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The #1 Nielsen rated program from 1971 to 1976, All In The Family is quite simply one of the greatest television programs in history. Inspired by The Honeymooners and The Flintstones, All In The Family features its own loud-mouthed, opinionated blowhard sporting a hidden soft and sensitive side. Like Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone, Archie Bunker fulfills his role to absolute perfection, and the result is TV magic. Well-written and outright hilarious, All In The Family broke ground in the 70’s with its willingness to tackle all the social issues and societal taboos of its day. Topics included racism, bigotry, sexism, homosexuality, death, and other namby-pam, socialist and liberal-feminist ideals (or at least that’s how Archie would put it!) A titan among television sitcoms, All In The Family spawned a pair of shows which topped the ratings in their own right - Maude and The Jeffersons…

The All In The Family (Season 4) DVD features a number of hilarious episodes including the season premiere “We’re Having a Heat Wave” in which Archie and Henry Jefferson (both for different reasons) try to prevent the Lorenzos, a Hispanic family, from moving into the house next door which just went up for sale… Other notable episodes from Season 4 include “Archie and the Kiss” in which Gloria brings home a Rodin-inspired centerpiece much to Archie’s chagrin, and “Edith’s Conversation” in which Archie fears that Irene Lorenzo is attempting to convert Edith to Catholicism…

Below is a list of episodes included on the All In The Family (Season 4) DVD:

Episode 62 (We’re Having a Heat Wave) Air Date: 09-15-1973
Episode 63 (We’re Still Having a Heat Wave) Air Date: 09-22-1973
Episode 64 (Edith Finds an Old Man) Air Date: 09-29-1973
Episode 65 (Archie and the Kiss) Air Date: 10-06-1973
Episode 66 (Archie, the Gambler) Air Date: 10-13-1973
Episode 67 (Henry’s Farewell) Air Date: 10-20-1973
Episode 68 (Archie and the Computer) Air Date: 10-27-1973
Episode 69 (The Games Bunkers Play) Air Date: 11-03-1973
Episode 70 (Edith’s Conversation) Air Date: 11-10-1973
Episode 71 (Archie in the Cellar) Air Date: 11-17-1973
Episode 72 (Black is the Color of My True Love’s Whig) Air Date: 11-24-1973
Episode 73 (Second Honeymoon) Air Date: 12-01-1973
Episode 74 (The Taxi Caper) Air Date: 12-08-1973
Episode 75 (Archie is Cursed) Air Date: 12-15-1973
Episode 76 (Edith’s Christmas Story) Air Date: 12-22-1973
Episode 77 (Mike and Gloria Mix It Up) Air Date: 01-05-1974
Episode 78 (Archie Feels Left Out) Air Date: 01-12-1974
Episode 79 (Et Tu, Archie?) Air Date: 01-26-1974
Episode 80 (Gloria’s Boyfriend) Air Date: 02-02-1974
Episode 81 (Lionel’s Engagement) Air Date: 02-09-1974
Episode 82 (Archie Eats and Runs) Air Date: 02-16-1974
Episode 83 (Gloria Sings the Blues) Air Date: 03-02-1974
Episode 84 (Pay the Twenty Dollars) Air Date: 03-09-1974
Episode 85 (Mike’s Graduation) Air Date: 03-16-1974

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the All In The Family (Season 4) DVD.

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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay by John Michael Hayes adapted from David Dodge’s novel.

Cary Grant — John Robie

Grace Kelly — Frances Stevens

Jessie Royce Landis — Jessie Stevens

John Williams — H. H. Hughson

Charles Vanel — Bertani

Brigitte Auber — Danielle Foussard

Jean Martinelli — Foussard

Georgette Anys - Germaine

Easily one of the most gorgeous and good-looking films ever shot. It’s not an accident that it won Robert Burks the 1956 Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color. An eye-candy of a tourism poster of an entertainment. After watching it, you’ll also be a fan of the beauty of the French Riviera.

Cary Grant, as John Robie, is again playing a well-meaning decent guy (despite his background as a notorious cat burglar) who finds himself embroiled in an adventure that threatens to put him back in jail.

This time he is suspected to have committed the recent spate of thefts that have parted the super-rich of Nice from their precious jewels. Robie claims his innocence to no avail. He is still the best suspect the cops have. So the French police continue to ride his tail. Robie’s only way out is to find the real burglar.

Robie accomplishes that by collaborating with the insurance agent H. H. Hughson (played by the prim and proper John Williams who also played the police detective in another Hitchcock-Grace Kelly film - Dial M For Murder, 1954).

Five parallels between “To Catch a Thief” (TCT) and Hitchcock’s other classic “North by Northwest” (NBN) in which Cary Grant has also starred:

1) In both films Grant is playing a guy who gets into trouble from the get go, practically just five minutes into the movie.

2) Both films have that famous scene where a female character dangles from a high location and Cary Grant grabs her by the wrist at the last moment and grabs her to safety. In NBN she is the leading lady dangling from the colossal relief of George Washington at Mount Rushmore. In TCT she is the villain dangling from the roof of Silva’s Villa.

3) NBN has the famous crop duster airplane scene. In TCT a similar-looking police airplane pursues from low altitude the boat in which Grant is running away from the Nice harbor.

4) Jessie Royce Landis who plays “Jessie Stevens” in TCT plays Cary Grant’s mother in NBN (although Grant was ten years her senior). Landis played Grace Kelley’s mother not only in TCT but in “The Swan” (1956) as well.

5) In NBN, Hitchcock makes his trademark appearance by stepping on to a public bus at a city bus station. In TCT, Hitchcock makes his trademark appearance by sitting right next to Grant as an anonymous passenger in the back row of a passenger bus traveling on the dusty back roads of French Riviera.

OTHER NOTES:

– This was the last film Grace Kelly shot with Hitchcock. Soon after, she married Prince Rainier of Monaco and left the movie business for good. If she hadn’t done that, she would have definitely cast against Cary Grant in “North by Northwest.”

– French actor Charles Vanel (as Bertani) could not speak a word of English. All his lines were dubbed.

– Half of the movie (most interiors) was shot at Paramount studious in Los Angeles.

– The film was shot with PanaVision technology, the chief competitor of the Cinemascope technology back then. In PanaVision technology the film ran horizontally, not vertically.

– Screenwriter John Michael Hayes also wrote that other great Hitchcock classic, “Rear Window (1954).”

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