The Manxman

The Manxman (1929) "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Notable cast/crew: Carl Brisson as Pete Quilliam.  He was previously in The Ring.  Malcolm Keen as Philip Christian.  This marks his third and final Hitchcock film.  Anny Ondra as Kate Cregeen.  She will also appear in Hitchcock's next film, Blackmail.  Clare Greet as Mrs Cregeen.  She was previously in The Ring.  Eliot Stannard writes the screenplay making his ninth and final collaboration with Hitchcock.   

Running time: 83 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Pete is a fisherman, and Philip is a lawyer.  The two are childhood friends in a small village on the Isle of Man.  They work together in securing fishing rights for the locals.  They're both sweet on Kate whose father runs the local inn.  Pete gets Philip to ask Kate's father about marriage, but her father is against it with Pete having no money.  He kicks Pete out, and Pete vows her father will regret it.  Pete decides to work a passage to Africa to seek his fortune.  Philip accompanies Pete to tell Kate, and Pete has her promise to wait for him.  He asks Philip to watch out for her while he's gone, but Kate overhears this.  The look on her face tells us she is unsure of the promise she's made and that she's interested in Philip.

Come and knock on our door

While Pete's gone, Philip and Kate have a budding relationship.  Philip's aunt disapproves his seeing a publican's daughter.  Not only is she from a lower class, but Philip's father ruined his own career marrying beneath him.  He goes to see Kate, and upon arriving, sees the note from Johannesburg: Pete's dead.  Kate has been silent in her room while mourners gather in the pub, but she's not mourning.  She's relieved and tells Philip, "We're free."

Except Pete's not dead.  He's returning home with money.  He telegraphs Philip who tells Kate.  They argue over what she should do, but Philip convinces her she needs to honor her word to Pete even if it means he loses her.  They decide Pete must never know.

Pete and Kate wed with Philip as best man.  Philip then leaves on holiday to get away from the situation.  When he returns, Kate confronts him and tells him she is going to have a baby.  Pete returns home while they're arguing over what to do.  Kate tells him she's having a baby, and he bursts with pride at being an expectant father.  She has a daughter.

In the interim, Philip has been made Deemster (a judge on the Isle of Man).  Kate arrives at his office declaring she has left Pete because she cannot bear to live a lie any longer.  She wants to be with Philip.  Philip, unwilling to give up his position, tells her it is impossible.  She has left Pete a note telling him she loved another man before she married Pete, and she still loves that man.  She leaves him the baby and her ring.  She convinces Philip to let her stay with him secretly, and Pete is left to tell the village folk his wife has gone on holiday to explain her absence.

Kate demands Philip choose between his career and her, but he puts her off.  She returns home to get her baby, but Pete is there.  In the heat of argument, she tells him the child isn't his.  Pete refuses to believe her and won't give her the baby.  She leaves and attempts suicide by jumping off the quay into the ocean.  She survives and is brought to trial before Philip.  Philip tries to release her to Pete's custody, but she refuses.  The truth comes out in court as her father accuses Philip of being the other man.  Philip admits it and resigns.  They return to Pete's home, take the baby, and leave the village.  Pete returns to the sea.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes:

• Love triangle
• Blondes

Verdict: This is Hitchcock's final silent film.  It is based on the 1896 novel by Hall Caine which had previously been made into a film in 1917.  The title derives from the word for someone from the Isle of Man.  Overall, the movie is well cast although Carl Brisson is a little too dopey as Pete.  It's obvious from everyone else's reactions what is going on, but Pete goes through the entire movie oblivious to anyone else.  You can argue Hitchcock had the other actors overselling their reactions to emphasize what is occurring, but it leaves Pete as too stupid to be very sympathetic.  I found myself wishing he'd just get out of the way of the other two.  Malcolm Keen shows his versatility this time playing the lead man in the triangle where he was the jilted man in The Lodger.  Anny Ondra is excellent.  She would later go on to marry Max Schmeling, once heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

It's still a good film, but it is a much more straightforward film than most of Hitchcock's oeuvre.  There is very little showy camerawork, and most of it has a very stagy feel, more like a play than a movie.  Hitchcock himself stated it was "not a Hitchcock film".

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Blackmail

Champagne

Champagne (1928) Not just the name of the movie, but what you'll need a lot of to get through it.

Notable cast/crew: Betty Balfour as The Girl.  Jean Bradin as The Boy.  Gordon Harker makes his final Hitchcock appearance as The Father.  Hannah Jones, making the second of five appearances, as an uncredited Club Servant.  Phyllis Konstam makes the first of four appearances, in an uncredited role.  Eliot Stannard writes the screenplay.   

Running time: 85 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Millionaire father is distressed to see his daughter in the papers again.  She has run off with his airplane, which she ditches in the Atlantic Ocean, in order to catch up with an ocean liner carrying her boyfriend so that they can elope.

Champagne goggles

While at sea, her boyfriend suffers from seasickness so she spends time with a mysterious man.  She receives a telegram from her father telling her he thinks her boyfriend is only interested in her for his money.  After a spat, they rendezvous in Paris where the boy finds her in the company of the mysterious man again.  He becomes increasingly annoyed with her obnoxious behavior, so she spends more time with the mysterious man.  Her father then turns up to tell her he has lost his fortune (made in the champagne business) in a stock market crash.

She decides to sell her jewelry but is robbed on the way to sell it.  She tries cooking at home, but her food is inedible.  Her father slips out to a restaurant to dine alone, and it is revealed this is all a ruse to teach her a lesson.  He's still loaded.

Her boyfriend returns offering to take care of her and her father.  She decides she doesn't need him and will get a job instead.  He storms out again.  In her job at the dance club, she runs into the mysterious man again.  He informs her that it isn't a safe place to work.  Her boyfriend shows up and joins them at their table.  He disapproves of where she's working and who she's hanging out with.  He storms out but returns with her father.  He berates her then reveals he never lost his fortune.  He has only been trying to teach her a lesson which evidently didn't work.

She leaves and turns to the mysterious man who had left his card with her earlier.  He's leaving for America, and she asks if she can accompany him.  Their paths all intersect in the end as the mysterious man has been working with her father all along to keep an eye on her.  Her father now blesses her marriage to her boyfriend.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes:

• Trick camera shots

Verdict: This film is awful.  The lead actress behaves not unlike a modern-day socialite, but, rather than come off as charming, she comes off as an obnoxious brat.  I spent the entire movie wishing someone would slap some sense into her or that she'd get hit by a bus to make the movie end.  Hitchcock was not fond of this picture either, referring to it as "dreadful", "the low ebb of my work", and "a movie without a story to tell".  The only redeeming features are the camerawork he employs: triple exposure to simulate seasickness, the rocking of the camera to show the boat tilting, multiple shots filmed through a glass, and the first freeze-frame in movie history which pulls back to reveal it is actually a photo.  Unless you're a Hitchcock completist, this one isn't worth the time.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Manxman

Easy Virtue

Easy Virtue (1928) "Virtue is its own reward" they say - but "easy virtue" is society's reward for a slandered reputation.

Notable cast/crew: Isabel Jeans (as Larita Filton), Robin Irvine (as John Whittaker), Violet Farebrother (as John's Mother) and Ian Hunter (as The Plaintiff's Counsel) all appeared in Downhill.  Eliot Stannard writes the screenplay again.  

Running time: 80 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: The first act shows the trial of Larita Filton and Claude Robson (now deceased) for infidelity against her husband.  Her testimony is shown via flashback indicating her husband was a drunk with a violent temper.  Her claim is that she did nothing and is the victim of his jealous whims.  Robson was an artist comissioned to paint her portrait, and her husband became suspicious of them having an affair behind his back.  When Robson tries to convince her to leave with him, her husband walks in and assumes the worst.  He is shot by Robson but survives.  Robson shoots himself, and it is stated at trial that he has left all of his possessions to Larita, fueling the jury's skepticism.  They return a verdict of guilty sealing her divorce.  Larita flees to the Riviera to escape the infamy of the trial.

Saints preserve us

She meets and falls in love with John Whittaker.  He proposes to her, knowing almost nothing about her not even who she is.  She accepts and returns with him to his home in England as Mrs John Whittaker.  There, she is introduced to John's family who greet her warmly with the exception of his mother, who had always anticipated John marrying a family friend, Sarah.  Sarah arrives for dinner that night, and John's mother begins to question Larita as to where they may have met before.  She remains suspicious after dinner, questioning John about what he knows about her and what she may be trying to conceal from the family.

Larita encounters her ex-husband's lawyer at a polo match, and, when he turns up at the Whittaker estate, she fears he will reveal who she is.  The family figures it out first after seeing her picture in the newspaper.  Larita was already miserable there as her lifestyle clashed with their country social class, and now they harangue her even more.  Her father-in-law is the only one who thinks her past should be none of the family's business.   Sarah also has sympathy for Larita and John and tries to reconcile them.  Larita decides to make an appearance at that night's party even though she is told not to by his mother.

She decides to let John divorce her because he loves his family more than her, and the strain between her and the family is too much to bear.  She tells Sarah that it should have been her who married John.  The closing scene reprises the first, this time on an uncontested divorce case.  Larita exits the court to a sea of photographers and exclaims, "Shoot!  There's nothing left to kill."

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking past a tennis court holding a walking stick (disputed by the British Film Institute)

Hitchcock themes:

• Love triangles
• False Identity
• Stairs
• Wrongfully accused protagonist

Verdict: This is an adaptation of Noel Coward's play of the same name.  It was rushed into filming to take advantage of the play's popularity.  It began filming before Downhill was completed resulting in both films having shoots in the Riviera at the same time.  Half of the cast were in both films.  There are a lot more title cards than Hitchcock normally used, and the result is this feels more like a stereotypical silent film than his other works.

Hitchcock does some visual tricks, as usual.  The opening scene has a shot through the judge's monocle which was done with an oversized monocle held in front of the camera with a mirror for a lens and the actor standing behind the camera.  The man in the foreground of the shot is a double standing in for the actor behind the camera to make it appear we're viewing the court room through the monocle.  Hitchcock opens another scene viewing through the strings of a tennis racket.  The dining room is cavernous and outfitted with floor to ceiling drapes depicting various apostles looming over the family supper without any explanation or reference given.  It's visually arresting, baffling, and becomes more of a distraction in setting an ominous mood than anything.

The film itself is one of Hitchcock's lesser works, and the remaining copies are not in good shape.  It has its moments, but it comes off feeling like something that had the potential to say things about class, morals, and prejudice, but instead feels like melodramatic boilerplate.  The theme of someone wrongly accused and how they react to it will be better developed in Hitchcock's later films.  It was rushed into production, and it shows in the underdeveloped characters and plot.  Ironically, the final quote which provides the most poignant moment of the film was something Hitchcock strongly disliked calling it "the worst title I've ever written."

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Champagne!

The Farmer's Wife

The Farmer's Wife (1928) is the story of a widowered farmer who decides to find a new wife.

Notable cast/crew: Jameson Thomas as Farmer Sweetland.  Lillian Hall-Davis as Araminta Dench, his housekeeper.  She was in Hitchcock's previous film The Ring.  Gordon Harker as Churdles Ash, his handyman, returns as comic relief in his second of three Hitchcock film appearances.  Eliot Stannard returns as writer.  

Running time: 129 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Farmer Sweetland looks out over his farm, concern etched on his face.  We find his wife lays dying in the room, and, through his single nod to his handyman who is walking in the yard, we learn she will not recover.  She passes charging her housekeeper to look after her husband.  We then jump ahead to his daughter's wedding.  We see 'Minta running around tending to all the details of the wedding party and the house, and Churdles Ash, the handyman, expresses his view that Farmer Sweetland will be remarrying now that he has married off his daughter.   There is an undercurrent of sadness as he leaves the house with his daughter.  We're given a humorous scene with Ash giving his opinions on marriage, and the bridal party returns for a celebratory dinner.

Our daughter will grow up to be Inger Stevens

Farmer Sweetland decides to honor his deceased wife's wish and marry again before he becomes lonely.  He and 'Minta put together a list of the eligible women in town: Louisa Windeatt, Thirza Tapper, Mary Hearn, and Mercy Bassett.  Farmer Sweetland, having a rather high opinion of himself, puts on his finest suit and heads out to see Widow Windeatt thinking he'll get a quick engagement.

To his consternation, the Widow Windeatt turns him down declaring she is much too independent for him.  Next he turns to Thirza Tapper.  He shows up early for a party at her house and proposes to her.  She gets the vapors and turns him down.  He storms out to cool down, and when he returns, sees Mary Hearn.  Staying on a roll, he decides during the party is the perfect time to propose to her.  She finds him much too old and falls into hysterics when he informs her she's no spring chicken herself.

Sweetland decides to abandon his list but decides to try again to regain his honor after hearing Ash bemoan that his master has made himself a laughingstock.  It is at this point that we first get an explicit indication that 'Minta loves him as she watches him leave then looks at the two chairs by the fire.  Sweetland heads to the pub, and Bassett turns him down, too.  He's struck out all four times, a Golden Sombrero in baseball slang. Meanwhile, Hearn and Tapper have gotten into a quarrel over the party scene, and Hearn decides she should marry Sweetland.  She and Tapper head for his farm.

Sweetland returns home and has a conversation with 'Minta declaring his defeat.  Through her encouragement and subtle signals, he realizes she is the one he should have asked all along.  He writes her name on his list, putting it at the top above the others which have all been crossed out, and shows it to her. She accepts, and we close with a funny scene whereby the women who turned him down show up only to find he no longer is interested in them.  

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: None

Verdict: This is an unusual Hitchcock film in that it's a romantic comedy and not a suspense flick. Hitchcock's early films are much more diverse in this regard with him taking on drama, comedy, and tragedy. Once he became known for suspense, in a way he became captive to his audiences which always expected taut thrillers.  His direction and staging here shows he could do equally well in other genres.

The movie is perfectly cast.  Jameson Thomas uses his eyes to great effect expressing pain, sorrow, anger, and joy.  He's also a dead ringer for Buddy Ebsen.  'Minta is warm, caring, wholesome: the complete opposite of Hall-Davis' prior role in The Ring, and it's a testament to her acting that she is so endearing in this film, losing any negative association from the previous film.  Jack Harker is again superb in comic relief. All of the women who reject Sweetland are unattractive but physically resemble the stereotype of the kind of woman you would match with their behavior.  There are some uproariously funny lines between 'Minta and Farmer Sweetland when they are discussing eligible women, and Ash has some hilariously direct ideas on marriage.

Hitchcock does a wonderful job in setting up the resolution and foreshadowing the outcome in his use of two chairs in front of the hearth in Sweetland's home.  Early in the movie, he stares at the chairs, and it's obvious he's overwhelmed with grief.  'Minta is seated at a nearby table helping prepare his list, and he imagines each woman seated in his wife's chair as he has 'Minta write down their name.  Each shot is done with double exposure which gives an ethereal feel to it.  It's clearly his imagination of what they would be like, and there is no substance to it.  As the movie progresses, 'Minta sits across from him, helping make his plans, but he doesn't yet realize her devotion to him.  When he ultimately returns home, he again imagines each woman who turned him down, seated in the chair, and the double exposure is of their reaction to him: laughing at him, trembling in fear, screaming in hysterics.  'Minta then sits down in the chair.  She is real; she has substance.  It is her sitting in the chair that both signals her hope that he would ask her and awakens him to the possibility of finding happiness once more.

I love this movie.  Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Easy Virtue

The Ring

The Ring (1927) was the first film made by British International Pictures.  It is the only film for which Hitchcock wrote the original screenplay.

Notable cast/crew: Carl Brisson makes his screen debut as 'One Round' Jack Sander and will appear in Hitchcock's The Manxman later.  Lillian Hall-Davis as The Girl.  She will appear in The Farmer's Wife in 1928, but will commit suicide in 1933 when her career doesn't transition to talkies.  Hitchcock considered her his favorite actress at the time.  Ian Hunter as Bob Corby makes the second of three appearances in Hitchcock silent films.  Gordon Harker as Jack's trainer makes the first of three Hitchcock film appearances.  Clare Greet in an uncredited cameo as the Fortune Teller makes the first of six appearances in Hitchcock films.  She and Leo G Carroll are tied for that distinction, not counting her role in 1922's Number 13 which was never finished.  

Running time: 89 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: We open in a carnival where 'One Round' Jack Sander is taking on all comers.  It's the old carnival game where you try to last a round to win the prize.  Jack kayos several men while his girlfriend sells tickets outside.  She begins flirting with Bob Corby which Jack sees.  The barker picks up on it and goads Bob into fighting Jack.  To everyone's surprise, Bob lasts one round, and the fight continues.  Bob defeats Jack, and we find out he's actually the Australian heavyweight champ come to see if Jack was good enough to be his sparring partner.  Bob's manager gives Jack his card and sets up a trial bout for him.  If he wins it, he'll be Bob's new sparring partner.  In the meantime, Bob continues to make time with Jack's girl, buying her jewelry and doting on her.  

I love the smell of fingers in the morning

Jack and his girl decide to get engaged if he wins the bout, and he does.  They wed despite her continuing dalliance with Bob.  Jack becomes Bob's sparring partner, and it quickly becomes apparent that Jack is good enough to have a career of his own.  It's also apparent his wife is still messing around with Bob.  Jack determines he will have to defeat Bob in the ring to fight for his woman, but that means first making a climb up the rankings through undercard bouts.  This he does, and he's soon poised for a title shot.  He becomes more concerned as his wife spends more time with Bob the longer Jack is out fighting.  She attends raucous parties with Bob and plays the piano afterwards mooning over a photo of him.

Jack's friends from the carnival show up after his last prelim bout, excited to see Jack doing so well.  They go back to Jack's place to celebrate, but the party turns sour when Jack's wife isn't home.  His trainer subtly indicates she's out with Bob, and they quietly excuse themselves to leave Jack to stew in his juices.  When his wife finally staggers home, he loses it and berates her for spending all of her time with Bob.  After a flippant remark from her, he decides to confront Bob that night, bout or not bout.  Jack finds him at a dance club, drops him with one punch, and tells him if he wants revenge he can get it in the ring.  Jack returns home to find his wife has left.

Jack and Bob square off in a titanic bout with Jack's wife seated ringside next to Bob's corner.  As the fight progresses, Jack is getting the worse of it, and she slowly moves towards his corner round by round.  At the climax, she tells Jack she's his, Jack kayos Bob, and she leaves with Jack, dropping the armband Bob had given her on the way out.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: 

• Love triangle 

Verdict: I'm a sucker for a boxing story, so I liked this film a lot.  The film is perfectly cast.  Carl Brisson, who had been an amateur boxer, is engaging as the hero, Ian Hunter reprises his role as foil from Hitchcock's last film, and Lillian Hall-Davis enrages as the faithless wife.  Her performance in particular is excellent after you watch Hitchcock's next film The Farmer's Wife where she plays a role that is the complete opposite of this film, and yet she is believable in both.  The fighting sometimes looks a bit comical which may be a combination of outdated fighting styles, the speed of the recording, and the staging of the fight.  For the final knockout punch, Hitchcock is said to have had Brisson actually punch Hunter, and it certainly appears he really did floor him.

Hitchcock uses a number of techniques: camera shots filming the characters' reflection off water, their reflection from the next room off mirrors, blurred lenses to convey drunken perspective, and double exposures to illustrate the characters' thoughts.  Visually this movie holds your interest with technique even beyond the plot.  Rings are a motif throughout from the boxing ring, to the wedding ring Jack gives his wife, to the ring-shaped coiled armband Bob gives her, providing a visual pun throughout the movie.

I found this to be a very enjoyable movie, and Jack Harker steals every scene he's in with his comic timing as Jack's trainer.  Eugene Corri's cameo at the end as the referee is a neat historical footnote as he was the first referee to officiate a bout from inside the ring in 1907.  The ending is a tad trite, and, after seeing this woman dump on him for the entire film, you kind of wish he'd beaten Bob and told her, "You can have him," but that lowers my rating only slightly.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Farmer's Wife

Downhill

Downhill (1927) (released in America as When Boys Leave Home) is a tale of two school-boys who made a pact of loyalty.  One of them kept it-at a price.

Notable cast/crew: Ivor Novello as Roddy Berwick.  Ian Hunter as Archie makes the first of three appearances in Hitchcock silent films.  Isabel Jeans as Julia Fotheringale makes her first of three Hitchcock films.  Hannah Jones as the Dressmaker makes the first of five Hitchcock films.  Only Clare Greet and Leo G Carroll will appear in more of his films.  Eliot Stannard (writer) wrote eight of Hitchcock's early films.  

Running time:  82 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Nobody knows you, when you're down and out.

Plot: Roddy and Tim are classmates at boarding school.  They spend time with a waitress, Mabel, who has a thing for Roddy and tolerates Tim.  When Roddy shows less interest in her, she becomes spiteful and goes to their school, accusing Roddy of having gotten her pregnant when it was Tim.  Mabel wants to milk money out of Roddy's wealthy father.  Tim says nothing for fear of losing his scholarship (his father is not well off), and Roddy accepts expulsion knowing this would ruin Tim for life.

It all goes downhill from there.  Roddy's father doesn't believe him when he says he's innocent so he leaves home descending into a life of debauchery.  He becomes an actor, comes into a sum of money through an inheritance, and marries a famous actress.  She is only interested in his money and, after burning through it until he's in debt, starts stepping out on him with her old sugar daddy.  Roddy catches them, confronts his wife, and leaves them after she reminds him he signed the house over to her.

He becomes a taxi dancer to make ends meet and ultimately winds up sick, broke, and barely surviving on the docks of Marseilles.  He is returned home to find his father has learned the truth, and he's restored to his position at home and school.

MacGuffin: The pregnancy.  It's not mentioned again after Roddy leaves home.

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: 

• Expressionism 
• Staircases - and we got a lot of them, including an extended shot of Roddy on an escalator going down

Verdict: The movie is an adaptation of a stage play of the same name written and starring Ivor Novello.  Novello is about 20 years too old to be playing a schoolboy, but otherwise he carries the movie with his performance.

Hitchcock made limited use of title cards preferring to let the action tell the story.  Unlike the stereotype of silent movies, though, he has the actors speaking throughout the film while only using the title card for clarity or emphasis where the stereotype is of actors not speaking at all unless there would be a title card immediately showing what they said.

The story is quite obviously a version of the parable of the prodigal son albeit this time with the son leaving for a nobler purpose.  That theme works, and the imagery has strong parallels to the parable.  Certain plot points no longer work as well.  For example, a girl could not simply accuse whomever she wanted to of getting her pregnant now and hope to extort money to keep her quiet since a DNA test would quickly prove the boy's innocence.  However, if you keep in mind the age of the film, these flaws don't overwhelm the story.

Hitchcock made use of several interesting shooting techniques: long shots of Roddy walking down steps, an upside down tilted shot from Julia's perspective as she leans backward in her chair, and the voyage home originally being shown with a green tint to emphasize Roddy's illness/nausea.  Tinting of black and white films was common in the earlier days of film.  Hitchcock would revisit many of these techniques to emphasize a character's isolation or to keep a film visually interesting.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Ring

The Lodger - the 1st "Hitchcock Film"

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) is the first remaining film by Alfred Hitchcock still widely available.  It is an adaptation of a book/play that is itself loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders.

Notable cast/crew: Ivor Novello as The Lodger will appear again in Hitchcock's next film Downhill.  Malcolm Keen as Joe, the Policeman.  Keen was in Hitchcock's prior film The Mountain Eagle (which has been lost) and would star in a third The Manxman.  June as Daisy Bunting (even in the 1920s, there were one-name actresses!).  Eliot Stannard (writer) wrote eight of Hitchcock's early films.  Alma Reville, assistant director, became Alma Hitchcock shortly before this was released.

Running time: 90 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

"Providence is concerned with greater things
 than money, Mrs Bunting."

Plot: We open on a woman's face in a rictus of horror, soon to be deceased.   The Avenger has struck again.  We are introduced to Daisy, a model, and her parents, The Buntings, who have a room to let.  Daisy's beau, Joe, discusses the Avenger murders with Mr Bunting revealing the opening scene is the 7th crime, all committed against blondes, all on a Tuesday of consecutive weeks.  The Lodger then appears asking to rent the available room.  Dressed matching the description of the Avenger, he is mysterious and demands privacy.  

As the film progresses, Joe is assigned to the case, and the Buntings begin to suspect their lodger is not what he appears to be.  Daisy falls for him, though, leading to a confrontation between Joe and the Lodger.  Joe then suspects him of being the Avenger leading to an arrest, an escape, and ultimately the revelation that he is an innocent man.

MacGuffin: In a Hitchcock film, the MacGuffin was a person, object, or plot point that set the story in motion but was, in itself, largely irrelevant to the story.  In this case, it is the Avenger, the murderer stalking the streets of London, who is never actually shown in the final version of the film.  We know nothing about him except for an early description of his clothing, and we know nothing of what he might be avenging.

Hitchcock cameo: Early in the film, seated with his back to the camera at a news desk while talking on a phone.  This came about by accident as the actor who was supposed to film the scene was unavailable.  Hitchcock filled in so filming could continue, and the "Hitchcock Cameo" was born.  This was not as uncommon as it sounds in the early days of cinema, and it was largely because of Hitchcock's rather distinctive appearance that audiences started noticing him and looking for him at which point it took on a life of its own.

Hitchcock themes: Multiple themes that will continue through Hitchcock's oeuvre first appear here:

• Thriller/suspense based plot
• Expressionism - displaying through imagery what people are feeling in defiance of the reality we would see if the camera only showed us what was literally transpiring
• Staircase - the use of the staircase to heighten the suspense as the Lodger makes his first exit into the night will be repeated in numerous Hitchcock films
• Blondes - much has been written about Hitchcock's obsession with blondes.  He gave two film-related reasons: he thought they filmed better (particularly in the black & white era), and he thought they worked better as heroines because of the traditional stereotype where audiences would not instinctually trust a brunette

Verdict: Heavily influenced by the German Expressionism of FW Murnau and Fritz Lang, The Lodger showcases Hitchcock's penchant for using the camera to capture more than just what is visible on the surface.  The opening shot of the woman screaming was done with a pane of glass behind her head with lights under it to set off her "golden curls" giving her a halo.  Another interesting shot has the actors looking at the ceiling where the Lodger is pacing above them.  The ceiling dissolves into a view through the floor so you see him pacing.  This was done by shooting up through a glass floor so you can see the Lodger pacing without cutting from one room to the other.

Hitchcock initially wanted the film to end ambiguously (if not heavily hinting that the Lodger was, in fact, the Avenger), but when Ivor Novello was cast, the studio refused to let him make Novello, a popular star at the time, into the villain.  Instead we get a love triangle (not in the book) and a tacked on happy ending after finding out the Lodger is the brother of one of the Avenger's victims and is himself trying to track down the killer.  The irony here is that in wanting to avenge his sister, the Lodger is actually an avenger, if not The Avenger, as we never see the real killer in the film.  This strikes me as possibly having been Hitchcock's way of getting to say he was the avenger in the film regardless of how the studio wanted it to end.

The love triangle doesn't work, as we're supposed to believe Daisy goes from nearly engaged to Joe to swooning over the Lodger in a week.  In fact, you may find yourself hoping the Lodger is the killer so that Daisy gets what she deserves for ditching Joe.  Hitchcock took the triangle motif and worked it into the story with numerous references to the shape in the title cards, as well as it being the signature icon on the Avenger's calling card.

It's fairly obvious in watching the film that everything is leading up to the Lodger being the Avenger (even going so far as to never giving him a name in the film) so the studio-forced ending kneecaps the resolution.  It's hard to take it seriously when the first 75 minutes has been dark and moody, full of mystery and peril, then the last 15 minutes neatly wraps up with everyone laughing and Daisy running off with the Lodger.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Downhill

Welcome!

Welcome to a new blog for movie reviews!  The aim is to do a biweekly blog covering two movies a week.  We'll cover a broad range of film from thrillers to Westerns to Sci Fi to comedy.  Starting next week, we'll go through all of Alfred Hitchcock's available features before branching out into other genres.

We'll begin next week with The Lodger and Downhill, both from 1927.  The Lodger is the first remaining film Hitchcock directed which is still available.  His first picture, Number 13, was started in 1922 but ran out of funding and was never finished.  His second film, The Pleasure Garden, has not been released in North America on DVD.  His third film, The Mountain Eagle, has been lost entirely.  So we begin with The Lodger.  We'll then cover the rest of his films except for Mary which is a German language version of Hitchcock's Murder! which has also not been released in North America on DVD.  See you next week!