To Catch A Thief: Take 15

Le Stuff’s Definitive Location Guide to Alfred Hitchcock’s Classic Film

Series Post #17

La Croisette and the cemetery in Cagnes-sur-mer

La Croisette

When we last saw John Robie (Cary Grant) he was struggling for his life in the middle of the night on the grounds of a beautiful villa located next to the Plage Passable in St Jean Cap Ferrat.

In the following scene Frances (Grace Kelly) and her mother (Jessie Royce Landis) walk down a busy street. A crowd has gathered around a newsstand and there is a palpable excitement concerning the latest headline.

“LE CHAT EST MORT!” (THE CAT IS DEAD!)

The cat, it seems, is indeed dead, but it’s not John Robie, it’s Monsieur Foussard.

This quick scene takes place in Cannes on the wide walkway that runs along the shore between La Croisette and the beach.

To Catch A Thief: Take 9

Le Stuff’s Definitive Location Guide to Alfred Hitchcock’s Classic Film

Series Post #11

After the wonderful raft scene just off the beach in front of The Hotel Carlton, Francie Stevens (Kelly’s character) convinces John Robie to let her accompany him on a “villa shopping” excursion.

What follows is one of the great driving sequences in cinematic history.

Hitchcock certainly must have known that the French Riviera would electrify the screen almost as much as Grant and Kelly, and to his credit, he let it.

A tour of “To Catch A Thief” locations is, quite simply, a tour of some of the most beautiful scenery the French Riviera has to offer.

Stevens and Robie depart for the hills from the hotel parking lot in her sublime Sunbeam Alpine convertible.  For anyone who has been to Cannes it’s interesting to note how things have changed in front of The Carlton.  In 1954 one simply had to pull off The Croisette (back then a pleasant two lane road) and park in front of the hotel.  Today the former parking area has been turned into a garden and The Croisette expanded into a four lane boulevard separated by a tree-lined median. 

In the next clip the Sunbeam Alpine is seen traveling along a winding road (most likely the moyenne corniche) with the Mediterranean in the background.  The promontory of land jutting out into the azure water is St Jean cap Ferrat.

The moyenne corniche is still one of the world’s great drives and I heartily recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

The ensuing scene, featuring plenty of clever dialogue by both Grant and Kelly, was played out at Hollywood’s Paramount studios using rear-screen projection, but it’s interesting to note that

To Catch A Thief: Take 8

Le Stuff’s Definitive Location Guide to Alfred Hitchcock’ s Classic Film

Series Post #10

Brigitte Auber told me recently that she first met Cary Grant in Cannes, just before filming began on “To Catch A Thief”.

Alfred Hitchcock introduced them on the balcony of Grant’s suite at The Carlton, overlooking the Bay of Cannes.

She liked him immediately.

Brigitte and Cary Grant

The setting for such an auspicious introduction seems fitting doesn’t it?

Where else but The Carlton would a young, beautiful French actress, destined for a long, successful career, meet the most famous movie star on the planet?

Today, more than fifty years later,

To Catch A Thief: The Definitive Location Guide To Alfred Hitchcock’s Classic Film

Most cyber junkies are probably not aware that bloggers have the ability to track, among other things, the search word or words used to reach a particular blog or blog post.  For example, if someone enters “Tourrettes sur Loup” into the Google toolbar and that, in turn, leads them to my July 28 post on the Auberge de Tourrettes, then I know that the title and tags I’ve used have been effective.  Being aware of “blog stats” can be very helpful in driving traffic to a blog.
The reason for this explanation?
Since my first Le Stuff post on June 10, 2009, one subject has easily trumped all other searches by a country mile.
Here are a few examples:

john robies villa in the hills of nice
where exactly is john robies villa
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I think you get the idea.

I’m sure many of you are probably scratching your  heads at this very moment and wondering “Who is John Robie?”