Champagne (1928), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Apparently, what we have of this film is an inferior studio print. It is okay, but it leaves me wondering what a fine print would look like. Anyway, this is, once again, Hitchcock learning his trade. The plot is a riches-to-rags-to- riches romantic comedy that involves a pampered young woman from a wealthy family who disobeys her father and flies to the middle of the Atlantic to catch up with her beau who is on a ship to France. What follows is a series of scenes in which the young woman falls from grace, meets a moustachioed man who might be a cad, gets a job in a cabaret, almost becomes a woman of the night, and finally finds security back in the arms of her father and her beau. The man who could have been a cad proves to be something else. We have a couple of sequences that involve the young woman’s fears manifested in a sort of daydream, some nifty camera work on board ship to let us know the discomfort of seasickness, and a couple of object-oriented shots typical of Hitchcock. The young woman is the familiar twenties girl, bubbly and wilful with a Cupid-bow mouth and cropped hair who is bent on having her own way. This is the sort of thing Hitchcock would try again in a film such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941). Here, things drag rather too much.
The Manxman (1929), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This is Hitchcock’s final silent film, and the New York Times reviewer, Mordaunt Hall, provides an apt assessment: “The production is not brilliant, but the shortcomings in acting and to a certain extent in the direction are atoned for by the artistry of the scenes” (NYT, Dec. 17, 1929). This is a competently made melodrama. Nothing special. Fisherman Pete fancies Kate Cregeen. What he does not know is that his friend, the lawyer Philip, also fancies Kate. She hops around being friendly to both men. Pete, using the Cyrano technique, has Philip put in a good word for him with Kate’s father, but the father does not want his daughter marrying a penniless fisherman. Pete leaves for faraway parts and Kate says she will wait for him, thus sealing everyone’s fate. While he is away in South Africa, Pete becomes rich, but he is the victim of a false report that he has been killed. Meanwhile Philip and Kate are having a good time back on the Isle of Man, and she declares her love for him, but he notes that she has given her word to Pete. Oh, but Pete is no longer an impediment because he has conveniently died. Wait, no he has not died. He turns up at the most inopportune time. Kate’s father is pleased because the poor fisherman has become the wealthy traveller returned from across the sea. Anyway, Kate marries Pete, much to her chagrin. Of course, a surprise awaits us, and the great millstone grinds on giving us one of Hitchcock’s formidable objects to underscore the theme of time and fate grinding on relentlessly. Things look bad for a while until Philip steps down as the local Deemster (judge/magistrate), Pete sets sail again, and Kate recovers the baby she has lost for a while. Baby? Well, I sense that you can figure things out. The ending is, well, sort of happy.
Blackmail (1929), directed with panache by Alfred Hitchcock. This is often cited as the first British sound film, and it shows. The first 8 minutes are silent. People do talk, but we do not hear what they say and there are no intertitles. After 8 minutes sound begins and we have some by the way chatter from a number of peripheral characters. Then things get going. Hitchcock is obviously enjoying himself in the making of this one. His cameo lasts longer than most and he actually interacts with another character, a small boy on a tram. We have familiar Hitchcock touches: for example, his focus on specific objects such as the bread knife, the painting of a jester, stairways, faces, truck wheels, an ashtray, and so on. He also uses sound in an interesting manner, most especially at the breakfast table when the young woman, who has used a bread knife to kill her attacker, hears only the word “knife” when others at the table talk. The plot has the usual Hitchcockian twists with the principal character caught in a web that threatens her undoing. The scene in which the artist tries to rape her is quite daring for the time (Oh those lascivious artists!). The scene of the woman descending the stairs after she avoids/disposes of her attacker nicely balances the earlier scene in which she and the artist climb the stairs. Here the descent is vertiginous. The film does have the slowness of silent cinema, but it also has its charms. This is Hitchcock learning his craft and doing well.
Murder! (1930), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This is Hitchcock’s third sound film, and it displays his interest in the live theatre, performance, and plot intricacy. We have an introduction (the opening murder and the zany interviews that follow), then act 1, the trial scene with the jurors finally debating the verdict and Diana Baring (Norah Baring) being sentenced to hang, act 2, one juror, Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshal), begins to rethink the case and then decides to investigate, act 3, Sir John discovers the truth of events and exposes the real murderer, denouement, when Sir John and the now proven innocent Diana are a happy couple plying their acting chops on stage. The convoluted plot has many characters and much maneuvering by the players. The film begins with the murder and a stage performance at a nearby theatre, and it ends with a stage performance. We have cross-dressing and the interplay of the theatre with the circus. Act 1 moves toward a scene reminiscent of 12 Angry Men, although this jury does have three women. Everything hangs (as it were) on an elusive name. Motive for the murder has something to do with a character frantic to conceal that he is a “half caste.” And so race is on the agenda here, but race just may be a sleight of hand for something else here. The film hints that the murderer may be gay. I mentioned cross-dressing, and this appears early in the film as an aspect of the farce the company of actors are performing, but it also appears in a far less necessary context later in the film. Murder! is a bit ponderous, but it has its moments. Una O’Connor has a small role as a landlady with a gaggle of active and loud children. She is always a treat. And Hitch ambles by in front of the camera in one scene. Finally, the film is noteworthy for having what some say is the first instance of voice-over on film. This occurs while Sir John is shaving and rethinking his decision to go along with the guilty verdict.
The Skin Game (1931), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. At the outset I quote an anonymous online reviewer: “The film’s sound quality so poor during the auction sequence that one can’t hear the reading of the land’s particulars improves as the story progresses.” Our copy of the film had poor sound quality throughout, and this did diminish our appreciation of the viewing experience. This film has its moments, but these are few. Viewing this after Blackmail proves detrimental to this film. Its story derives from a play by John Galsworthy that pits old money and the landed gentry against the newer industrial class whose wealth comes from factories that blacken the land. Edmund Gwenn, who later appears in The Trouble with Harry, delivers a boisterous performance as the industrialist who has designs on property adjacent to the estate of a local squire. This is not a thriller or a murder mystery, and despite Hitchcock’s attempts at suspense (during the auction, for example), the action is fairly tame and certainly not surprising. The most interesting character is the industrialist’s daughter-in-law who has a clouded past and whose emotional turmoil is the key to the film. All in all, this is a pleasant domestic story without a blond woman or a Hitchcockian set piece or any eye-catching camera work. Unless you can find a copy with decent sound, I would recomend that you pass to another film by the master. The title, by the way, refers here to a situation in which no one emerges unscathed.
Rich and Strange (1931), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film is rich in filmic stuff and strange in story and mise en scene. What makes the film attractive is the, at times, witty script; the characters are also quite well fleshed out, as it were. What is less successful is the resolution in which the young, appealing, intelligent (most of the time), and conflicted Emily stands by her rather dull, selfish, bored, and dumb husband, Fred. But if we set this aside, we may find delights in this strange journey of a film as it takes our protagonists east of Shanghai (an alternate title) and finally home again. Along the way we have a fancy-dress ball, dancing, the Folies Bergère, exotic locales, and shipboard romance. We also have a camera that notices tangled rope and chains and life full of flurry and boredom. The title, as an intertitle lets us know, derives from The Tempest: “There’s nothing left of him,/He’s undergone a complete sea change/And become something rich and strange.” Of course, the mention of a sea change resonates with the experience of the two main characters in the film. Previous to this voyage of discovery, they had lived a conventional life in London going about their daily routine without much fanfare or excitement. Then they inherit money and go on their travels to experience life. They do. Experience life, that is. She finds herself attracted to a dashing gentleman on board ship; he finds himself seduced by a “princess,” a slinky woman who bilks him of a thousand pounds. Like the marooned on the island in Shakespeare’s play, our two main characters confront their passions, the depths of human desire. If there is a master of the revels here, it is Hitchcock who stage-manages everything with a keen eye for detail. The shipwreck at the end is quite fascinating, and I daresay Fred’s contempt for the people who save him and Emily is yet another reason to dislike this person, and to feel disheartened at her decision to stay with him.
Number 17 (1932), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This early Hitchcock has some notable features, but for me it is perhaps the least interesting of his early films. The lighting, often moving with candles, and shadows gives the atmosphere a suitable tension. Those shadows really are terrific. The stairway, as often in Hitchcock, is a major focus. We also have a train/bus chase for the finale. The young woman set up to be the female hero disappears for this finale, something the trickster Hitchcock would do again in Psycho. The drama of the corpse in the first third of the film might be a reminder of the eponymous Harry in the later film. Then we have the question of identities; a few of the characters are not who they claim to be. All this is vintage Hitchcock and quite entertaining. Yet I found the film too close to the many low budget Hollywood films from studios such as Monogram and PRC that involve a group of people, a detective, and a cavernous house at night with much rushing about. In retrospect, Hitchcock’s film is far better than those Hollywood second features, while retaining something of the format of those films.
Young and Innocent (1937), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This is a brisk turn with the man wrongly accused of a crime theme. It shares this theme with more famous Hitchcock films: The 39 Steps, Saboteur, The Wrong Man, North by Northwest, for example. The film begins with the McGuffin, a belt detached from a trench coat and floating by the body of a murdered woman. Of course, a young man is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and hence begins his adventures on the run while he tries to prove his innocence. As in The 39 Steps, he is aided, both reluctantly and then willingly, by a young woman who happens to be the daughter of the police captain. At one point the two fugitives attend a child’s birthday party, and here themes of disguise and performance underscore the film’s concerns. Most of the principal characters find themselves in disguise and performing at one time or another, and the climax of the film takes place in a hotel ballroom with an orchestra (the musicians in blackface!) whose drummer is the real villain. We have the familiar Hitchcockian blend of humour and suspense, and his interest in both ends of the social spectrum. Our young innocents not only prove the young man’s innocence, but they also have their youthful innocence tempered and tested as they descend into places their social standing might have shielded them from had they not found themselves in the predicament that has befallen them. This is a breezy romp that serves as a follow-up to 1935’s more famous The 39 Steps.
