Mr & Mrs Smith

 Mr & Mrs Smith (1941) 

Notable cast/crew: Carole Lombard as Ann.  Robert Montgomery as David.  Gene Raymond as Jeff.  Jack Carson as Chuck.  Charles Halton as Mr Deever (making his 2nd of three Hitchcock films).

Running time: 95 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: David and Ann Smith have a tumultuous marriage.  They fight a lot, but they have a lot of rules to their marriage.  After another spat, she asks him if he had to do it all over again, would he marry her.  He, following her rule of being honest, says no he wouldn't because he gave up too much freedom when he got married.  She misunderstands that he is simply answering her hypothetical and does not want to be separated from her, and she gets mad at him which fires off another spat.

You've got a dangler there

David goes to work where Mr Deever is waiting for him.  Deever informs him that due to a jurisdiction dispute, the Smiths' marriage is part of a group of marriages that are technically not legal.  They are currently married by common law, but the town wants them to go through another ceremony just to make sure everything is order for legal purposes.  David intends to tell Ann that evening, but Mr Deever makes a last minute decision to stop by and tell Ann since he was a childhood friend of hers.

They go to dinner, and she expects him to marry her again that night.  Instead, he, not knowing she knows, decides to string it out.  She does a slow boil then smashes a champagne bottle when he gets ready for bed without still having told her about their non-marriage.  She kicks him out for being a cad.  She decides to get her revenge by going to dinner with other men to make David jealous.  It escalates from there with each making the other jealous.

Ann decides she wants to take up with David's business partner Jeff which makes things even more strained.  David shows up at their ski lodge and feigns illness to guilt Ann into caring for him.  They get into yet another fight which shows Jeff a side of Ann he hadn't seen.  David and Ann reconcile and presumably get married again.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking past a hotel

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes

Verdict: An amusing film, this is Hitchcock's only purely comedic American film.  Carole Lombard requested Hitchcock do this film with her, although RKO documents show that Htichcock also pursued the project himself.  As such, this is one of the few films that he wasn't involved with the scripting process.  Carole Lombard directed Hitchcock's cameo and made him do repeated retakes.  In order to tease him about his comment, "Actors are cattle", she had a miniature cattle pen set up on the set with three heifers, each with the name of one of the movie's stars emblazoned on it.  This was the last movie Lombard did that was released before her death in a plane crash in 1942.

This is the first American film to feature a pizzeria.

It's a fairly straightforward screwball comedy using a plot device that has been repeated numerous times over the years about the married couple who find out they aren't married and then have to be won over into remarrying.  Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery are well cast with Montgomery having most of the best lines in the movie.  Gene Raymond is okay as Jeff, but the role as written doesn't work.  It's hard to believe that the milquetoast, Southern gentleman who is David's friend and business partner would suddenly take up with his estranged wife.  The role would need to be a little more oily for him to be believable.  A George Sanders or Carey Grant (who was the original choice for the role of David) would have been better in the role providing it was written that way.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Suspicion

Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent (1940) 

Notable cast/crew: Joel McCrea as John Jones.  Laraine Day as Carol Fisher.  Herbert Marshall as Stephen Fisher.  George Sanders as ffolliott.  Edmund Gwenn as Rowley (his third Hitchcock film).  Robert Benchley as Stebbins.  Ian Wolfe as Stiles.

Running time: 120 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Powers is unsatisfied with the overseas reporting for his paper so he enlists John Jones to fly over there and get real news.  Jones meets up with Stebbins (another reporter) before running into Dutch diplomat Van Meer.  He's unable to get much out of Van Meer but rides with him to a meeting of the Universal Peace Party.  At the meeting he meets Carol Fisher who works for the UPP and is daughter of Stephen Fisher, head of the party.  Fisher announces Van Meer is not going to be at the meeting which confuses Jones since he drove there with him.

Lining up a killer shot

Jones is sent to Amsterdam to cover Van Meer's peace conference which is attempting to avoid war in Europe.  Standing in the rain on the crowded steps of the hall, he witnesses Van Meer assassinated by a photographer who hid a gun beside his camera.  Jones gives chase hopping in a car with Carol and ffolliott.  They wind up losing them out in the Dutch countryside amidst windmills.

Jones sends Carol and ffolliott off to get the police when he notices one of the windmills turning in the wrong direction.  He stays to investigate and finds the spies holed up inside, and they have Van Meer alive.  They had an impostor assassinated to hide the fact that they had kidnapped Van Meer.  He has knowledge vital to prevent the spread of war in Europe: knowledge of an agreement in Clause 27 of a secret pact.  They have drugged Van Meer making it impossible to free him, but Jones escapes and brings back the police.  They find the windmill abandoned except for a bum who is really one of the spies which leads everyone to doubt Jones' story.

Jones and Carol return to London to find one of the spies meeting with her father.  Unknown to them, her father is part of the spy network.  Fisher pretends to help Jones by offering a bodyguard, Rowley, who is really a hit man for the spies.  Rowley fabricates the idea of there being spies on their tail and talks Jones into ducking into Westminster Cathedral to hide from them.  He tries to push Jones from the steeple, but Jones dodges him, sending Rowley to his death.

ffolliott, it turns out, had known about Fisher and had followed the spies back from Holland.  He joins Jones in investigating the connections in order to find Van Meer and break the story.  ffolliott comes up with a scheme to fake a kidnap of Carol in order to make Fisher do their bidding.  Carol flubs the plot when she comes home while ffolliott is trying to get Fisher to give him the address where Van Meer is being held.  He gets a break when Fisher leaves to interrogate Van Meer, and ffolliott follows him.

Van Meer won't talk until he is tortured, and ffolliott is forced to watch.  Jones arrives and helps rescue Van Meer, but Fisher escapes with the information he needed.  ffolliott and jones leave for America to try to intercept Fisher.  War is declared with Germany while they're flying over the Atlantic.  Fisher gets wind that he is going to be arrested once they land, and he comes clean to Carol.  The plane is shot down by a German ship and crashes into the ocean.  All of the survivors make it to an airplane wing, but there are too many for it to support their weight.  Fisher decides to jump off while they argue and drowns rather than face his fate.  They're rescued by an American ship, and Jones gets the story back to New York.  The movie closes with a broadcast from Jones to America warning them that war is coming, and America must get ready.

MacGuffin: Clause 27

Hitchcock cameo: Walking past a hotel reading a newspaper

Hitchcock themes: 

• Murder
• Spies

Verdict: This is a decent war-time picture, but it runs a little long.  It's clearly a propaganda film meant to encourage the war effort in America.  Many of Hitchcock's films pre-WW2 focus on spies and the German war movement, and in this, as in The Lady Vanishes, an openly pacifist character that thinks they can stop hostilities just by telling the enemy to stop gets shot in mid-sentence and made to look the fool.  It's clear which side Hitchcock came down on.  There are not so subtle hints throughout the film such as Jones breaking a HOTEL EUROPE sign accidentally leaving HOT EUROPE.  Also, there is a shot in the windmill where an impressionistic image of Hitler is painted on a wooden beam above the spies standing under it making it clear who they are working for.  The "peace" party turns out to be a front for German spies, again reinforcing the message that those who refuse to stand up to the enemy and actively work to prevent action against it are nothing more than patsies for them.

The film has two memorable sequences: the assassination and the plane crash.  The assassination is iconic with its crowds of men and their umbrellas standing in the rain as the cameraman kills Van Meer's doppleganger in front of everyone.  The chase through the crowd showing just the umbrellas moving as someone runs by is very well done.  For the plane crash, footage taken from a stunt plane diving over the ocean was rear projected on rice paper in front of the cockpit set, while behind the rice paper were two chutes connected to large water tanks. The chutes were aimed at the windshield of the cockpit, so that water would break through the rice paper at the right moment, simulating the crash of the plane into the ocean.  When the shipwreck sequence was shot, a special tub within the studio tank had to be built for Herbert Marshall (Fisher), who couldn't swim because he only had one leg (he'd lost the other in combat in World War I).

Hitchcock's eccentric marriage proposal to his wife, Alma, was recreated in the film in the scene when Jones proposes to Carol.

Robert Benchley was allowed to write his own lines.  He was a well-known comedian/humorist of the time and provided a bit of comic relief.  George Sanders is excellent, as always, this time playing the hero instead of the oily cad like in Rebecca.  Albert Bassermann (Van Meer) couldn't speak a word of English and learned all his lines phonetically.  He is riveting in the scene when Fisher interrogates him.  That scene really draws you in and leaves you spellbound as he denounces those who foment war and how they will destroy themselves and leave the world to the little, peaceful people.  Gary Cooper turned down the lead role, later admitting he had made a mistake.  Joel McCrea is okay in the role, but he's a little weak to carry the leading man.  The role really gets split between him and Sanders as to who the hero of the film is.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Mr & Mrs Smith

Rebecca

Rebecca (1940) “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Notable cast/crew: Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter.  Joan Fontaine as Mrs de Winter.  George Sanders as Jack Favell.  Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers.  Nigel Bruce as Major Giles Lacy.  Reginald Denny as Frank Crawley.  Leo G Carroll as Dr Baker in the first of six Hitchcock films.

Running time: 130 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Our narrator, Mrs de Winter, revisits Manderley in a dream and remembers how she came to live there at one time.  She's working as a travelling companion in the south of France when she sees Maxim de Winter on the cliffs, peering down into the ocean.  She stops what appears to be a suicide attempt and then encounters him again at the hotel.  He's mourning the death of his wife, Rebecca, but, running into the narrator again at the hotel, he takes an interest her and takes her out to the countryside so she can sketch for him.  In making small talk, she mentions swimming in the sea and drowning only to learn later that Rebecca died drowning after a sailing accident.

Mrs Danvers, a darkness within the light

While the narrator's employer is taken ill, Maxim spends as much time as he can with the narrator.  When she is to leave France, Maxim asks her to marry him and return with him to his home, Manderley.  They wed quietly and return home where the staff is not all receptive to the marriage.  In particular, Mrs Danvers, Rebecca's personal maid, resents there being a new Mrs de Winter.

Mrs Danvers has managed the house since Rebecca died, and she sets out to mark her territory and icily intimidate the narrator.  Little details throughout the house still evoke Rebecca's presence: the embroidered linens, the stationery, her room left almost a shrine in the state it was when she died.  Even the good-natured servants, in trying to be helpful, steer the narrator to do things the way Rebecca did: what to eat, which rooms to use, what her schedule should be.  She is so intimidated by them that she responds to a phone call asking for Mrs de Winter by saying she had died a year ago.

In her insecurity, she tries to be more like Rebecca which only serves to aggravate Maxim.  He loves her because she isn't Rebecca.  He simply wants her to be herself.  She begins to assert herself to Mrs Danvers, who is unnaturally devoted to Rebecca's memory, which provokes Mrs Danvers to try to betray her.  Mrs Danvers tricks her into wearing a dress Rebecca once wore which wounds Maxim.  Distraught, she flees the costume ball, and Mrs Danvers tries to seduce her into killing herself.  A cannon firing announcing a shipwreck snaps her out of it.

The discovery of Rebecca's missing boat and body during the course of rescuing the ship brings things to a boil.  Maxim had falsely identified another deceased woman as his wife, and he admits he was the one who scuttled Rebecca's boat with her dead body on it.  Beyond that, he reveals that he hated Rebecca.  Rebecca, despite the hagiographic reverence for her by some, was a wicked woman who thrived on making Maxim miserable.  She cheated on him flagrantly and threw it in his face.  He had confronted her, and she mocked him that she was going to have a child who would be his heir but who he would always know was not his.  She taunted him trying to provoke him, and in their arguing she tripped and fell, hitting her head as she fell, and dying.  Fearing that no one would believe him, Maxim took her body, placed it in her boat, and scuttled it.

Jack Favell, Rebecca's cousin, thinks Maxim killed her and tries to extort Maxim.  Maxim turns the tables on him and reports him to the police.  Favell lays out a theory of the murder, and for motive, suggests Rebecca was pregnant with his child.  When they question the doctor, it turns out she was not pregnant: she had terminal cancer.  The night of the argument, she was trying to provoke Maxim into killing her so she wouldn't have to face her illness.

Mrs Danvers, consumed by her obsession with Rebecca, sets fire to Manderley and kills herself in the blaze.  The loss of Manderley frees the de Winters from the presence of Rebecca once and for all.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking behind George Sanders after he uses the phone

Hitchcock themes: 

• Identity

Verdict: This is not just a great Hitchcock movie; this is one of the great movies of old Hollywood.  It received eleven Oscar nominations and won Best Picture and Best Cinematography (black & white).   It made use of a technique called "deep focus photography" which gave the camera a much deeper field of vision for some of the fantastic interior shots of the house.  It features one of the great opening lines in cinema, and a memorable opening sequence that ties nicely into the end of the film.

 Hitchcock had an A list cast for his first American film after coming over from Britain.  It is stocked with both great leading actors and great character actors in supporting roles.  Laurence Olivier plays the tortured Maxim with subtlety and pathos.  George Sanders is superb playing the oily cad.  His voice and rakish charm steal every scene he's in.  Judith Anderson is eerie and seductively dominating in her role as Mrs Danvers.  There is a suggestion of an illicit relationship with Rebecca that is not explicitly stated but deeply suggested by her obsessive devotion to her memory.  Leo G Carroll is in only one scene, but the great character actor shines as the doctor.  He would work with Hitchcock five more times becoming the actor with the most credited appearances in Hitchcock's films.

Joan Fontaine is perfect as Mrs de Winter.  Her character undergoes a transformation as the movie progresses.  Mousy and awkward, she first is employed to a domineering woman then loomed over by Mrs Danvers.  Throughout the movie, she is overshadowed by Rebecca which is a remarkable accomplishment as Rebecca is never actually seen in the film.  Adding to the lack of identity, Fontaine's character is never named in the film.  It's slyly noted when Maxim's sister meets her that she doesn't know her name, and it reinforces that the narrator is so insecure and obedient to others that her lack of self-confidence extends to not only being unnamed but not seeing herself as Mrs de Winter.  She thinks of Rebecca as Mrs de Winter.  It is the revelation that Maxim loves her because she is not Rebecca, and ultimately that he hated Rebecca, that helps push her into asserting herself and enables her to realize herself as Mrs de Winter.  It's a wonderful performance with some possible undertones of Fontaine's real life as she had toiled in the shadow of her more famous sister, Olivia de Havilland, until this film.  Fontaine would win the Oscar for her next film, Hitchcock's Suspicion, and some felt her win there was really Hollywood making up for her not having won for Rebecca.

If you're interested in seeing the great classics of Hollywood, this is a film you must see.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Foreign Correspondent

Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn (1939) 

Notable cast/crew: Charles Laughton as Sir Humphrey Pengallan.  Maureen O'Hara as Mary.  Clare Greet as Sir Humprey's Tenant makes the last of seven appearances in Hitchcock's films.  Basil Radford as Sir Humphrey's Friend makes his final and third straight Hitchcock film.  Robert Newton as Jem Trehearne.

Running time: 90 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A gang of pirates on the Cornish coast manipulate the lights on the coast to cause ships to wreck on the rocks which they then pillage.  Mary has come to the area to stay with her Aunt Patience at Jamaica Inn, not knowing the inn is home to the gang of crooks.  She encounters Sir Humphrey after being abandoned on the road.  He takes a fancy to her, but he also tries to dissuade her from going to the dangerous inn.  She insists and finds her Uncle Joss (one of the thieves) and Aunt nervous for her to be there.  They hadn't received her letters and don't want her to spoil their enterprise.  After settling her in, Joss checks on the treasure room to talk to the head of the gang: Sir Humphrey.

Won't you give today?

The crooks catch Jem Trehearne stealing some extra loot and decide to kill him.  They string him up, but Mary is watching from upstairs and cuts the rope after the others have left.  She and Jem make their escape together.  They go to Sir Humphrey for help, and Jem reveals he's an undercover agent trying to break up the smuggling ring.

Sir Humphrey goes along to break up the ring, not letting on that he's the head of the gang (which only Joss knows, the rest of the gang being flunkies to Joss).  Jem and Sir Humphrey are "caught" and left tied up while the gang goes to wreck another ship.

Sir Humphrey then reveals he is in league with the gang and "escapes" leaving Jem guarded by Patience.  Jem cuts a deal with Patience and heads off to bring back help.  Mary slips away from the gang and relights the warning light saving the ship.  She returns to the inn with Joss (who has been shot by his gang) who soon dies.  She encounters Sir Humphrey who murders her aunt and kidnaps her.  They board a ship where they are to make their escape, but Jem stops them.  Sir Humphrey, cornered, jumps to his death, and Mary is freed by Jem.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: 

• False Identity

Verdict: A fun film, but not Hitchcock's best.  The plot moves along well, but the suspense is undercut by some problems Hitchcock had with Charles Laughton.  It was one of Hitchcock's most unhappy directing jobs.  He said that he did not so much direct the film as referee it.  Laughton was also co-producer on the film, so he made himself the villain and enlarged his role.  He also hammed it up.  Changing his character involved Hitchcock changing the script to reveal he's the head of the gang far earlier than originally planned.  Most likely the big reveal would have been when Jem and Sir Humphrey are "captured" by the gang near the end of the movie.  Laughton appeared to be wearing a prosthetic nose and forehead for the part.  Maureen O'Hara appears in her first film credited as Maureen O'Hara, and Laughton was so impressed with her he starred with her again in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the same year.

This was the first of three Daphne Du Maurier tales that Hitchcock made into movies. The other two were Rebecca and The Birds.  Du Maurier hated the film and considered withholding the rights to Rebecca (which, in the end, she loved).  This was the last British movie that Hitchcock made.

The film is a nice action film, but it lacks the intrigue that Hitchcock had made a staple in his run of late British films.  He would resume that run in America.  Jamaica Inn was a smash hit at the box office.  However, Hitchcock himself didn't like it, and some critics have panned it.  I don't think it's anywhere near that bad and is quite enjoyable; just don't go into it expecting Psycho.  Disney fans may recognize Robert Newton (Jem Trehearne) who would more famously play a pirate as Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Rebecca

The Lady Vanishes

The Lady Vanishes (1938) 

Notable cast/crew: Margaret Lockwood as Iris Henderson.  Michael Redgrave as Gilbert.  Dame May Whitty as Miss Froy.  Basil Radford as Charters.

Running time: 97 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Iris is among a group of people delayed by weather as they are traversing Europe.  She befriends Gilbert and Miss Froy while they're at the inn waiting to leave.  Iris suffers a blow to the head before leaving and later faints on the train.  After dining with Miss Froy and taking a nap, she asks about Miss Froy.  No one on the train remembers Miss Froy, and they think Iris has gone mad.  Gilbert decides to go along with her to help her find Miss Froy, and little by little, they start to find clues the little, old lady may have been abducted.

I knew I shouldn't have eaten that bean burrito

They find a bandaged person travelling under the care of a nun, and it turns out to be Miss Froy who has been drugged and abducted.  They free her and learn she is a British agent.  She has been passing codes in song tunes, and she teaches them a tune.  She flees the train hoping either she or the others will make it back to England safely with the coded tune.  With Miss Froy gone, the others on the train make their escape back to England by commandeering the train.

Upon arriving at the Foreign Office in London, Gilbert finds he has forgotten the tune.  While racking his brain for it, he hears it played in the next room on a piano.  He and Iris rush in and find Miss Froy has arrived before them and safely conveyed the message.

MacGuffin: The tune

Hitchcock cameo: At the train station smoking a cigar

Hitchcock themes: 

• Suspense
• Mistaken Identity

Verdict: At the time of release, this was the most successful British film ever.  In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Alfred Hitchcock explained, "Lady Vanishes was inspired by that legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880's, at the time of the Great Exposition. The woman was taken sick, and they sent the girl across Paris to get some medicine, in a horse-vehicle, so it took about four hours, and when she came back she asked, `How's my mother?`  `What mother?`  `My mother.  She's here; she's in her room.  Room 22.`  They go up there.  Different room, different wallpaper, everything.  And the payoff of the whole story is, so the legend goes, that the woman had Bubonic plague, and they dare not let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied. That was the original situation and pictures like Lady Vanishes were all variations on it."

Aside from the beginning and end of the film, there was no soundtrack.  In order to get the realistic effect, Hitchcock insisted that there should be no background music except for the beginning and end of the film.  The only music the audience hears is source music (music the characters hear): the music sung by the musician outside the hotel, the music tune of Miss Froy, Colonel Bogey March hummed by Gilbert, the dance music conducted by Gilbert in his hotel room, and the dance music when Iris meets Gilbert in the train.

The Charters and Caldicott characters were so popular they were spun off into three subsequent movies, although Hitchcock was not involved with these films at all.

This is my favorite of Hitchcock's British films.  The humor is sharp, the casting is perfect, and the question of whether Iris is losing her mind is played well enough that you start to wonder if the woman really did exist even though you saw scenes with just her prior to boarding the train.  There is almost a sense of relief when the audience is shown that Iris isn't mad.  This is considered by some to be the quintessential Hitchcock thriller.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Jamaica Inn

Young and Innocent

Young and Innocent (1937) 

Notable cast/crew: Nova Pilbeam as Erica Burgoyne makes her second Hitchcock film.  Derrick de Marney as Robert Tisdall.  Percy Marmont as Colonel Burgoyne makes his third Hitchcock film.  John Longden as Detective Inspector Kent makes his fourth Hitchcock film.  Basil Radford as Uncle Basil makes his first of two Hitchcock films.

Running time: 82 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A man and his wife argue on a stormy night.  He accuses her of chasing after "boys" after he gave her a better life by taking her from being a chorus girl.  He storms out and turns to the camera, showing a facial tic.  Her body washes up on the beach the next day, strangled by a belt from a raincoat.  Her body is discovered by Robert Tisdall.  He runs to notify the police but is mistaken by two other passersby for the killer fleeing the scene.  He is arrested for the murder, and during interrogation, finds out the dead woman left him a sum of money, he being one of the "boys" she ran around with.

KISS' original drummer's make-up left
something to be desired

He stows away in the police chief's car, and he makes his getaway when the chief's daughter, Erica, drives away from the courthouse.  He enlists her help in proving his innocence, and she drops him off at an abandoned mill so he can lay low.

They track down Will the China Man (a peddler who mends broken China) who can provide an alibi for Robert.  They survive a mine collapse while on the run.  The trail leads to a hotel where Will is looking for the man he got his coat from: a man with a facial tic.

The man they're looking for is disguised in blackface as part of the hotel band, and he's the same man we saw arguing at the beginning of the film.  He sees Will and tries to hide.  He takes some pills to try to stop his twitch, but he overdoses causing him to collapse at the drum kit.  Will identifies him, and when asked what he did with the belt from the coat, he confesses he murdered his wife with it.

MacGuffin: The coat and missing belt

Hitchcock cameo: Taking a photograph outside the court room

Hitchcock themes: 

• Falsely accused hero
• Identity
• Murder

Verdict: This was released as The Girl Was Young in the US.  It is a lesser known film, but it's a turn back toward lighter fare after Sabotage.  It's more of an action/thriller/romance in the vein of what Hitchcock would do in North By Northwest.  It holds up well as the fifth of six thrillers that led to Hitchcock getting hired to direct films in America.

There are two sequences of note that evidence the technical mastery of the camera Hitchcock is noted for: the mine collapse and the hotel crane shot.  The mine collapse is an innovative shot where a car is driven into a mine shaft, and the floor gives way underneath it.  The car falls in, and Erica has to be pulled to safety with further bits of the ground falling away as she's pulled clear.  Regarding the crane shot, in an interview with Francois Truffaut, the director recalled, "I place the camera in the highest position: above the hotel lounge next to the ceiling, and we dolly it down, right through the lobby, into the big ballroom, and past the dancers, the bandstand, and the musicians, right up to a close-up of the drummer. The musicians are all in blackface, and we stay on the drummer's face until his eyes fill the screen. And then, the eyes twitch. The whole thing was done in one shot."

The theme of identity is played throughout the movie from the wrong man being accused to his sneaking out of court by way of disguise and on through his posing as other people several times in the movie.  Erica's aunt plays a game of blind man's bluff at a party which Hitchcock felt was a symbol of the entire movie.  Will is given new clothes to hide his identity, and the killer hides in plain sight in blackface, again masking his identity.  Ultimately everyone is found out, suggesting that Hitchcock is emphasizing that someone's inner character always protrudes through the mask they wear and reveals them for who they are.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Lady Vanishes

Sabotage

Sabotage (1936) 

Notable cast/crew: Sylvia Sidney as Mrs Verloc.  Oskar Homolka as Verloc.  Desmond Tester as Stevie.  John Loder as Ted Spencer.

Running time: 76 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: There is a blackout in London, the work of a saboteur.  The saboteur is Verloc, who runs a cinema.  He returns home and pretends to have been sleeping so his wife won't know.  Ted Spencer, the greengrocer next door, thought he saw him sneaking back in, but Verloc quickly shoots that down.  Spencer is interested in Verloc because he's actually an undercover agent for Scotland Yard.

Tick...tick...tick

Verloc meets with his superiors, and they are dissatisfied with the results of the blackout.  They want him to place a bomb, but he refuses, not wanting to be involved in murder.  They have him under financial pressure, though, and he accedes to their demand.

Spencer takes Mrs Verloc and her young brother, Stevie, to lunch where in the course of conversation he asks her about her husband.  Her avowal of his good nature and kindness make it clear to Spencer that she is oblivious to what Verloc is up to.  Verloc is meeting with a bomb-maker who is using a pet store as a front.  The bomb, once delivered to Verloc, will already be primed to go off at 1:45 so there is no stopping the plot once set in motion.

Spencer bungles an attempt to eavesdrop on Verloc when he meets with fellow conspirators, and one of them recognizes him as a Scotland Yard man.  Spencer reveals what he knows to Mrs Verloc, but Verloc overhears.  Verloc now knows he's under scrutiny so he decides to throw them off by having Stevie unknowingly deliver the bomb which arrived stowed inside a birdcage.

While Spencer questions Verloc, Stevie sets off in delivery of the bomb.  He is constantly delayed by crowds, salesmen hawking wares in the street, and the normal absent-mindedness of an adolescent boy.  He boards a bus, where, ironically, the conductor is concerned about the film canisters the boy carries since the film is flammable.  The boy is on the bus when the bomb goes off.  All on board are killed.

Spencer was with Verloc when the bomb went off, giving Verloc an apparent alibi.  In the wreckage, Spencer finds a film can which the press gets wind off and runs in the paper.  Mrs Verloc sees it and realizes why Stevie is missing.  Verloc admits it to her and tries to blame it on Spencer's interference in forcing him to have to use Stevie.  She stabs him to death.

Spencer arrives to arrest Verloc but finds her sitting near the body.  They decide to leave the country.  The bomb maker arrives to get the birdcage hoping to clear any evidence of his participation in the plot.  Mrs Verloc tries to confess to the police who have arrived, but the bomb maker, seeing the police, panics and sets off a bomb he is carrying in his coat.  All evidence is destroyed, and Mrs Verloc leaves with Spencer.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: None

Verdict: A solid effort, but ultimately falls short of his other movies in this run of thrillers.  It's a short film, so there isn't much exploration of the motivation of Verloc.  He is simply a callous man willing to do what he is told to cause terror.  Hitchcock would later express regret in interviews with Francois Truffaut and Dick Cavett that, by using the shock of the bomb going off, he had built up suspense with the audience and given them no outlet for it thus agitating them instead of relieving them.  He didn't feel the negative reaction was around a boy being killed so much as the fact that the bomb went off  at all.  Had he done it again, Hitchcock said he would have had someone discover the bomb and dispose of it at the last second as that is the proper way to allow the audience to release the tension that his been built up emotionally.  The music in that sequence mimics a clock ticking through short bursts of strings.  The effect is not unlike that in Psycho where the sharp, staccato, violin screeches suggest the slash, slash, slash of the knife.

This was released as The Woman Alone in the US.  It was not a major success with most agreeing the unsettling nature of the bomb going off hurt the reception of the film.  It has parallels to terrorist events today, but without delving into any characterization, it feels superficial.  The movie is too plot-driven to the point of the casting being largely irrelevant.  The characters only exist to advance the story, and it's difficult to identify with them which leaves you feeling more like an observer of a set piece rather than being drawn into the story.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Young and Innocent

Secret Agent

Secret Agent (1936) 

Notable cast/crew: John Gielgud as Richard Ashenden/Brodie.  Peter Lorre as The General.  He was previously in The Man Who Knew Too Much.  Madeleine Carroll as Elsa Carrington.  She was previously in The 39 Steps.  Robert Young as Robert Marvin.

Running time: 86 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Brodie is dead.  A closed casket viewing confirms it...except the coffin is empty.  The British government has faked his death and given him the new identity of Ashenden.  He's to intercept a German agent in Switzerland.  He's to be assisted by The General, a bug-eyed, curly-haired sociopath.  Ashenden arrives in Switzerland to find his "wife" has already checked in.  Reaching his room, he finds Elsa Carrington posing as his wife with Robert Marvin, an American, sitting in their room.  Marvin quickly excuses himself, and Elsa updates Ashenden on their mission profile.

Shouldn't there be doors on these stalls?

They rendezvous with The General and proceed into the mountains to find a church organist who had been working with the Germans but has now switched sides.  The organist will put them on the trail of the German agent.  They enter the church to the discordant sound of the organ droning a number of notes.  The reason: the organist has been murdered, his body lying on the still active keyboard.

While they are detained in the mountains, Elsa spends time with Marvin at the local casino.  Ashenden and The General arrive and show her a button left by the killer.  When the button is accidentally dropped on a gaming table, Marvin suggests it belongs to a man at the casino, Caypor.  Caypor had been in the same village as the organist this morning.  All the pieces are falling into place: Caypor is leaving in the morning as the communiques have indicated the agent will, and Caypor's wife is German.

They dine with the Caypors, and it is decided that Ashenden, The General, and Caypor will go mountain climbing.  The General uses the opportunity to kill Caypor by pushing him off the side of the mountain.  When they arrive back in town, they have a message waiting for them: Caypor is not the agent.  The General has killed the wrong man, and he laughs it off.

Ashenden and Elsa are distraught and decide to resign.  The General turns up more evidence that puts them onto workers in a local chocolate factory who are working as a message relay office for the German spy ring.  They learn there that the agent is Marvin.  Elsa is at the hotel with Marvin and asks to leave with him, but he's reluctant to let her.  They leave before Ashenden can get word to her that Marvin is the agent.

They catch up with Elsa and Marvin at a train station in Greece where Marvin is trying to hop a train to Constantinople.  They all board the train, along with Ottoman soldiers, leaving them with no opportunity to dispatch Marvin.  The British have made plans to make sure the mission doesn't fail.  They send an airstrike on the train causing it to derail.  Marvin and The General are killed, the mission succeeds, and the Ashendens retire from the spy business together having helped the British win the war.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: None

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Mistaken identity
• Murder

Verdict: Another great thriller, this is not as well known, due in part to so few of Hitchcock's early films having been properly restored.  Peter Lorre is again excellent playing an assassin, albeit this time working for the good guys.  Robert Young, who would gain fame playing Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, plays an affable American with no hint that he's really the German spy.  John Gielgud is serviceable but stiff as Ashenden.  Gielgud didn't care for the character and didn't like that Hitchcock made the villain more likeable than the reluctant hero.  Hitchcock's response: "You can't root for a hero who doesn't want to be one."

There are two scenes of note.  In the first, we get one of the earliest "Hitchcock shots".  When the organist is murdered, Ashenden and The General hide in the bell tower when they hear someone approaching.  The camera shot of the body's discovery is shot from the loft above the organ looking straight down on the body and the man discovering it.  It's the same type of angle Hitchcock would use with great success in Vertigo, Psycho, and Family Plot among others.  The second is the scene where Caypor is murdered.  Intercut with Caypor climbing the mountain is footage of Caypor's dog back at the hotel with Elsa and Mrs Caypor.  The further up the mountain Caypor climbs, the more agitated the dog becomes until Caypor's death, at which point the dog commences a long, slow howl.  The keen of the dog's howl sounds eerily like a man falling off a cliff and unnerves Elsa as well as the viewer as it's made clear what has befallen Caypor without explicitly showing the fateful moment.

This is definitely worth seeing as it is one of the better British films Hitchcock made.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Sabotage