Since the month of October is coming very soon, I thought I might as well review a Hitchcock film to build up to the month of Halloween where I'll be reviewing scary movies, Halloween specials, and show more of my top 20 favorite movie Villains.
This film I believe is the first Hitchcock Movie with talking in it. The film's about a daughter of a shopkeeper named Alice White (Anny Ondra) who murders an artist (Cyril Ritchard) who tried to rape her and now is walking through the shadows of guilt. Her boyfriend Frank Webber (John Longden) a Scotland Yard detective who seems more attached to his work than he is on his girl, is assigned to work the murder case and immediately finds out it was her. Not only does her boyfriend know about it, but also a local petty thief named Tracey (Donald Calthrop) knows about the murder and plans to blackmail the couple. The film is a mix between a silent film and a film talkie because it constantly switches back and forth from being a silent film to being a talkie. So to make the review easy and less confusing, I'm going to talk about the silent parts in the film and the talking parts separately.
SILENT SCENES
The first eight minutes of the film are silent and starts the film off with the action by seeing our Jack Webber taking care of crime before he takes his girlfriend out, which is showing the audience how much he's attached to his job. After those eight minutes, boom, we're now hearing the dialogue instead of reading it. Alfred Hitchcock uses many silent film techniques throughout the film such as silent horror; silent chases; and even classic silent comedy on one or two occasions. The actor's facial expressions give the silent scenes, it's suspense. The close-ups shots of the characters really show their guilty side, innocent side, and their dark side. I think the best scene that shows that, is the scene when Alice is walking around the streets of London and seeing and Imagining images that remind her of the murder, which shows her pain of what she's done. Another scene that brings the Alfred Hitchcock thrills is the chase sequence at "The British Museum", which also is the beginning of Hitchcock showing famous landmarks in his chase films. The silent scenes are good, but let’s see if the talking scenes do the same.....
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TIME OUT! IT'S TIME TO PLAY........
"WHERE'S ALFRED HITCHCOCK?"
Whenever I review a Hitchcock film, I like to give the audience a hint of a scene when Hitchcock makes a cameo. He does that a lot in his films. Sometimes his presence is noticeable, other times you got to keep an eye out to look for him. Your job is to figure out the clue I give you, and when you watch the movie look for him and remember the clue, kind of like what I did on my review "Walt Disney Treasure Collection: Your Host Walt Disney" when I gave the reader a hint on where to find a hidden Bonus feature on the first disc.
HERE'S YOUR HINT: Reading is a good way to pass the time on a trip...that is when you're not being bothered.
That's your hint, good luck! Back to the review....
"TALKIE" SCENES
The actors did a great job with their facial expressions, but their acting ruined the film. They have the looks, but they don't give the feel for the characters. Whenever they talk it feels like that they're just focusing on remembering their lines then they are on speaking and acting like the character. The characters are so uninteresting that you'd wish the whole film was silent. The only actor who brought life to his character on both sides of the coin is Donald Calthrop as the man who Blackmails the main characters. He has both the facial expressions and the tone the character should be. Instead of just sounding like he's reading a queue card or just remembering his lines, he actually gives his character an evil personality. He talks calmly, but he sounds threatening and looks like somebody you do not want to cross. He even whistles the song "The Best Things In Life Are Free" when he has the two main characters serving him when he has the evidence that Alice killed the artist.
As for the cinematography and sound effects Alfred Hitchcock pushes the limits to the films. One of my favorite shots throughout the film that give me the creeps is the scenes with the picture of the laughing clown. Every time I see that picture I always for some reason feel uncomfortable, maybe it's because the main character is afraid of it; maybe it's because it reminds me of the murder because the picture looks a little bit like the artist that Alice murder, which also has a big slash on it; or maybe because it's just plain creepy. Whatever reason why it shows up so much in the film that it's the last thing you see in the film, while you hear people laughing.
The scene I think Alfred really pushed to the limits for the time is the rape scene. The scene starts out quiet and normal, but when the artist starts moving closer to Alice while she's wearing a beautiful dress everything goes from strange to perverted. You don't see him rape Alice, all you see is the curtain moving and Alice’s hand sticking out of the curtain reaching for the knife and hear her wild scream. Looking at the scene isn't shocking in today’s standards, but think about what the audience might have thought when they watched this scene.
The film shows it's sloppiness by having actors who can't act unless they are silenced; jumping back and forth from being a silent film to a talkie; having some annoying sound effects; and some cut scenes and fade out scenes that look rushed and unfinished. Still, I have to give Hitchcock lots of credit for jumping forward with the times, which is an issue that a lot of studios had in the late 20's. To me this is Hitchcock's "Jazz Singer" having technical flaws like the "The Jazz Singer" by going back and forth to a silent film to talkie, but still has a good story, excellent directing, and is trying to do something new for cinema instead of going with the original idea for films at the time. Is the film one of Hitchcock's best, no, but it's still a piece of film that shows his film career moving forward.
RATING 3/5
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