text: I'll have to admit that I'm at a disadvantage here; when I learn more about a film from other reviewers than from watching it myself, then that's a problem. Although the plot of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" seems generally straightforward, the movie allows too many cryptic elements to get in the way of what could have been a satisfying mystery. By the time we get to the scene where a witchy looking woman establishes the secrecy of "the first degree of the seven fold ray", I didn't know whether to laugh or rewind to see if I missed something.<br /><br />In retrospect, the cryptic note retrieved by Mr. Lawrence (Leslie Banks) from the handle of a shaving brush was a craftily written message, leading to a dentist named Barbor, and eventually to the Albert Hall, a place, not a person as indicated by "A. Hall". But for all the intrigue, it's never made clear why the assassination target was being eliminated. Okay, so Louis Bernard was killed because he knew of a plot to assassinate a diplomat named Ropa, but why was Ropa a target? Come to think of it, why was the note even written and secured in the shaving brush? Did Bernard have to refer to it every now and then to remind himself what was going to happen?<br /><br />With it's disjointed scenes, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" is hard to follow and a bit disorienting, however I'll give Alfred Hitchcock credit for this early effort. For perspective, I'll have to watch some of his other work of the same era, though this movie certainly can't hold a candle to his later works like "Psycho" or "North by Northwest".