The poster advertising this delicious black comedy bore the tagline "The unexpected from Hitchcock!". It was the best Paramount could do with a picture it had no idea how to promote, and it was no surprise that it flopped at the box office. There's the odd suspenseful moment, but this is primarily a masterpiece of wry humour and dramatic understatement. John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn and Mildred Natwick play the disparate characters who decide in the most matter-of-fact way what to do with the body of a man three of them think they might have murdered. The acting is perfection, with MacLaine (in her debut) quite wonderful, and Hitchcock was mighty proud of this adaptation of Jack Trevor Story's novel, always naming it among his personal favourites.

The trouble with Harry is that he’s dead. In a quiet Vermont village, a corpse creates unexpected chaos as several townspeople each believe they may be to blame.