Family Plot

Family Plot (1976)

Runtime: 120 minutes

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane, Karen Black, Ed Lauter

From: Universal

This is a movie I waited to watch as before it recently debuted on 4K, the Blu-ray print (let alone the previous releases before the HD era) was notorious for being rather poor so it had to be the Hitchcock that most needed an upgrade. Thank heavens that a few weeks after the physical disk release, that UHD print became available for rental via Amazon. This being the swansong of a legendary director was good enough reason alone for the restoration being necessary, and indeed it looks **far** better than what clips I’ve watched in the past. The opening 10 or so minutes are in a low light setting so the improvement isn’t immediately apparent, but afterwards it should be easy for anyone to see.

Based on a novel, this is a mystery of the light and humorous sort—this is a black comedy. A phony spiritualist and her cab driver boyfriend (who ends up cosplaying as a lawyer) cross paths with a criminal couple who love dressing up in costumes to obfuscate their appearances. Not only are there stolen diamonds, but a missing heir needs to be found before a rich old woman passes away.

This is a good time and there are no regrets in finally experiencing this. It just has the misfortune of being the swan song of one of cinema’s greatest director, someone who created a number of classics that are still beloved today. The penultimate movie (Frenzy) being better than this does not help either. Yet there have been many bad final films from noteworthy directors so this “only” being fine is not worth any outrage. Somewhere out there in the multiverse are versions of this that would have starred the likes of Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Burt Reynolds, Faye Dunaway, or Goldie Hawn. As a fan of character actors, I will in no way carp about the actual roles being filled by Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane and Karen Black as all were good in their roles-so was Ed Lauter with his performance. Furthermore are some familiar faces to me like Charles Tyner and Warren J. Kemmerling.

A bonus is a nice John Williams score that-while varying from his norm-was still appropriate for Family Plot. This does feel old-timey even by 70’s standards and I am certain some scenes would have been done better if the director wouldn’t have been at less than 100% health-wise and was elderly at the time. That noted, this still was a fine motion picture which entertained me for 2 hours.