The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (1935) 

Notable cast/crew: Robert Donat as Hannay.  Madeleine Carroll as Pamela.  Lucie Mannheim as Miss Smith.  Godfrey Tearle as Professor Jordan.  Wylie Watson as Mister Memory.

Running time: 86 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Mister Memory is a performer whose show consists of his ability to memorize trivia and then answer questions asked by the audience.  Hannay shows up and joins in the questioning.  Some drunks in the back cause a disturbance, and, in the scuffle, shots are fired.  Panic ensues, and one poor farmer never does find out what causes pip in poultry.  Miss Smith is pushed into Hannay's arms, and as they exit the theatre, she asks to come home with him.

How many fingers am I holding up?

At his apartment, she tells him she is a spy.  She fired the shots to create a diversion from two assassins are on her trail.  There is a plot to steal plans from the British air defence, and she is on her way to Scotland to stop it.

In the night, she wakes up Hannay, holding out a map of Scotland with a town circled, exclaiming, "They will get you next!"  She falls over, dead, a knife sticking out of her back.  Hannay looks at the map and remembers what she told him.  Fearing for his own life, he steals a milkman's uniform and sneaks out of his apartment.  When the maid comes, she finds Miss Smith's body, and the whole country begins a manhunt for Hannay thinking he is the killer.

Hannay makes his way to Scotland thinking he'll find the man Miss Smith was hoping would help her.  He encounters a Professor who knows her, and he asks for his help.  Hannay was mistaken.  The man Smith was going to see, Professor Jordan, was the ringleader of the spies.  She was going to stop him, not ask for his help.  Jordan shoots Hannay and thinks he's killed him.

Hannay escapes and goes to the police, but they don't believe him.  On the run again, now being pursued by the police and Jordan's men, he is turned in by Pamela who had already turned him in once on the train to Scotland.  Jordan's men, posing as police, "arrest" Hannay and take Pamela with them.  Hannay and Pamela are handcuffed together, but they are able to make their escape onto the moors.  After she finds out the truth, she aids Hannay in foiling the plot.  She goes to Scotland Yard, but they also don't believe her even though she knows details of the air defence.  They've found no papers missing, so they think nothing is wrong.

Hannay has gone to the London Palladium to stop Jordan where who is performing but Mister Memory.  Hannay pieces together that Memory is working with Jordan.  The papers aren't missing because Memory has memorized them.  He's leaving the country with Jordan after the show.  As the police arrest Hannay, he yells out, "What are the 39 Steps?"  Memory, in a panic to maintain his reputation, reveals it to be a spy organization, but he is shot before he can reveal for which country.  Jordan is the shooter and is quickly captured.  Before expiring, Memory reveals the plans he has memorized confirming Hannay's claim of innocence.

MacGuffin: The plans for the airplane engine, although arguably the 39 Steps itself is a MacGuffin

Hitchcock cameo: He tosses a cigarette box as the bus pulls up when Hannay and Smith leave the theatre

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Likable criminal
• Hero falsely accused
• Murder

Verdict: This is one of Hitchcock's best British films.  For me, it's between this and The Lady Vanishes.  It's a chase film, and it shares a lot of ideas with North By Northwest.  The movie is well cast, and it moves along briskly as Hannay escapes one fix after another.  Godfrey Tearle is a dead ringer for FDR and would actually play FDR in an MGM film about the Manhattan Project.  If you can, watch the Criterion Collection version of this as it has been restored to excellent condition.

The bridge on which the train stops to search for Hannay is the famous railway bridge over the Firth of Forth, built from 1884 till 1889. It was then one of the most complicated works of engineering craftsmanship. It spans 2.5 km.

Before filming the scene where Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll run through the countryside, Alfred Hitchcock handcuffed them together and pretended for several hours to have lost the key in order to put them in the right frame of mind for such a situation.  Carroll suffered at the hands of Hitchcock's quest for realism, right down to the real welts on her wrists from the long days of being handcuffed to Donat.

Hitchcock does a nice trick with the maid finding Miss Smith's body.  As she turns to the camera and is about to scream, he cuts to a shot of the train with the whistle blast replacing her scream.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Secret Agent

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) 

Notable cast/crew: Leslie Banks as Bob Lawrence.  Edna Best as Jill Lawrence.  Peter Lorre as Abbott.  Nova Pilbeam as Betty Lawrence.

Running time: 75 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: At a sporting competition in the Alps, the Lawrence family watches their friend Louis Bernard compete in ski jumping and Jill compete in trap shooting.  While dancing with Louis after the competition, Jill is standing next to him when an assassin shoots him through the window.  Before he dies, he tells her to have Bob take the brush from his room to the British consul.  Bob finds a note inside the brush handle, and he's confronted by one of his wife's competitors as he leaves the room who demands that he "hand it over".  Before Bob can reply, the police arrive demanding to know why he was in Bernard's room.  They lead him away for questioning where he finds his wife is already being interrogated.  A messenger arrives with a note for Bob which he rushes into the next room to show to Jill.  They are warned to keep quiet or they will never see their daughter again.

Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo

They return to England and decide to investigate on their own since they can't go to the police.  The Foreign Office tells them Louis was their agent, and he was killed because he had uncovered an assassination plot.  The Foreign Office is concerned the assassination could trigger another world war.  They want to help, but the Lawrences are too afraid of losing their daughter to talk.  The kidnappers call, and the Foreign Office traces it to Wapping which matches Bob's note.  Bob finds a dentist's office that matches the name on the note and proceeds to investigate.

While in the dentist's chair, Bob hears the watch chime of a man who was in the Alps with him as the man passes through the room.  The dentist is one of the assassins.  Bob struggles with him and gasses him with his own anesthesia then quickly dons his jacket and glasses.  He poses as the dentist with the dentist's light shining past his face to disguise him as he listens to the spies' plans.  He follows them to a cult temple: The Tabernacle of the Sun.  The logo matches a symbol on Bernard's note.

The cult is a front for the spy ring, and Bob has walked into the thick of it.  Bob tricks one of them into admitting his daughter is there, and, when one of them yells out not to use guns in case someone calls the police, a chair fight breaks out.  One of the spies is the sharpshooter from Jill's competition.  He's the trigger man on the assassination.  During the fight, Bob sees a ticket to the Royal Albert Hall in the man's pocket and deduces this is where the killing will take place.  He yells this information to his friend, Clive, who had accompanied him inside, and Clive escapes through the window to warn Jill and the authorities.

The authorities don't believe Clive leaving Jill to the foil the plot.  The plan is for Ramon to fire his gun at the crescendo of the performance so that no one will hear the rifle shot.  Jill runs into Ramon at the Hall, and he gives her a pin Betty was wearing to reinforce that she needs to remain silent because they have her daughter.  At the last second, Jill stands and screams causing Ramon to flinch and miss his target.  He only wounds him.  Ramon exits thinking he has completed his mission, but upon entering the temple, finds the radio reporting the unsuccessful attempt.

The police descend on the temple and line up sharpshooter teams.  A firefight ensues with everyone but Abbott and Ramon getting killed.  Bob frees Betty and leads her to the roof, but Ramon shoots him leaving Ramon and Betty alone.  Jill grabs a rifle and kills Ramon.  Abbott's watch gives him away, and the police kill him before he can shoot anyone else.  The Lawrences are reunited with all safe.

MacGuffin: The assassination

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Likable criminal
• Suspense
• Murder

Verdict: This film marked a run of six thrillers that saved Hitchcock's reputation and career in England.  He would later remake this with the same basic plot but changing many of the details.  Peter Lorre is fantastic as the head of the spy ring, and this was his first English film.  Some sources say he learned his part phonetically as he wasn't fluent yet.  The gunfight at the end was based on a real shootout that occurred in London called the Sidney Street Siege.

The music is a crucial part of the movie, and one thing you don't notice at first is there is no score to the movie.  All of the music in the movie is "source music" which is music the characters themselves hear: someone singing, music on a record player or radio, the orchestra performing.  The dramatic orchestra piece was composed specifically for the film by Arthur Benjamin.  Bernard Herrmann was offered the chance to write something different for the remake, but he chose to re-use it because he thought Benjamin's piece fit the scene too perfectly to replace.

This is a very plot-driven piece so most of the casting isn't notable.  There isn't anyone miscast, but most of the parts have little to do but advance the story.  Lorre is the exception.  He had gained fame in Fritz Lang's M playing a child-killer so there is some tension here where the audience of the time would have connected him to that role and wondered if the child would survive this film.  Once we're done with Hitchcock, we'll be covering several Lorre films from later in his career including M.  

Overall, this is a good rebound from the lesser efforts Hitchcock had been cranking out.  There is a nice touch, very subtly done, where the story foreshadows the climax with the shooting competition.  Jill is distracted at the beginning of the film which causes her to miss, and it is her distraction in the Hall that causes Ramon to miss.  The suspense rises as the song climaxes, and there's even a great moment where you think the crescendo has come with even the actors jumping up but is nothing more than Hitchcock tweaking the audience.  Lorre channels the director's humor here by waving his hand at the others telling them to calm down; they've jumped the gun, so to speak.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The 39 Steps

Waltzes from Vienna

Waltzes from Vienna (1934) 

Notable cast/crew: Jessie Matthews as Rasi.  Edmund Gwenn as Johann Strauss the Elder.  This was Gwenn's second of four Hitchcock films.  Fay Compton as Countess Helga von Stahl.  Esmond Knight as Johann Strauss the Younger.

Running time: 76 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: The story of the writing and performance of The Blue Danube

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: None

How do you turn this thing on?

Verdict: Hitchcock described this film as the low ebb of his career.  He only took it on to keep working as he had no other projects that year.  It is his only musical.  He experimented with using music to set tempo and guide the cutting: " . . . naturally every cut in the film was worked out on script before shooting begins. But more than that, the musical cuts were worked out, too." In certain sequences the images were deliberately cut to conform to the rhythm of the music.  "Film music and cutting have a great deal in common. The purpose of both is to create tempo and mood of the scene. And, just as the ideal cutting is the kind you don't notice as cutting, so with music".  "There is a dialogue scene between a young man and a woman. It is a quiet, tender scene. But the woman's husband is on his way. The obvious way to get suspense is to cut every now and then to glimpses of the husband traveling towards the house. In the silent days, when the villain was coming, you always had the orchestra playing quickening music. You 'felt' the menace. Well, you can still have that and keep the sense of the talk-scene going as well. And the result is that you don't need to insist pictorially on the husband's approach. I think I used about six feet of film out of the three hundred feet used in the sequence to flash to the husband. The feeling of approaching climax can be suggested by the music. It is in the psychological use of music, which, you will observe, they knew something about before talkies, that the great possibilities lie."  It was released as Strauss' Great Waltz in the US.

It's just not that good.  Edmund Gwenn is woefully underused.  This may well be the only Hitchcock movie I will only watch once and never again.  Unless you're watching all of his movies or you're into 19th century period-piece musical biographies, don't go to the trouble of tracking it down.  It's hard to get a copy of for a reason.  But cheer up, the next six films are what launched Hitchcock's reputation for great thrillers.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Number 17

Number 17 (1932) 

Notable cast/crew: Leon M Lion as Ben.  Anne Grey as Nora.  John Stuart as Barton.  Donald Calthrop as Brant makes his fourth and final Hitchcock film.  Barry Jones as Henry Doyle.

Running time: 65 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Thieves steal a jeweled necklace and are foiled by a detective and police officer's daughter.

Is that the the Chattanooga choo-choo?

MacGuffin: The jeweled necklace

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: Stairs

Verdict: I tried to write up a better explanation of the plot, but this movie is so convoluted it actually makes more sense the less you know about it. Half the characters are not who they say they are, and to make it more confusing, they're all pretending to be each other.  Keeping track of who is actually who gets so messy that every site I've seen lists a different person for each role.  It seems no one has any clue who is actually who on the cast list.  Watching the movie, it's obvious there are three people trying to break up a ring of thieves.  It's also obvious that somehow this master criminal organization's members have no clue who each other is.

Hitchcock considered the movie "a disaster" and "quite funny, but the story was rather confusing".  He was assigned the movie as punishment for the failure of his previous film Rich and Strange.  This was his final picture for British International Pictures.  The current remaining copies available in the US are of poor quality which makes following the dialogue that much more difficult.  Some of the frames are in poor condition, as well.  There is a decent train/bus chase at the end, but it's not enough to redeem the movie.  It's not unwatchable, but you have to completely disregard the details to enjoy it.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Waltzes from Vienna

Rich and Strange

Rich and Strange (1931) 

Notable cast/crew: Henry Kendall as Fred Hill.  Joan Barry as Emily Hill.  Percy Marmont as Commander Gordon.  Betty Amann as The Princess.  Elsie Randolph as The Old Maid.  Hannah Jones makes her final Hitchcock film in an uncredited role.

Running time: 82 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Fred Hill is trapped in the rat race.  His uncle leaves him a fortune so he decides to take his wife Emily on a cruise for the Orient.  Things get off to a rocky start when Fred gets seasick crossing the English Channel.  They stop over in Paris before moving on to Marseilles where they board a large ship heading East.

Let's play human whack-a-mole!

Fred is bedridden with seasickness again which leaves Emily palling around with Commander Gordon, general raconteur and ladies' man.  At some point, Fred is finally up and around, and he encounters a princess who is also on board.  They all go ashore together in north Africa, and Emily gets jealous of Fred spending time with the princess despite her having spent half the trip with the Commander.

Things continue back aboard ship with both Fred and Emily separately considering ending their marriage.  The voyage concludes in Singapore where Emily leaves with Gordon.  She finds out from Gordon that he's known all along the princess is a fake.  She's the daughter of a Berlin cleaning shop owner who goes around scamming rich men out of their fortunes.  Emily decides to go warn Fred.  Fred refuses to believe her until he finds most of his money missing.  All that's left is enough to pay the hotel and book passage for he and Emily back to England on a tramp steamer.

On the voyage home, they collide with another ship in the fog, and the ship is abandoned.  Fred and Emily manage to get themselves stuck on board after the crew has abandoned ship.  They're picked up by Chinese scavengers and returned home where they start arguing again.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: Blondes

Verdict: This was released as East of Shanghai in the US, but it doesn't matter what you call it.  It's not very good.  There are title cards and overly emotive acting like this was supposed to be a silent film, but it makes the film too disjointed as a talkie.  Joan Barry is a dead ringer for Mena Suvari.  This is the second straight movie for Hitchcock without a likable lead, and it becomes difficult to care what happens to them when they run around acting like they're a swingers club.  The only notable scene is near the end of the film where they built a life-size ship in a water tank to shoot the post-crash scene.  Hitchcock would make better use of castaways on a boat in Lifeboat.    

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Number 17

The Skin Game

The Skin Game (1931) 

Notable cast/crew: Edmund Gwenn as Mr Hornblower makes his first of four Hitchcock films.  John Longden as Charles Hornblower makes his third of four appearances.  Phyllis Konstam as Chloe Hornblower makes her fourth and final Hitchcock film.  Edward Chapman as Dawker makes his third and final appearance.

Running time: 82 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Two families, the Hillcrists and the Hornblowers, vie for control of the countryside.  The Hillcrists are old money; the Hornblowers are nouveau riche.  The Hornblowers are buying up land, evicting tenant farmers, and building factories.  The Hillcrists, upset by this, try to outbid them for the remaining land.  The Hillcrists are swindled out of the land at auction, but they find out a secret about Chloe: she used to be a professional co-respondent for pre-arranged divorce cases.  Mr Hornblower finds out, and he tries to buy the Hillcrists' silence by selling them the land cheap.  Word leaks out any way, and Chloe goes to the Hillcrists to beg for their silence since her husband does not yet know.  Charles arrives while she is there and refuses to believe the story the Hillcrists tell him.  Charles declares he will end his marriage to Chloe even though she carries his child.  Distraught, she runs to the pond outside and drowns herself, the destruction of the Hornblower family complete.

He sees you when you're sleeping

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: None

Verdict: "I didn't make it by choice, and there isn't much to be said about it."  Thus declared Hitchcock in an interview with Francois Truffaut.  This is another adapted play, and like Juno and the Paycock, it comes across less as a Hitchcock film than a staging of someone else's play.  The film is about class warfare in England, and the theme doesn't play well now.  The major failing of the film is neither family in the feud is likable, both treating each other shabbily.  Chloe is the one relatable character, but she ends up being misused by both families.  Edmund Gwenn turns in an excellent performance as a self-made man who rails against the upper class while abusing the lower class.  There is something of the parable of the unforgiving servant in him.

The term skin game refers to a swindle, and the phrase works on numerous levels throughout the movie.  The phrase is introduced to describe Hornblower's making deals for land then reneging by kicking out the tenants.  He then pulls a skin game on the Hillcrists at the auction.  Chloe's past as a professional co-respondent could be classified a skin game, as well as her marriage to Charles with him being kept in the dark about her past.  The final skin game is the Hillcrists' extorting land out of Hornblower that ultimately leads to Chloe's death.  

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Rich and Strange

Murder!

Murder! (1930) 

Notable cast/crew: Herbert Marshall as Sir John Menier.  Norah Baring as Diana Baring.  Phyllis Konstam as Doucie Markham, making her third of four Hitchcock films.  Edward Chapman as Ted Markham.  He was previously in Juno and the Paycock.  Donald Calthrop as Ion Stewart, making his third of four Hitchcock films.  Hannah Jones as Mrs Didsome, making her fourth of five Hitchcock films.  Clare Greet as Jury Member, making her third of six appearances.

Running time: 102 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A scream shatters the night waking everyone in town.  Edna Druce lies dead at the feet of Diana Baring who has amnesia about what happened.  Both are actresses in a travelling theater group.  The jury is initially split, but all quickly come to a guilty verdict.  Sir John Menier, a famous actor, is the last holdout, but with no proof to prove her innocence, he goes along with the others.  Diana is sentenced to death.

The shadow knows

Sir John doubts her guilt and feels guilty himself for his vote.  He begins to investigate the crime himself.  He employs two of the acting troupe to assist him.  They narrow it down to one suspect: Handel Fane.

Handel Fane has returned to his old job as a trapeze artist in a circus.  They try to goad a confession from him but are unsuccessful.  They do discover that he is half-East Indian and homosexual, and he murdered Edna to keep it secret.  Fane hangs himself from his trapeze perch and leaves a confession in a note to Sir John.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking past the house where the murder was committed with a female companion after Sir John's visit to the scene with Markham and Doucie.

Hitchcock themes: 

• Murder
• Hero wrongfully accused
• False identity

Verdict: Murder! is an early attempt at some themes Hitchcock would later develop more fully in Psycho and other films.  The murderer is a social outcast, and there is a parallel drawn between his life as an actor and the role he plays in life passing himself off as a straight, White man.  The movie moves quickly, but the plot is a little thin.  The sound mix greatly detracts from the film as several scenes are drowned out by background noise.  It doesn't appear to be a problem with the copy of the film but rather is a problem with the sound technology of the time.

This was filmed simultaneously in German using the same sets with different actors and released as Mary.  The scene where Sir John thinks out loud in front of a mirror had to be filmed with a recording of the lines and a thirty piece orchestra hidden behind the set as it was not possible to post-dub the soundtrack later.  This is the first movie where a person's thoughts are presented on the soundtrack of the film. .

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Skin Game

Juno and the Paycock

Juno and the Paycock (1929) An Irish family copes with loss during the Irish Civil War

Notable cast/crew: Sara Allgood as Juno Boyle.  Edward Chapman as Captain Boyle.  Sidney Morgan as Joxer Daly.  John Laurie as Johnny Boyle.  Kathleen O'Regan as Mary Boyle.  John Longden as Charles Bentham.  Barry Fitzgerald as the Orator.

Running time: 96 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: The Irish are at war with one another.  An orator rouses the crowd in the street, reminding them that when the Irish have stuck and fought together, they have never lost, but when they have been divided, they have never won.  But an ambush has been set, and men open fire on the gathered crowd from a window above.  Men scatter with Captain Boyle and his friend Joxer Daly hiding out in a pub.  After mooching drinks, they return to Boyle's residence for a cup of tea thinking the Captain's wife, Juno, is out.  She's in, and they lay it on thick discussing a phony work opportunity before she runs Joxer off.  It's quite clear that the Captain is a layabout who "develops" pain whenever someone mentions a job prospect, and Juno is his long-suffering wife who doesn't tolerate his nonsense.  Their son Johnny hangs about the place but is suffering from physical and mental torment from the war.

Is she listening?  Me leg's still achin' then

Their daughter, Mary, arrives with Charles Bentham who tells them that their relative has passed away and left them somewhere between 1500 and 2000 pounds.  They'll be able to leave their tenement housing in Dublin, and the Captain won't have to "look" for work any longer.  Mary begins to worry as they begin to spend money on frills like a victrola, but Juno assures her it's but a small thing with 2000 quid coming.

The second act shows more and more changes to the flat: finer clothes, new furniture, a new tea set.  Bentham comes to visit again, and the discussion of ghosts unnerves Johnny.  Joxer accompanies Mrs Madigan, the pub owner, to see the Boyles, and they hold an impromptu party to celebrate the Boyles' good fortune and soon departure.  Mary and Bentham are soon to be wed.  Johnny continues to be agitated at talk of a neighbor's son who was turned in to the police and killed.  He verges on breakdown upon hearing the funeral procession outside.  An IRA agent shows up demanding Johnny show up for questioning.  They suspect he's the one who ratted out the young man.  Johnny begs that he's lost an arm and use of one of his legs in the cause.  Hasn't he done enough for Ireland?  "No man can do enough for Ireland," is the reply.

The third act opens with the Captain at Bentham's office.  Bentham has made an error in drafting the will, and the Boyles are receiving nothing.  Word spreads quickly, and creditors soon come looking for payment.  They take away the Boyles' new possessions to pay their debts.  Juno arrives home, distraught.  Mary is pregnant, and Bentham has hightailed it to England having never married her.  The Captain considers kicking Mary out, but Juno says if Mary goes she goes, too.  The Captain then reveals to the family there's no inheritance.  Bentham screwed up the will leaving the property to the "cousins" instead of naming the specific heirs, and now they're coming out of the woodwork to make claims while the lawyers eat up the proceeds.  

Mary encounters her old suitor Jerry, who is anxious to take her back until he finds out she's with child.  While everyone else is dealing with the creditors, the IRA men show up and take Johnny out at gunpoint.  Juno and Mary return home to find the home empty and learn Johnny was killed by the IRA men.  Juno and Mary leave to identify the body, and they're not going to return.  They will leave the Captain to his own devices and stay with Juno's sister.  Juno's final soliloquy bemoans the endless violence and begs God's love and mercy.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: None

Verdict: Released as The Shame of Mary Boyle in the US, Juno and the Paycock is a straightforward reproduction of the stage play by Sean O'Casey.  Hitchcock and O'Casey got on well, and O'Casey was the inspiration for the prophet of doom in the diner scene of The Birds.  The name derives from the Roman goddess of marriage, queen of the gods who was depicted with a peacock.  The Captain is several times compared to or called a peacock, and Aesop's fable of Juno and the Peacock has some bearing on the symbolism referenced:

The Peacock made complaint to Juno that, while the nightingale pleased every ear with his song, he himself no sooner opened his mouth than he became a laughingstock to all who heard him.  The Goddess, to console him, said, "But you far excel in beauty and in size.  The splendor of the emerald shines in your neck, and you unfold a tail gorgeous with painted plumage."  "But for what purpose have I," said the bird, "this dumb beauty so long as I am surpassed in song?"  "The lot of each," replied Juno, "has been assigned by the will of the Fates - to thee, beauty; to the eagle, strength; to the nightingale, song; to the raven, favorable, and to the crow, unfavorable auguries.  These are all contented with the endowments allotted to them."

The Boyles, instead of remaining content with living within their means, spend money they don't yet have, and it causes the destruction of their family.  Proverbs 19:4 is also illustrated: "Wealth attracts many friends, but even the closest friend of the poor man deserts him."

The film marked the screen debuts of Barry Fitzgerald (the Orator) and Edward Chapman (Captain Boyle).  Fitzgerald originated the role of the Captain on the stage, and O'Casey wrote the opening scene specifically for the movie to be able to include Fitzgerald.  Sara Allgood originated the role of Juno on the stage and does fine work here.  There is a bit of Andy Capp and Flo in the Captain and Juno characters which I enjoyed.

This movie is not well regarded among Hitchcock enthusiasts because it really is not a Hitchcock film.  It's almost a word for word adaptation of the stage play.  People who come in expecting a typical Hitchcock film usually find this dull, and it doesn't help that the film copies floating around are mostly poorly copied public domain versions of the film.  Hitchcock himself was dismissive of it in later years referring to it as a "photograph of a stage play", but there are other sources which claim that he was fond of the play and enthusiastic to film it at the time.

The play was very popular at the time, and the movie was well received when it came out which was only a few years after the Irish Civil War.  It is at times very funny while also turning quite bleak at the end.  It's a serious film about a troubled people in a troubled time, and it strikes me as containing something quintessentially Irish.  It's not in the pantheon of "great Hitchcock films", but it deserves better than the indifference many regard it with.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Murder!

Blackmail

Blackmail (1929) 

Notable cast/crew: Anny Ondra as Alice White appears in her second consecutive Hitchcock film.  John Longden as Detective Frank Webber makes the first of four credited Hitchcock films.  Hannah Jones as The Landlady appears in the third of five Hitchcock films.   Sara Allgood as Mrs White.  She'll appear in Hitchcock's next film, Juno and the Paycock.  Donald Calthrop as Tracy in the first of four Hitchcock films.

Running time: 85 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: The opening scene shows an arrest and establishes Frank as working for Scotland Yard. We're then introduced to his girlfriend, Alice.  At dinner, they have an argument she provokes, and Frank storms out.  She then meets with a local artist who arranged to see her that evening.  At the end of the evening they go to his studio. She paints a silly face on a blank canvas and signs her name to it.  She decides to model for him.  He forces himself on her, and drags her into a canopied bed.  As she yells in protest, her hand emerges from the drapes and finds a knife on the night stand next to a loaf of bread.  Her arm disappears, there is more struggling, and then his arm falls out from behind the drapes.  

No means no

She emerges from the dropes in shock, robotically moving, still clutching the knife.  She then comes to her senses, gets dressed, and tries to remove any sign of her having been there.  She tears a whole in a painting of a leering jester in the process.  She paints over her name on the sketch she made earlier and leaves the knife.  Her exit is down a long, spiral flight of stairs.  Unbeknownst to her, she has left her gloves.  Frank discovers a glove but hides it when he recognizes the artist as the man Alice left with that night.  Alice arrives home at daybreak and pretends to have been at home in bed all night.

Alice, wracked with guilt, begins to hear KNIFE over and over.  Frank arrives to see Alice and shows her the glove.  At the same time a bum shows up who had been hanging around the artist's residence.  He not only knows Frank has the glove, but he produces the other glove from the pair.  He had stolen it from the scene before the police got there.  He proceeds to finagle money out of Frank to buy his silence.

Things are complicated by a note the landlady had taken for the artist with a message from the bum.  The bum had been trying to swindle money from the artist for some time, and now he's wanted for questioning in the murder.  Frank makes the bum sweat by locking the room and telling him he's called for the police.  It's their word against his, and the bum has a criminal record.  When the police arrive, he panics and jumps through the window, fleeing to the British Museum.  A rooftop chase ensues, and the bum falls through the glass panes to his death.  Annie arrives at Scotland Yard to turn herself in but finds they already consider the case closed with the bum's death.  She confesses to Frank, and he admits he already knew.  It being a case of self-defense, Frank leads her out of the office preventing anyone else from ever knowing the truth.  The movie closes with the jester painting being carried by Annie, her face falling as the police around her laugh at a joke.

MacGuffin: The glove

Hitchcock cameo: Hitchcock on the Underground having a fight with a small boy

Hitchcock themes:

• Love triangle
• Blondes
• Stairs
• Transference of guilt

Verdict: This film ushers Hitchcock into the Sound Age, but it is also considered the first British "all-talkie" feature film.  It began production as a silent film, and there is actually a shorter silent version of the film.  Hitchcock changed some shots and added some completely new shots to make the sound version.  The opening eight minutes of the film is silent except for music and some minor foley work to fill in some background noises.  Stylistically and literally, this film is a bridge between the two eras.  One complication of the switch was that lead actress Anny Ondra presented a problem.  Her heavy Czech accent was considered unintelligible or unbelievable in playing an English shop girl.  Hitchcock was good friends with Ondra and didn't want to replace her.  They got around this by having Ondra mouth her lines while Joan Barry read them from just off camera.  While not technically an overdub, it is the first known instance of one actress' voice being used for another's.  There does still exist an early sound test for Blackmail with Hitchcock and Ondra speaking briefly.  I don't find her accent that distracting, but it is a short clip so it may be that it was more noticeable in longer scenes.  At worst, they were playing it safe so that the first sound film didn't get a negative reaction.


Hitchcock incorporates more fancy camera work: catching the detectives' reflection off a mirror, a sidelong shot of a staircase that rises up the profile of the stairs as the artist and Alice ascend the stairs, the overhead shot looking down the depth of the staircase as Alice descends the stairs.  Some of the museum shots in particular were done using the Schufftan process due to poor lighting in the museum.  This involved taking a still shot of the museum and reflecting it off of a mirror that had part of its surface scratched off.  This allowed the shot to be filmed off the reflection with with actors entering through a "door" in the scratched off area.  It's not dissimilar to how later matte work would be done.  There is a striking scene where the artist has the shadow of a chandelier cast on his face, and the shadow appears to form a curled moustache.  Hitchcock said this was an explicit homage to the moustache-twirling villain of the Silent Era, a sort of nod goodbye to those films.  He also plays with imagery and sound together as he goes from a shot of a panhandler's extended arm frightening Alice into a scream blending into the landlady screaming as she finds the artist's dead body, arm extended in the same way.  The amplification of the word KNIFE as Alice sits at breakfast also plays with sound to heighten the anxiety we feel for and through Alice.

After a string of movies bouncing around different styles, and even moreso than The Lodger, this feels to me like a real Hitchcock film.  It is this style that he develops in the main body of his work, and many of the themes here will be explored further in later films.  This holds up well because the plot could be done in any era and not lose any of the tension.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Juno and the Paycock