“The Ring” (1927)
The second of three 1927 features from Hitchcock (they stacked them high and sold them cheap back then) “The Ring” also marks a definite move forward in terms of the director’s shooting style and storytelling ability. In fact it’s the only film on which Hitch takes full and sole writer’s credit in addition to directing, but if you think that might make it the most quintessentially Hitchcockian of films, let us disavow you: “The Ring” is a straight-up melodrama in which no one gets murdered, blackmailed, driven insane, mistaken for a criminal, or in any way embroiled in a sinister plot. Instead, it’s a simple love triangle story: Mabel is a ticket-seller in a carnival-style boxing ring where her fiance, Jack “One Round” Sander challenges all comers. She catches the eye of the debonair championship boxer Bob Corby, who offers Jack a position as his sparring partner so he can continue to pursue Mabel. Mabel and Jack marry, but Mabel’s affair with Bob continues until she eventually leaves Jack. In true sports drama fashion, Jack works his way up the bill until he faces Bob in the ring for the championship, and during the climactic match Mabel realises she loves him and rushes to his corner in time to restore his confidence and get him the KO. So yeah, the plot’s not hugely thrilling, but what is exciting is to watch Hitchcock’s growing confidence in the medium — there are moments here that don’t feel just like a director establishing his style, but like classical Hollywood filmmaking technique being forged. So there are really elegant examples of time ellipses — from the fizz of freshly poured champagne flattening in the glasses, to a fat reel of entrance tickets getting smaller and smaller through a series of dissolves. And there’s comedy here too, such as when a side character takes the coat of the latest challenger, and doesn’t even bother setting it down — instead we stay on him as the brief fight happens offscreen before the inevitably stunned, defeated challenger reels back into his coatsleeves, seconds later. Lillian Hall-Davis, with whom Hitch would reteam, does an admirable job of making the mercurial Mabel somewhat sympathetic, but mainly this is a film to be enjoyed for its details — the symbolism of the various “rings,” the unusual framing and the nascent special effects (at one point a scene is played out for a while in a reflection on water; in another, a character’s drunkenness is denoted by a distorted POV shot). It’s not without flaws, but if you can get by the racism of the opening scene (and the N-word that crops up egregiously in one of the intertitles) “The Ring” is a diverting pit-stop on any journey through Hitchcock. [B-]
“Downhill” (1927)
Probably the least engaging of Hitchcock’s three 1927 films, “Downhill” stars popular leading man Ivor Novello (who also co-wrote the play upon which it is based), as Roddy, the world’s oldest public schoolboy, who takes the fall for a less well-to-do friend who gets a local barmaid pregnant. Expelled and cast out by his father, Roddy finds work as an actor, receives an unexpected windfall and marries faithless leading lady Julia. She strings him along until his money runs out, at which point he becomes a gigolo in France, before hitting rock bottom in a crummy boarding house in Marseilles, prior to a sudden reconciliation with his father and an “all’s right with the world” ending. Now, there are films that withstand the passage of time and retain relevance despite intervening decades and changing fashions. But “Downhill” features a plot driven primarily by the mechanics of the English class system of the 1920s, and as such, it feels so archaic it creaks. The “lower classes,” from the barmaid, to the guilty schoolfriend who is on a scholarship, to the actress wife, are grasping and selfish and faithless, while our high-born rich hero is the repository of only good and noble impulses. With all due respect to the mores and morals of bygone days, it sticks in our craw that, as though to symbolise the depths to which he has sunk, we linger on our hero suffering the indignity of taking the underground — horrors! Stylistically, however, there are some interesting flourishes, from the scene which starts with Roddy looking refined in a tux, only to reveal he’s a waiter, only then to reveal he’s a waiter in stage play; to some unusual POV shots and hallucinatory scenes; to the notable scarcity of intertitles. But it’s just too ossified a plot to be redeemed by a few positives. It’s all deus ex machina, happenstance and nobody much learning anything about anything except that: 1. working for a living is bad 2. ugly old ladies are enough to trigger a nervous breakdown and 3. there is no greater achievement in life than being able to play rugby for the “old school.” Honestly we can’t find much that this contributes to the Hitchcock back catalogue — watch and be glad it’s 2012. [D+]
“The Farmer’s Wife” (1928)
Like 1927, 1928 was a three-film year for Hitchcock, kicking off with “The Farmer’s Wife.” It’s a strange film in the context of the man’s career, a not-terribly successful comedy that relies on some rather cheap narrative tricks to make its predictable plot play out the way it must. Minta (Lillian Hall-Davis, showing a different side from the role she played in “The Ring” and proving the film’s high point in the process) is the loyal housekeeper for a country farmer, Samuel Sweetland. We know they’re “country” because of the awkward vernacular the intertitles are written in (“I don’t mind they pillowy women” and “… us’ll write a list…”) which just comes across as patronizing. Anyway, he’s a widower and following the marriage of his beloved daughter, he starts to think of marrying again. Minta, despite clearly wanting the position for herself, helps him make a list of potential wives, to whom he then proposes in grossly unromantic fashion, and is unable to fathom it when they turn him down one by one. Only when he has no options left does he notice Minta, who accepts him and gets to take off her housekeeper’s apron and put on a shiny dress. It’s a film that, even for its day and genre, is slight, and with the comedy not delivering and the romance, well, unromantic, there’s not a lot here to get your teeth into. And even within the canon it seems one of Hitch’s less inspired works, with the confidence and fluidity in evidence in some of the previous year’s work nowhere in evidence. In fact, here some of those tricks, like semi-dissolves to show Sweetland’s “imaginings,” simply irritate because they’re so heavy-handed. Hall-Davis is good and underplays nicely, but really that serves more to throw into unflattering contrast the telegraphed performances of her co-stars. Hitchcock’s silents are, in general, less substantial entries in his CV, but even within that context, “The Farmer’s Wife” feels vanishingly insignificant. [D]
“Easy Virtue” (1928)
Perhaps failing to notice that a lot of what made Noel Coward’s play “Easy Virtue” a hit on stage in 1925 was Coward’s facility with language and dialogue, Hitchcock elected to make this silent version in 1928. Then again, perhaps he was excited by the challenge of rendering visually the verbal wit and nuance of the play. If the latter, it’s safe to say he didn’t wholly succeed: as a film it is not unbearable by any means, but it’s essentially a morality play which means that the loss of some of the subtler shadings of characterization that the silent format necessitates makes it feel at times rather on the nose and lacking in depth. Without sophisticated wordplay that reveals hidden motivations and agendas there is nothing to distract from the bare mechanics of a plot which now seems fusty, dusty and old-fashioned, reflecting as it does the ingrained misogyny of the period in which it was set. Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) is an attractive blonde married to a brutish drunk, who becomes the defendant in a notorious adultery case despite being innocent of any infidelity. Reputation ruined, she flees to France where she finds love with young John Whittaker, who is, and wilfully remains, ignorant of her past. They marry and return to England where Whittaker’s family, especially his mother, set about making Larita’s life difficult, until her secret comes out and she martyrs herself by getting a second divorce which will allow John to marry another woman, but will see her splashed across the newspapers and gossip rags all over again. There are some sweet touches here and there – Larita and John’s meet is very cute indeed (he hits her in the eye with a tennis ball), and a scene in which we learn about Larita’s acceptance of John’s proposal through the changing expressions on an eavesdropping telephone operator’s face feels like it’s going straight into the Hitchcock playbook. But a few contemporary-feeling elements can’t distract from the sanctimony of the film’s premise. Narratively, it is reminiscent of 1927’s “Downhill,” but there, circumstance eventually favours the young, innocent hero with a complete restoration of all he’s lost. Here, Larita may be innocent, but she’s marked as a fallen woman, and so by the end, her only option is to sacrifice herself and fall further. It’s a story that’s of its time — and if Hitchock was perhaps unwise in attempting the silent version, he might have taken comfort in knowing that the all-talkie 2008 incarnation with Jessica Biel isn’t much better. [C]
Hitchcock Cameo: Walks past the tennis court at 21:15.