Alfred Hitchcock doesn’t slouch in his last film, Family Plot, about a fake psychic (Barbara Harris) and her cab-driver boyfriend (Bruce Dern) hunting down the long-lost heir to a client’s fortune so they can get a piece of the action themselves. More black comedy than thriller, it turns out the heir is part of a dangerous kidnapping team (Karen Black and New Bev favorite William Devane) and doesn’t want to be found. What follows is a twisted, MacGuffin-laden mystery, deceptive at every turn, which serves as a worthy curtain call for the Master of Suspense. The film was also Hitch’s only collaboration with composer John Williams.
“Family Plot is a dazzling achievement for Alfred Hitchcock masterfully controlling shifts from comedy to drama thoughout a highly complex plot. Witty screenplay, transplanting Victor Canning’s British novel, The Rainbird Pattern, to a California setting, is a model of construction, and the cast is uniformly superb.” – Variety
“Family Plot is, incredibly, Hitchcock’s 53rd film in a career that reaches back almost 50 years. And it’s a delight for two contradictory reasons: because it’s pure Hitchcock, with its meticulous construction and attention to detail, and because it’s something new for Hitchcock – a macabre comedy. He doesn’t go for shock here, or for violent effects, but for the gradual tightening of a narrative noose.” – Roger Ebert
