Family plot [DVD]

Two parallel plots run through Alfred Hitchcock’s final film. In one strand, a phoney medium and her cabbie boyfriend are hired by an unsuspecting elderly woman to help locate her long lost nephew heir. In the other tale, an equally sinister couple, a jeweller and his girlfriend, have kidnapped a rich Greek shipping magnate and are hoping to be paid a ransom in diamonds. The two stories intersect in a brilliant move of comic direction which finds them both at the cemetery. Cast includes Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris and William Devane. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the novel “The Rainbird pattern” by Victor Canning. Cinematography by Leonard J. South. Music by John Williams.