Before World War II, Robie had put hisĪcrobatic training to use as a jewel thief operating on the Côte d’Azur and was nicknamed Le Chat (The Cat) by the French press for his gravity-defying ability to soundlessly enter and exit hotel rooms and apartments of his wealthy victims. To Catch a Thief, the 1952 novel upon which the screenplay was based, tells the story of John Robie, an American expatriate who is trying to live a quiet life in a villa, which he audaciously names Villa des Bijoux (Villa of the Jewels), in the South of France.
As was common throughout Hitchcock’s career, this film was adapted from a previously published work.
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While generally acknowledged as being one of the lighter-weight films directed by the “Master of Suspense,” it contains many of the hallmarks for which Hitchcock is rightfully recognized: an innocent man falsely accused of crimes he did not commit a cool blonde with mysterious motives a setting shot through with glamour and romance and a suspense-filled plot involving a race against time-in this case, an ex-jewel thief (played by Cary Grant) who has to catch a copycat pulling off a series of daring heists on the French Riviera in order to prove his own innocence and clear his name. Brandt, a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and creator of the Web’s A David Dodge Companion, recounts the circumstances of that robbery and the man responsible for its deft execution.)Īlfred Hitchcock’s romantic thriller To Catch a Thief was released by Paramount Pictures in August 1955.
(Editor’s note: It was 70 years ago today that an audacious burglary took place on France’s Côte d'Azur, inspiring author David Dodge to pen one of the best-known crime-caper novels of the 20th century.
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