THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is one of Hitchcock’s few pure comedies, and there’s still a dead body, multiple suspects, and plenty of suspicious behavior. In a breezily sinister opening sequence, Arnie (Jerry Mathers), a small, freckle-faced boy carrying a toy gun, happens upon a very real corpse. Following in Arnie’s footsteps are a retired sea captain (Edmund Gwenn), who thinks he shot Harry while hunting; an artist (John Forsythe) who agrees to help bury him; a spinster (Mildred Natwick) who promises to say nothing to the authorities; and Arnie’s young mother (Shirley Maclaine), who knows more about Harry than anyone else in town. As the characters puzzle out who killed Harry, all the while avoiding the attention of the deputy sheriff, they irreverently bury, exhume, re-bury, disinter, and bury Harry again, ad infinitum, wash, rinse, repeat.

All the trappings of a horror movie are present: a close-knit community, an unwelcome stranger, and a violent death.

Remarkable at the time of its release for straightforward discussion of sexuality and offhand attitudes toward dead bodies, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY still feels fresh and unexpected over half a century later. All the trappings of a horror movie are present: a close-knit community, an unwelcome stranger, and a violent death. But dark humor can be horror turned inside out, and while things might have ended badly for Harry, black comedy doesn’t play by the same rules as ordinary murder mysteries. As Hitchcock draws us into a circle of secrets revealed one after another, mishap and human suggestibility are shuffled into the cards as much as any possible intent of Harry’s unorthodox pallbearers.

Unpopular in its initial US release, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is a peculiar and perhaps acquired taste. Hitchcock’s humor is a little less grim and more flippant than in other films. In his first collaboration with the director, Bernard Hermann’s score matches the script and scenery, by turns playful and sunny with occasional grave undertones. Never darker than shadow-puppets on the wall, the film is more of a parlor game of whodunnit than a murder mystery in the end.

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, is currently screening on 35mm as part of the mini Hitchcock series at Seattle’s Grand Illusion Cinema.