It starred Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, Jerry Mathers and Shirley MacLaine in her film debut.

The story is about how residents of a small Vermont village react when the dead body of a man named Harry is found on a hillside.

The quirky but down-to-earth residents of the small hamlet of Highwater, Vermont, are faced with the freshly dead body of Harry Worp, which has inconveniently appeared on the hillside above the town.

However, they all are hoping that the body will not come to the attention of "the authorities" in the form of cold, humorless Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs, who earns his living per arrest.

In The Trouble with Harry, he can be seen 22:14 minutes into the film as he walks past a parked limousine while an old man looks at paintings for sale at the roadside stand.

The Trouble with Harry is notable as a landmark in Hitchcock's career as it marked the first of several highly regarded collaborations with composer Bernard Herrmann.

A song sung by John Forsythe's character, "Flaggin' the Train to Tuscaloosa", was written by Raymond Scott and Mack David.

A "cash-in" song titled "The Trouble with Harry" was written by Floyd Huddleston with Herb Wiseman and Mark McIntyre.

[15][16] All the original music, composed by Bernard Herrmann, was re-recorded at the City Halls, Glasgow, Scotland, on April 29, 1998, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, under the direction of Joel McNeely.

Bosley Crowther, in a mixed verdict for The New York Times, wrote: "It is not a particularly witty or clever script that John Michael Hayes has put together from a novel by Jack Trevor Story, nor does Mr. Hitchcock's direction make it spin.

[27] Harrison's Reports called it "a whacky, off-beat type of film, well directed and acted and quite amusing throughout", though the review cautioned that "it may be received with mixed audience reaction" because of the subject matter.

[28] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called the film "an odd one—sparkling cider spiked with arsenic and a sprig of poison ivy.

"[29] The Monthly Film Bulletin called the film "a comedie noire that brilliantly maintains its precarious balance between humour and bad taste", adding, "The humour is of a quiet and concentrated kind, with the corpse of the troublesome Harry kept persistently in the foreground, and John Michael Hayes' shrewdly witty script affords Hitchcock opportunities for some typically witty macabre and sardonic invention.

"[30] John McCarten of The New Yorker was negative, writing, "Alfred Hitchcock, whose work has been going steadily downhill ever since he arrived in Hollywood, skids to preposterous depths in 'The Trouble With Harry.

It was little shown for nearly 30 years, other than a showing on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies network television broadcast in the early 1960s, though there were some theatrical exhibition in 1963.

[33][34][35] After protracted negotiations with the Hitchcock estate, Universal Pictures reissued it in 1983,[36] along with Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Man Who Knew Too Much, which in turn led to VHS and eventually DVD and Blu-ray versions for the home video market.