All watched on the ipod, mostly on airplanes.
Murder! (1930)
screenplay by Alma Reville
based on the novel and play “Enter Sir John” (1928) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson
adapted by Alfred Hitchcock and Walter Mycroft
In some raw statistical sense, it may seem noteworthy that this early Hitchcock is a murder mystery, but that doesn’t mean it’s in any way like watching “a Hitchcock movie.” The script and direction are dull and stagy – except for a few touches of experimentation, which don’t generally work very well. One particularly absurd novelty is a “subjective” close-up, apparently meant to show just how lush the rug of a wealthy celebrity feels to his poor visitor: the man’s feet are shown sinking into a fantastical waterbed surface. This is inserted for one second into the middle of an otherwise fantasy-less movie.
One sequence is pointed out in the books for being a bold early use of sound in film. There was no technical way of combining multiple tracks of sound, so for a scene where the character’s inner monologue is heard against Tristan und Isolde, the pre-recorded monologue was played back from a phonograph on set, and an orchestra just off-camera performed the music live, while the actor stood and made thinking faces. This is interesting in the history books but it doesn’t change the fact that the resulting scene is completely ridiculous; the musical juxtaposition comical and awkward. Is it supposed to be comical? It’s hard to tell what’s supposed to be silly in this crooked movie; Hitchcock’s whimsy is all over the thing but without proper signposts for the audience, so it can’t be enjoyed, only squinted at in confusion.
The pacing is stultifying; the protagonist isn’t introduced until 30 minutes in, and it still takes us several scenes more before we realize that, yes, this guy is actually the protagonist of the limp movie we’ve been watching in bewilderment for half an hour. Only the climactic scene manages to sustain a sense of tension on its own terms. The rest just drips by like we’re watching a blocking rehearsal.
The plot is that an actor has been killed, apparently by another actor, but a famous actor finds himself investigating the case and discovers that the murder was really committed by a different actor. Theater is a theme. The final shot, which is the best in the whole movie, seems to be showing us that our hero and the woman he exonerated are now a happy couple in a drawing room… but then the camera pulls back and we see that it’s happening on stage before an audience; the real happy ending is that our hero gave the woman a good part in his next play.
The bad guy in this movie is clearly gay, and in the book is (apparently) explicitly said to be gay, which is a secret he doesn’t want revealed. In the movie, however, the plot makes clear that, despite being totally gay and a professional cross-dresser, he is not in fact gay, and his shameful secret is altered to be that he is a half-caste. Interesting to note that this change, meant to make the movie less offensive to the sensibilities of 1930, actually makes the movie more offensive today.
An odd bit of trivia: Hitchcock shot a German version simultaneously, with different actors on the same sets, imitating what the English actors had just done. Called Mary. Apparently it’s absolutely lifeless by comparison – which is a pretty terrifying thought.
The Skin Game (1931)
screenplay by Alma Reville
based on the play (1920) by John Galsworthy
adapted by Alfred Hitchcock
Also quite dull, but for different reasons. The film also feels slack and can get confusing (secondary character introductions aren’t delivered cleanly enough) but nonetheless has its head on somewhat straighter than Murder!. Unfortunately, that head is telling a very boring story. Two rich families – one old money, one new – channel their social irritation with one another into a feud over a piece of land. Ultimately, a bit of blackmail used as a bargaining chip gets out of hand and someone dies, and in the end the old-money patriarch is left in stunned self-disgust, wondering when his good British decency left him. “What’s gentility worth if it can’t stand fire?” And curtain. Material like this can only be worthy of a movie if the acting makes it so and if the director gives us room to savor the performances. On each of those counts, the movie only deserves a shrug. Edmund Gwenn is great as the angry new-money guy; everyone else does a fine enough job but not enough to draw us into this dull little world. And Alfred Hitchcock is clearly to blame for not caring much about it either.
“Skin game” apparently means the same as “confidence game” – i.e. scam, grift, swindle. It sounds silly every time it’s said in the movie; at the end he says it twice in a row, with gravity, and that sounds twice as silly. “What is it that gets loose when you begin a fight, and makes you what you think you’re not? Begin as you may, it ends in this… skin game! Skin game!” I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m sorry, Mr. Galsworthy, that sounds silly.
I am amused by this DVD’s attempt to leverage the word “skin” into squeezing some sex out of this stone. Also, note that by saying that it takes place in “a peaceful English village…” they seem to be implying that something shocking happens. Buyer beware!: This movie actually does take place in a peaceful English village!
I of course watched it on a nice classy DVD, not a tawdry bargain-binner like that.
Rich and Strange (1931)
screenplay by Alma Reville and Val Valentine
based on the novel by Dale Collins (1930)
adapted by Alfred Hitchcock
Apparently this isn’t really based on the novel; the novel and the movie were developed in parallel, both based on conversations Dale Collins had with the Hitchcocks while on a cruise together. Some sources have it that the credit should be “based on an idea by Dale Collins” – the movie itself just says “by Dale Collins” under the title. The novel is quite a rare and forgotten item these days.
This is a completely eccentric film; after sitting through two films rather lacking in personality, the verve and idiosyncrasy of this one were a pleasure. But it’s thoroughly peculiar. A mess of ideas have been cobbled together into something tonally quite confusing. It seems to be some kind of parable of marriage, but extracting a moral from the whole is next to impossible.
It is certainly strange, and at least in the sense of providing food for discussion, rich. The title is a reference to The Tempest: “But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.” A title card is kind enough to reveal this in the course of the movie; though it is a sound film, there are quite a few scene-announcing title cards. The subject of the film is the sea-change of a marriage: young and listless Mr. and Mrs. are suddenly given a lot of money to travel the world, and set off on a tourist cruise. On the ship they begin affairs with other people and find themselves drifting into completely new lives. Then some totally unexpected weirdness happens that I won’t give away.
The two lead characters and performances are so extreme and bizarrely unlike each other that it is difficult to accept that these two people are in the same movie – even less that we are meant to think seriously about their marriage to one another. But we are. He’s a scowling baby, to the point of clownishness, and she’s a glamour girl with absurd super-diction. It is disorienting and, when they try to work out their problems, oddly upsetting. Possibly that’s part of the point? Hitchcock is smirking and poking fun at things throughout, with his recognizable touch. It’s essentially a comedy. But unlike his other movies, here the joking tone makes way for seriousness, rather than the other way around. It feels as though the drama as much as the comedy comes directly from the man’s personality, which is not generally what one feels with Hitchcock, who is usually more interested in spinning a sturdy tale than expressing himself. Writers have argued that this is a particularly personal film for Hitch and one of his only films with autobiographical elements. I believe it.
Of the set, I would recommend Rich and Strange and The Ring first, The Manxman when you’re up for some simple melodrama, and Murder! and The Skin Game only if you’re feeling indulgent and historically curious. Or are on the subway. Or an airplane.