Far more a romantic comedy than a suspense thriller, To Catch a Thief ranks as Alfred Hitchcock’s most gossamer of confections, a perfectly puffed and delectable soufflé. John Robbie (Cary Grant) now tends to flowers at his airy villa on the French Riviera, but in younger days he was a famously elusive jewel thief known as the Cat. Although forgiven for his crimes after a heroic stint in the Resistance, the reformed Robbie again falls under police suspicion when a copy-Cat begins pilfering the wealthy’s glittering stones by employing his old techniques. Determined to clear his name by catching the thief en flagrante, Robbie teams with a Lloyd’s of London representative (a droll John Williams), who provides inside dope on potential targets in the hope of preventing future insurance payouts. Topping the list of prospective victims is brash American Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) and her gorgeous, amusingly insolent daughter, Frances (Grace Kelly). Despite Robbie’s coy reluctance, love (or at least lust) slowly blossoms with Frances, and the outrageously attractive pair of Grant and Kelly spar and spark in several memorable scenes, with Hitchcock impishly pushing at the Production Code’s boundaries with risqué double entendres and orgasmic imagery. The film’s scenery rivals its stars in beauty, and cinematographer Robert Burks won a deserved Oscar for his stunning Technicolor panoramas of the Riviera.