramount Theater in Barre, a two-day affairwith visiting critics, remarks by the governor, and a lobster dinner. It rainedfor the premiere, appropriately, as it had for 17 days of the 28-day shootin Vermont. MacLaine chats with Ernest Emerson of Morrisville andNancy Graham of Stowe. Graham was MacLaines stand-in, whileEmerson stood in for Jerry Mathers, who played MacLaines young son

The main purpose in taking a motion picture troupe some three thousandmiles from Hollywood to Vermont was to photograph the warmth of theautumn foliage. We were not disappointed.

But now, glancing into my rear-vision mirror of memory, I particularlyrecall another sort of warmththe fine friendliness of the Vermont people.

They did so many things that made our work easier while we were film-ing The Trouble With Harry. Such things as baking blueberry muffinsneeded for a scene and then voluntarily bringing along several dozen

more muffins for the cast and crewto eat. There were the people whopassed on the information where wecould obtain an old cara 1913Buick roadsteras a prop for thepicture. And the owners only

request was that we drive it no faster than 40 miles an hour. There wasthe farmwife who loaned us a needed ancient purse for a scene after wehad scoured antique shops without success.

These are a few stray incidents that stay in my mind. There are many oth-ers but the over-all reaction is that the legendary impression of the nativeVermonter as cold, brooding and suspicious is entirely false.

They minded their business and let us mind ours which we appreciated.They helped us when they could. They realized that we had a job to doand that although the motion picture is the world of make-believe, themaking of a motion picture is a hard-working reality.

There was more than these tangible expressions of cooperation, muchmore. These were the many things that might be summed up in the wordneighborliness. I will always remember the people of Vermont.

I also will remember the beauty of the countryside in autumn with naturespalette of red, golds, yellows, browns and greens. There were the glow-ing maples, the oaks, the beeches and other foliage with their kaleido-scopic changes of color.

I felt that The Trouble With Harry called for a rural background whichwould be as much a part of the story as the characters and plot. Thestorya comedy about a bodydeals with the lives of simple and attrac-tive people in a framework of natural beauty. This we found in Vermont, inthe neighborhood of Stowe, Craftsbury Common, East Craftsbury,Morrisville, and elsewhere.

As for the picture, it is a comedy but it has its suspense. You see TheTrouble With Harry is that hes dead. But if one has to die, can you thinkof a more beautiful place to do so than Vermont in autumn?

From Vermont Life, Autumn 1955

Hitchcock talksabout Vermonters George Adams, Jr., of Stowe, loaned his 1913

Buick to filmmakers. Ruth Nelson (front) andMarleneMiles in the car during a break in filming.

Arnie Rogers in the film. RobbyWilliams, who interviewedHitchcock in 1954 while a 14-year-old student at the CraftsburyAcademy, on the Common lastfall. (Glenn Callahan) A film pro-gram from The Bijou Theatre inMorrisville. Forsythe (Sam Mar-lowe) and Royal Dano (CalvinWiggs) in the scene whereCalvin asks about the uncannylikeness between the man inSams sketch and the deadbody found in the woods.

74

77

Hitchcock liked the films subtle wit somuch he required writers who wrote thedry, devilish introductory monologues to histelevision show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents,to study it. As he once said of the film,Nothing amuses me so much as under-statement. Although some reviewers havedescribed it as lesser Hitchcock, it hasbeen re-released and has developed some-thing of a cult following.Several times each summer a tourist will

wander into Craftsburys well-kept museumand askAnneWilson or whomever is volun-teering that day, Wasnt there a movie made

here a long time ago? SaysWilson, If theyre really interested,well show them the Harry memo-rabilia we keep in the basement.Often they go around town takingpictures of scenes that were in thefilm. Its amazing that so littlehas changed here in 50-someyears.Although Hitchcock and his

actors stayed in Stowe, there islittle evidence of their visit.The Lodge has been convertedto condos and as Frank Lackeyremembers, The town wasexcited to have movie starshere but we didnt see much ofthem. Every morning all ofthem would head out toMorrisville and Craftsbury.Stowe-based photographer

Paul Rogers has a 35mm slidehis father, a former Stowe doctor, took ofHitchcock shooting a scene at Edson Hillin Stowe.I believe my dad treated Hitchcock andsome of the crew when they were here,says Rogers. So he was apparentlyallowed on the set to watch. Stowe artistStan Marc Wright was commissioned topaint the pictures that were supposedlypainted by Sam Marlowe, John Forsythescharacter in the movie.

His picture might have bombed atthe box office but what kind ofreviews did the master director getfrom the residents of Stowe, Craftsbury, andMorrisville? Turns out they were prettymixed too. I heard that some people herethought he was a terrible snob and veryrude, says Craftsburys Anne Wilson. Notso, says 69-year-old Craftsbury Christmastree farmer RobbyWilliams, who inter-viewed Hitchcock in 1954 for a schoolassignment while he was a 14-year-old stu-dent at the Craftsbury Academy. He gaveme as much time as I wanted and answeredall my questions. He was a real gentleman.A newspaper reporter once noted that

local opinions of Hitchcock ranged fromaloof to friendly and from quiet toa pugnacious bulldog. But its hard toargue with the plainspoken Craftsburywoman who summed up her impressionof the man with just one word: Oval.

Clockwise, from top left: State trooper Richard Carter in aposed gag with actor Royal Dano, 1954. Royal Danotold me, Look at me, not at the camera, when I was beingfilmed. Good, professional advice. Dr. Sam Rogers, ofStowe, took this slide of Hitchcock during filming. His son,

Paul, says: Dad was asmall-town doctor andamateur photographer inthe fifties. Hitchcock cameto Stowe to film scenes forHarry one fall, and tradi-tion has it that both he andemerging actress ShirleyMacLaine visited Dadsoffice onMaple Street. Per-

haps thats why he was allowed on set up on Edson Hill. IfDad were with us, Im sure he would have stories to tell.Mildred Naticks character lived in this CraftsburyCommon house, shown here as a scene is being filmed. Itlater burned. The East Craftsbury farmhouse whereMacLaines character lived. Gwenn and Forsythe dig upand re-bury Harrys body. Hitchcock, with cinematogra-pher Robert Burks, checks the shot in this studio still. JerryMathers encounters Harry in the woods.

STOWE GUIDE & MAGAZINE, 2011

Clockwise, from top left: Alfred Hitchcock, Mildred Dunnock, who playedMrs. Wiggs, the proprietress of Wiggs Emporium, and screenwriterJohn Michael Hayes on the steps of Wiggs Emporium, October1954. Dunnock, Hitch, and Edmund Gwenn on set. John Forsytheand Gwenn chat in between takes in this Hollywood publicity still.Hitchcock, on location in Craftsbury Common, gives an interview toa group of Craftsbury Academy students. Local Everett Demeritt

had this snapshot of actual filming; its the scene where Mrs. Wiggs and artist Sam Marlowe(Dunnock and Forsythe) discuss his paintings. Wiggs Emporium, the village store and postoffice in the film, was just a facade and dismantled after the shoot. Theron Strong and RobPaterson, pictured, were hired to work as night watchmen on the sets.

76