(1976)
3
Patrick Legare
Working from an amusing script by acclaimed scribe Ernest Lehman (The King and I, North by Northwest), Alfred Hitchcock pieced together this entertaining fluff that mainly serves as a reminder of his better films. Family Plot certainly contains a decent share of thrills and laughs, but the end result is barely above average. There are no instantly memorable comedy sequences or any of the breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat thrills that seem to define a great Hitchcock film. In fact, there's never much tension of any kind, even during a careening, drunken ride by Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris down a mountain road in a car with no brakes. The scene is obviously a playful take on Cary Grant's similar ride in North by Northwest, but in Family Plot, the concept seems dated and phony-looking. Other similar scenes that are supposed to be thrilling instead seem to conclude too quickly before the tension has a chance to build, particularly the ending which climaxes with a total lack of excitement. Dern and Harris make an okay team as do William Devane and Karen Black as the villains, but neither pairing has any romantic electricity to it. Harris -- who received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy -- has a few lines that reveal her smoldering sexuality, but Dern's nerdy cab driver only serves to quash such heat. Hitchcock's cameo comes in silhouette behind an office door at the film's 40-minute mark.
Family Plot on AllMovie
Family Plot (1976)
