Toronto Star (05/Jun/1993) - Great Reunions

Details

• article: Great Reunions
• author(s): Jim Bawden
• newspaper: Toronto Star (05/Jun/1993)
• keywords: Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock, Edmund Gwenn, Shirley MacLaine, The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Article

Great Reunions

Edmund Gwenn won a supporting Oscar as Kris Kringle in the often revived Miracle On 34th Street (1947). A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock's, Gwenn muttered on his deathbed, "Dying's easy; it's comedy that's difficult." He shows what he meant in Hitch's The Trouble With Harry (1956), one of the director's few comedies. Those who think there's nothing funny about a corpse that refuses to go away obviously have never seen this flick. The setting is Vermont in full autumnal glory and Gwenn is retired sea captain Albert Wiles, who believes he's the murderer of Harry Worp. But so does dotty Mildred Dunnock. And widow Shirley MacLaine believes the body is that of her dead husband. The dialogue is cheerful, never morbid and Gwenn, in one of his last acting assignments, gets into the spirit of things (Sun., 8 p.m. on AE).