page_title: The Trouble with Harry
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: The Trouble with Harry / Production
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Jerry Mathers from the trailer for the film The Trouble With Harry.
context_page_description: The Trouble with Harry is a 1955 American Technicolor black comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes was based on the 1950 novel by Jack Trevor Story. It starred Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, Jerry Mathers and Shirley MacLaine in her film debut. The Trouble with Harry was released in the United States on September 30, 1955, then re-released in 1984 once the distribution rights had been acquired by Universal Pictures.
  The action in The Trouble with Harry takes place during a sun-filled autumn in the Vermont countryside. The fall foliage and the beautiful scenery around the village, as well as Bernard Herrmann's light-filled score, all set an idyllic tone. The story is about how the residents of a small Vermont village react when the dead body of a man named Harry is found on a hillside. The film is, however, not really a murder mystery; it is essentially a romantic comedy with thriller overtones, in which the corpse serves as a Macguffin. Four village residents end up working together to solve the problem of what to do with Harry. In the process the younger two fall in love and become a couple, soon to be married.
context_section_description: Primary location shooting took place in Craftsbury, Vermont. Assuming that the town would be in full foliage, the company showed up for outdoor shots on September 27, 1954. To the filmmakers' shock, there was hardly any foliage left; to achieve a full effect, leaves were glued to the trees. Several scenes in the film had to be shot in a rented high school gym because of persistent rain. In the gym, a 500-lb (226-kg) camera fell from a great height and barely missed hitting Hitchcock, and the sound of the rain on the roof of the gym necessitated extensive post-production re-recording. Other locations included Morrisville and Barre, with the shooting lasting up to December of that year. Full details on the making of the film are in Steven DeRosa's book Writing with Hitchcock.
  The paintings of the character Sam Marlowe were painted by American abstract expressionist artist John Ferren, who was present during principal photography in Vermont. While there, he instructed John Forsythe in the correct painting technique for his on-screen work.  Hitchcock was particularly interested in Ferren's work, for his vivid use of color, which he thought would be resonant with the autumnal colors of New England.  The sketch of the corpse, Harry Worp, was done on location by Ferren's wife, Rae Ferren, also a fine artist.  Hitchcock and Ferren very much enjoyed collaborating, and as a result of this first project together, he was invited several years later to design the "special sequence" core to the 1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo. The panoramic drawing for the opening credits was done by Saul Steinberg.
  Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In The Trouble with Harry, he can be seen 21 minutes into the film as he walks past a parked limousine while an old man looks at paintings for sale at the roadside stand.
  The corpse, Harry Worp, was played by  Philip Truex (1911-2008), who was the son of character actor Ernest Truex.
caption: The title shot in the film trailer shows the discovery of Harry by Arnie (Jerry Mathers).
exif: {"Image DateTime": "2010:04:05 16:51:02", "Image ExifOffset": "58", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "106", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6758"}