Wonderful character development!

Why so much hype?

Please don't spend money on this.

Disappointment for a huge fan!

While British couple Bob and Jill Lawrence and their daughter Betty are holidaying in Switzerland they become friends with Louis Bernard. He is then shot but before he dies he asks Bob to get a note that is hidden in his room and take it to the British Consulate. He retrieves the note but before he can do anything with it he is handed another note… this one warns him that Betty has been kidnapped and he will never see her again if he tells anybody about the content of the first note.The Lawrences return to London and are questioned by the authorities but don't say anything. A phone call then reminds them of the threat to their daughter. This is traced to Wapping where Bob ultimately finds the villains, led by Abbott who appeared friendly when they spoke to him in Switzerland. He and his associates are plotting to kill a foreign dignitary during a performance at the Albert Hall. It will require some quick thinking if Abbott's plans are to be thwarted and Betty saved.Given that this film is over eighty years old it isn't surprising that it feels a bit dated at times but not as much as one might expect. At only seventy five minutes it certainly doesn't drag but at the same time it doesn't feel rushed. The early scenes, in Switzerland, do a great job of setting up the story and introducing the key characters. Once Betty had been kidnapped the tension rose and presented a real dilemma for our protagonists; on the one hand the bad guys are threatening their daughter on the other they are told that if the assassination isn't stopped Europe could be plunged into another war. There is some good action; especially in the final shoot out. The cast is impressive with Leslie Banks and Edna Best doing a solid job as Bob and Jill Lawrence and young Nova Pilbeam doing well as Betty however it is Peter Lorre who dominates proceedings as Abbott… a surprisingly likable character given what he is doing; I'd never have guessed that he didn't actually speak English so had to deliver his lines phonetically. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of older films.

In Hitchcock's 'British' version of the film made two decades before the one with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, it's the villains who are really well cast, with Peter Lorre and Cicely Oates turning in deliciously creepy performances. And there are some really nice touches here – the scene in the dentist's chair (who doesn't squirm at least a little seeing that setting, with those tools), a shot of Oates through bleary, hypnotized eyes, and of course the scene in the Royal Albert Hall, where suspense builds with an imminent assassination. It's nice that the film is to the point at 75 minutes, but it's a little awkward in the first part of the film, there are some odd plot points, and the shootout at the end is tediously long (it's telling that Hitchcock would omit that in the 1956 version). It's worth watching but certainly not a classic.

The fact that Hitchcock saw fit to remake The Man Who Knew Too Much 22 years after his first attempt says a lot about his earlier rendition: it's got potential, but it's rough-around-the-edges, with too much guff to make it a wholly satisfying experience. Unsurprisingly, the 1956 version is the slicker and more enjoyable of the two films, Hitch having refined his style over the intervening decades.The 1934 film stars Leslie Banks and Edna Best as married English couple Lawrence and Jill, who uncover a plot to assassinate a foreign diplomat, which forces the terrorists to kidnap their daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam) in order to keep them quiet. Of course, Lawrence and Jill being the protagonists in a Hitchcock film, they decide to track down their missing girl by themselves…While not a particularly remarkable example of Hitchcock's work, the film suffering from those foibles of early film-making, stiff performances and weak pacing, as well as a shootout at the end that doesn't know when to quit, the film is still worth checking out if only to see how it measures up to the better-known remake. Banks and Best don't come out of the comparison too well, being rather bland when compared to James Stewart and Doris Day, but Peter Lorre effortlessly makes his mark as villain Abbott.

Alfred Hitchcock made two versions of this film. This one and he remade it in 1956. Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks) his wife Jill (Edna Best) and his daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam) are a British family on a vacation in Switzerland. They befriend a Frenchman named Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) who is assassinated, but before he dies he tells Jill some vital information to be told to the British Government. The terrorists who killed Louis led by a man named Abbott (Peter Lorre) kidnap Betty so Bob won't tell the police and they go off to get their daughter back. The film works because your invested in what Bob and Jill are doing and you want to see them get their daughter back. Lorre does a good job as Abbott and when I watch the film I still think of him as Hans Beckert from M. I feel the suspense was good but could have been better. Overall I give it 8/10.