Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Revenge (1955)

 

Note: This post contains spoilers. 

One of the best TV shows of its time, Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an anthology series that played like shorter versions of Hitch's movies. The same themes that made his feature films so memorable were equally present in each episode of the show. Even though Hitch did not direct most episodes, each one had his personal stamp on it. Each episode opened with Hitch himself talking to the audience and introducing each week's story. These introductions feature Hitch not as a brilliant artist but rather as a great entertainer. This is the side of the master of suspense that is often overlooked but is just as worthy as study as the more artistic auteur side. These intros show his dark sense of humor and playfulness that helped make him just as popular with the average person as those who tend to intellectually dissect films. Even today Hitch's work remains just as popular with average audiences as well as intellectual cinephiles. 

To audiences at the time Hitch was just as well for this series as he was for his movies. Though never intended as a children's show, this series was very popular with kids and Hitch would receive many fan letters from kids who had never watched his movies about this show. One of these kids was Gus Van Sant, who would later direct the 1998 remake of Psycho (1960). As a child in the 1960's he and his sister were transfixed whenever Hitch's TV show appeared on screen. They also became addicted to the Alfred Hitchcock Magazine (which came during this series' popularity), which featured a series of written suspense stories. This magazine was so popular with kids that an official fan club which kids could join for sending only fifty cents. There was even a series of children's books entitled Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. Van Sant admitted despite this he never actually delved into Hitchcock's movies until adulthood.  

In this premiere episode (one of the few directed by Hitch himself), a couple moves to a trailer park after the wife (a ballerina) has a nervous breakdown. One evening the husband returns home and discovers his wife in an awful state. She tells him that she was attacked and almost killed. One day while out driving, she tells her husband she just saw the man who attacked her. He then follows the man and kills him. Later, they are stilling driving and she sees another man and claims that different man is the one that attacked her. Hitch then narrates the story's ending telling us, "Well, they were a pathetic couple. We had intended to call that one 'Death of a Salesman', but there were protests from certain quarters. Naturally, Elsa's husband was caught, indicted, tried, convicted, sentenced and paid his debt to society for taking the law into his own hands. You see, crime does not pay. Not even on television. You must have a sponsor. Here is ours, after which I'll return." These type of endings, where Hitch would briefly and dismissively tell us that a criminal was caught would be common in this series. The censors would not allow criminal behavior to go unpunished. Yet some stories simply worked better if the criminal didn’t get caught. This allowed Hitch to have it both ways, essentially having his cake and eating it too. 

This is a very simple little murder story. It is short, simple and to the point. It may not have the depth of Hitch's more complex work but that doesn't mean it isn't effective. Ralph Meeker (who would go on to star in three more episodes (Malice Domestic (1957), Total Loss (1959), I'll Take Care of You (1959)) and Vera Miles (who appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock movies The Wrong Man (1956) and Psycho as well as two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Don't Look Behind You (1962) and Death Scene (1965)) are wonderful in their lead roles here and make you truly care about these characters. Vera Miles is especially wonderful here, showing a real vulnerability that adds to the suspense. Also, while the story is simple, the twist ending is very clever and effectively dark. Balancing out with this dark and serious story is the humor in the intro and outro is wonderfully funny. 

The writers for this episode are Francis M. Cockrell and Samuel Blas. Cockell would go to write seventeen episodes of this series and direct two.

The cinematographer is John L. Russell, who would be cinematographer on most episodes of this series and its follow-up The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as well as the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho. 

In 1985, NBC would launch a revival of this series. The first episode of that new show would in fact be a remake of this episode. The remake would star Linda Purl and David Clennon and be directed by R. E. Young. 

Resources Used

The Twleve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White

https://hitchcock.fandom.com/wiki/Revenge

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_Presents_-_Revenge

The Pleasure Garden (1925)

 

The Pleasure Garden was the first film to be solely directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In his book length interview with Francios Truffaut, Hitch would tell of how this came about, "Balcon [producer Michael Balcon] said, 'How would you like to direct a picture?' and I answered, 'I've never thought about it.' And in truth I had not. I was very happy doing scripts and the art direction, I hadn't thought about myself as a director. Anyway, Balcon told me there was a proposal for an Anglo-German picture. Another writer was assigned to the script, and I left for Munich. My wife, Alma, was to be my assistant. We weren't married yet, but we weren't living in sin either; we were still very pure."    

Interestingly an issue of The Film Daily (dated July 5, 1925) credited the film to Graham Cutts stating, "London, Graham Cutts will make 'The Pleasure Garden' for Gainsborough Pictures in Munich Germany. Virginia Valli and Carmalita Geraghty are now en route from the states to appear in the picture. Work states next week."

Like earlier films that Alfred Hitchcock worked on this movie is very much a romantic melodrama. Patsy Brand (Virginia Valli) is a chorus girl at a music hall called the Pleasure Garden. She meets a woman named Jill Cheyne (Carmelita Geraghty) and helps her get a job as a dancer. Jill gets engaged to a man named Hugh Fielding (John Stuart). However, when Hugh travels out of the country, Jill starts to fool around with other men. 

This film is your typical melodrama of the time boosted by great visual filmmaking. This movie is a pure visual treat. This is true right from the opening scene. The sets for the titular music hall are wonderfully larger than life. These sets alone tell us everything we need to know about the Pleasure Garden itself. We understand immediately the mixture of majesty and sin that attracts people to such a place. Equally as great is the outdoor location shooting, which is simply lovely to look at. Again, these images are not only lovely to look at but help tell the story. The juxtaposition of these idyllic settings with the relationship between the characters already falling apart works perfectly. Also helping this film is the lead performances by Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty, both of whose performances help bring some charm and humanity to otherwise very cliché characters.

Unfortunately, the storyline here is nowhere near as memorable as the visuals.  This cliché-ridden story might work better if it was handled in a tongue and cheek manner but instead this movie takes these plot points much too seriously. Many of the melodramatic moments strain one's suspension of disbelief and the sheer number of twists and turns can become overwhelming at times. The storyline is actually very engaging as it starts though. The basic backstage story of these two very different women forming a close friendship and looking out for each other both in their professional and romantic lives is quite charming, if still familiar. Yet towards the middle of this film, the story gets too bogged down in these clichés and loses much of the simple charm it has in its early scenes. Still even in the later scenes, the visuals and performances make it worth watching.  

The screenplay was written by Eliot Stannard. This marks Stannard's first collaboration with Hitch. He would later be a writer on the Hitchcock films, The Mountain Eagle (1926), Downhill (1927), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Champagne (1928), Easy Virtue (1928), The Farmer's Wife (1928) and The Manxman (1929). His non-Hitchcock work includes Wuthering Heights (1920), The Taming of the Shrew (1923), A Christmas Carol (1923) and The Hate Ship (1929). Screen writer Sidney Gilliat (who would work on the Alfred Hitchcock films The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939)) would say about Stannard, "The only resident British writer I can remember was Eliot Stannard, a great character. He seemed to be writing or rewriting everything. If something went wrong on a picture, Stannard was called up — like Shakespeare would have been — and asked to come in and pep the scene a bit."

Eliot Stannard

The story was based off of 1923 novel (of the same name) by Marguerite Jervis (under the pen name, Oliver Sandys). Jervis was a very prolific British author writing over 150 books during her 60-year career. Though she most often wrote under various pseudonyms, her books also often sold very well. In fact, she was one of the most successful novelists of her time. Still, none of her works are remembered well. Eleven of her books have been adapted for the screen. Some other film adaptions of her work include The Honeypot (1920), Love Maggy (1921), Rose o' the Sea (1922), Blinkeyes (1926), Tesha (1928) and Born Lucky (1933). She was married to Welsh author Caradoc Evans. Evans was a very controversial author in Wales due to his collection of short stories entitled My People, which criticized many of his fellow Welsh citizens for smugness and hypocrisy, while also addressing the brutal poverty that was sweeping the country. The two married in 1933 and remained married until his death in 1945. As well as her literary career, Jervis was also a trained stage actress.    

Once again, the lead actress was an American star, Virginia Valli. Hitch would later recall, "Michael Balcon, who had conceived of the idea of 'importing' American stars long before anyone else, had engaged Virginia Valli for the leading role. She was at the height of her career then - glamorous, famous and very popular. That she was coming to Europe to make a picture at all was something of an event." Though largely forgotten today, Valli was a very popular movie star at the time. Born Viriginia McSweeney on January 18, 1895, in Chicago, she worked in movies as early as 1916 for the Essany Film Company. Her big break in movies was when she got the lead role in King Vidor's Wild Oranges (1924). She soon found herself playing the lead in such films as The Signal Tower (1924) and In Every Woman's Life (1924) and become one of Universal's biggest stars. Other silent films starring her were Paid to Love (1927) and Evening Clothes (1927). She made her sound debut with The Isle of Lost Ships (1929). Her last movie was Night Life in Reno (1931). The same year her last film was released she married popular actor Charles Farrell. They stayed married until her death on September 24, 1968, at the age of 73. This marked her only film for Hitchcock. 

An issue of Pictures and the Picturegoer (dated October 1925) states, "Virginia Valli was in London for a few days last month. She had just come in from Munich where she made The Pleasure Garden with Miles Mander and John Stuart and was on her way back to the states. Viriginia may make a picture in England later, when Universal start their proposed scheme for making pictures over there." 

Directing such a big star as Virginia Valli made the new director quite nervous. Hitch would later state, "I was terrified of giving her instructions. I've no idea how many times, I asked my future wife if I was doing the right thing. She, sweet soul, gave me courage by swearing I was doing a marvelous job. And Virginia Valli played her scenes sublimely unconscious of the emotional drama that was being enacted on the other side of the camera." 

Photoplay, 1925

Motion Picture Magazine, 1923

When Virginia Valli arrived, she had brought a friend along, actress Carmelita Geraghty. Hitch would later state, "The two were traveling together and intended to stick together." Carmelita Geraghty would be given the part of the second female lead in the film. Born on March 21, 1901, in Rushville, Indiana. Geraghty was the daughter of Tom Geraghty, screenwriter for such movies as The Courageous Coward (1919), When the Clouds Roll By (1919) and The Sporting Venus (1925). She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1924. These were a selection of 13 actresses that the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers would pick as the next big stars. However, she would not become the big star that they predicted. She had some other big roles including one in the first film version of The Great Gatsby (1926). In the sound era she would go on to have supporting roles in the Andy Hardy and Dr. Kildare movies. 

This film is one of the first collaboration between cinematographer, Gaetano di Ventimiglia. Ventimiglia would later work on the Hitchcock films, The Mountain Eagle (1926) and The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927). Most of Ventimiglia's filmography was made up of Italian movies. Though he did also work on the film A Woman in Pawn (1927) for the Gaumont British Picture Corporation. This film's art director was Ludwig Reiber, who spent most of his career working on German movies that have been forgotten over the years, though he would later be the art director for Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1927). He would also work on Hitch's next movie, The Mountain Eagle.

Much of this movie was filmed at Emelka Studios in Munich. This studio was on a fifty-acre estate surrounded by a large forest. On scene that takes place on Pasty's honeymoon was shot on location at Lake Como. A review in The Bioscope described this scene as "enchanting". 

The making of this movie was often beset by finical troubles on Hitch's part. As a struggling filmmaker, Hitch (as well as his future wife Alma) sometimes had difficulty managing the money to pay for hotel bills, food and other such expenses. Hitch later admitted that he got lucky a few times by Valli bringing her own food for a train ride and having a very light breakfast one morning. Hitch would later tell a story that illustrates the financial trouble he found himself in. "The critical day arrived [the arrival of a hotel bill]. In desperation I hit upon the idea of using Carmelita Geraghty as a means to extort some money from Virginia Valli. The ethics of a director playing such a trick on a star didn't trouble me. But, like a man, I left Miss Reville to do all the dirty work. She went to Valli and explained that, owing to the unexpected presence of her friend, we had insufficient expenses money to meet our obligations. Could she possibly advance us some cash? I was not present at the interview. Women can do these things more discreetly than men. At any rate, Miss Reville came back to me in triumph bearing a couple hundred dollars of Virginia Valli's money. By the time I had paid the bill I had got the equivalent of ten English pounds left."

The movie had its premiere at the Capitol in Haymarket, London on April 12, 1926. However, distributor C.M. Woolf, felt that the film was bound to be a commercial failure and withheld its theatrical release. The movie would not receive a full release in its home country until after the success of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger. However, in the U.S. the film was being shown in 1926. Advertisements greatly promoted Virginia Valli's name. The film was still being screened at various U.S. theaters as late as 1928. 

Upon its release some reviewers attacked the film for the sexual nature of the story. Of course, when it came to classic Hollywood directors, Hitch was one who was unafraid of addressing sex in his movies. Think of the end of North By Northwest (1959) where two newlyweds consummating their marriage is shown through the unsubtle Freudian symbolism of a train going through a tunnel. However, Hitchcock would often state at the point in his life when he made The Pleasure Garden, he was wholly innocent and pure when it came to sexual matters, often emphasizing that he was still a virgin. 

In his book long interview with Alfred Hitchcock, Francios Truffaut brought this up stating, "You claim that, at the time, you were ignorant about sexual matters and totally innocent. Yet in The Pleasure Garden, the two girls, Pasty and Jill, really suggest a couple, the one dressed in pajamas, the other wearing a nightgown." Hitch responded, "That may be true, but it didn't go very deep; it was rather superficial. I was quite innocent at the time. The behavior of the two girls in The Pleasure Garden was inspired by something that happened when I was assistant director in Berlin in 1924. A highly respectable British family invited me and the director to go out with them. The young girl in the family was the daughter of one of the bosses of UFA. I didn't understand a word of German. After dinner we wound up in a night club where men danced with each other. There were also female couples. Later on, two German girls, one around nineteen and the other about thirty years old, volunteered to drive us home. The car stopped in front of a hotel and they insisted that we go in. In the hotel room they made several propositions, to which I stolidly replied, 'Nein Nein.' Then we had several cognacs and finally the two German girls got into bed. And the young girl in our party, who was a student, put on her glasses to make sure she wouldn't miss anything."

Hull Daily Mail, 1927

Alton Evening Telegraph, 1928

This movie can be watched below on YouTube. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

Hitchcock by Francios Truffaut

The Alfred Hitchcock Story by Ken Mogg.

Hitchcock on Hitchcock Edited by Sidney Gottlieb

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Pleasure_Garden_(1925) 

https://mediahistoryproject.org/

https://lisasreading.com/the-queen-of-romance/

The Prude's Fall (1925)

 

In the spring of 1923 Graham Cutts announced The Prude's Fall as his next film and it was said that Alfred Hitchcock was already at work writing this adaption. However, Cutts and Hitch ended up making The White Shadow (1924) first and The Prude's Fall was held on the shelf for almost two years. A 1923 article from Pictures and Picturegoer magazine reveals that Betty Compson was planned to be the star of this movie like she was in Woman to Woman (1923) and The White Shadow. This article states, "Betty Compson expects to stay ten weeks in Europe, and will make two films. The second, The Prude's Fall, is adapted from the successful play that ran at Wyndham's Theatre, London, and is light fare compared with Woman to Woman. Betty Compson is fully equal to the demands of both roles: her early film work was done, you remember, in Lyons and Moran comedies, whilst her dancing and emotional capacities have been tested, tried and not found wanting in the many films she made for Paramount, and other companies, not forgetting the immortal Miracle Man. Betty is receiving a tremendous salary for her work this side."   

Like many films that Alfred Hitchcock was working on at this time, this was very much a romantic melodrama. In this movie Betrice Audley breaks her engagement with Captain le Briquet. The captain them marries a woman named Sonia Roubetsky. Sonia had admitted to Betrice that she is a woman with a past. When the captain finds out about this, he thinks that Betrice withheld the information from him to ruin his life. Sonia feels unloved and hurt when her husband finds out about her past and she kills herself. The captain then decides to get revenge on Betrice by making her fall for him again only to reject her. When he learns that Betrice didn't tell the captain to help protect his feelings, the captain and Betrice get married and live happily ever after.

The storyline for this film was originally a stage play (of the same name) revolving around actor Gerald du Maurier. Maurier was a well-established stage actor known for his roles as George Darling and Captain Hook in the original 1904 run of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. This was not the only connection Maurier has to Hitchcock. His daughter Daphne Maurier was an author whose books included Jamaica Inn, Rebbecca and The Birds, all of which Alfred Hitchcock would later adapt into movies. The play was written by Rudolph Besier (best known for his 1930 play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street) and novelist and playwright May Edginton. These two had previously worked together on the 1922 play, Secrets. Secrets starred English actress Fay Compton, who also has another Hitchcock connection playing Countess Helga von Stahl in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Waltzes from Vienna (1934). Secrets would receive two film adaptions one in 1924 (directed by Frank Borzage and starring Norma Talmage) and one in 1933 (also directed by Frank Borzage and featuring Mary Pickford in her last movie).

Like The Blackguard (1925), this film also starred American actress, Jane Novak. Despite not being well remembered today, Novak played opposite such major movie stars as William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Alan Hale, Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone. During the silent era she was a major movie star herself and was one of the earliest movie stars to be paid a four-figure salary for one film. By time she started making talkies she was no longer as the big star she had been. However, she would appear intermittently throughout the talkie era. One of these appearances was in Hitchcock's film, Foreign Correspondent (1940) for which she had a small uncredited role. One of her costars would be another American actress, Julanne Johnston. Though she made many films, she is probably best known today for being the leading lady to Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad (1924). An article from Exhibitor's Trade Review (dated March 28, 1925) stated, "Julanne Johnson cables that the title of the production she is making aboard is 'The Prude's Fall,' from the stage play. She is in Mortiz, Switzerland adding that 'I am again playing a Russian refugee and tomorrow I fall off a precipice. If I live after this experience, will cable more details.' She returns to America late this month."  

Once again, the director was Graham Cutts and Hitchcock worked as the writer, assistant director and art director. However, at this time the relationship between the two was not on the best of terms. Hitch claimed that during the making of The Blackguard he and his future wife, Alma Reville (who was essentially second assistant director on that movie) had carried the later parts of the shoot from a badly behaved Cutts. 

  The Prude's Fall is believed to have been rushed into production to save costs for keeping Jane Novack after already using her in a previous film. Whether this is the reason the film was shot very quickly, though post-production was done at a much slower pace. In fact, Cutts had finished another film (The Rat (1925)) before The Prude's Fall found its way into theaters. In April 1925, producer Michael Balcon gave the movie to Adrian Brunel, an owner of a Soho 'film hospital.' Brunel directed re-shoots, pad-out the film with intertitles and re-edit it. Hitchcock, while working on his directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden (1926), wrote Brunel, that he heard the movie ended up as "a new being." Despite this work, the film was barely released in Britian. 

Only fragments of this film survive today. Unfortunately, I was not able to view these fragments. The critical reception at the time it was released though hint that this was not exactly a great movie. Variety even referred to the movie as "film junk." 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1422807/

https://mediahistoryproject.org/

Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)

 

An intelligent and interesting (if somewhat rambling) documentary about Hitchcock's first talkie (Blackmail (1929)). 

This film is at its best when it focuses on Blackmail itself. This documentary offers great critical insight on Hitchcock's first talkie. Director and writer Laurent Bouzereau (who has directed many DVD special features for Stevn Spielberg films as well as documentaries about Natalie Wood, Faye Dunaway and John Williams) does a great job of examining how Blackmail fits into Hitch's larger filmography including themes that would appear in many of Hitch's other films. He also provides a great look at how Hitch approached sound in these early years. How he experimented with sound and used it in more abstract ways that conveyed the emotional state of the characters in a way that goes beyond the words being said. It also talks about how Hitch kept his vision of pure cinema (a story that is told through visual storytelling rather than through dialogue), while moving into talkies. In many ways parts of Blackmail feel like a silent film and these scenes are discussed in great detail here. This film also argues that Blackmail is the movie that solidified who Alfred Hitchcock would become as a filmmaker. This is an arguable point but one that this documentary argues very convincingly. Like any good film criticism this documentary often offers a different way of looking at a film that many of us have seen many times. You may not always agree with what it is saying but it is always easy to understand where each point comes from. 

Two versions of Blackmail were made. One of them was silent and one was a talkie. Some of the most fascinating scenes in this documentary are the ones that discuss the differences between these two versions. I especially appreciate when clips from each version would be shown back-to-back so we can view the differences for ourselves. 

This documentary may focus more on its film criticism than the history of Blackmail. However, that is not to say that it is void of any information. There is little here that longtime Hitchcock scholars don't already know but newcomers and causal fans will learn a lot. 

This documentary does have its flaws though. One is that it rambles a bit much. For a documentary about Blackmail, this film does spend a bit too much time discussing Hitch's other movies. I appreciate that this movie talks about the reoccurring themes that would also appear in other Hitchcock films. However, the discussions about this should have been kept to a briefer length. When talking about how food is used in Hitch's films, Bouzereau goes on a long tangent listing many examples, when just a couple would have sufficed. I also find that Elvis Mitchell's narration can come off as too academic and dry. It is true that Hitch's films are brilliant works of art that will continue to be analyzed and discussed for as long as film criticism exists. However, this does not change that Hitch viewed himself first and foremost as an entertainer and this kind of dry narration simply does not fit the type of filmmaker Hitchcock was. 

While far from perfect this is a smart documentary that works as a well-made piece of film criticism.

- Michael J. Ruhland 

The Blackguard (1925)

 

For The Blackguard, producer Michael Balcon sent to director Graham Cutts and art director, assistant director and writer Alfred Hitchcock to Berlin. This made this the first film for the British Gainsborough studio that was made aboard. That this was made in Germany was not just a coincidence. Balcon had been talking to Hitch about studying the production methods of the UFA studio, which made many of Germany's best films of the time. The Blackguard would in fact be a co-production with UFA. 

This film's story takes place during the Russian Revolution. It involves a violinist, who falls in love with a Russian princess and must save her from execution.

 This film is a pure visual treat. The sets, lighting and cinematography are truly wonderful. There is much about these elements that owe a debt to German films of the time (including those that are often referred to as "German Expressionism") and these visual elements hold up just as well here as they do in the best German films of the era. The visuals here not only look great, but they create an incredibly effective atmosphere. Like in the best "German Expressionism" films the visuals draw us into the movie instantly. There is a bit of abstract feel to them, while at the same time never to the point where it makes anything seem any less than real. The crowd scenes here also do a lot to making this movie feel larger than life.

Unfortunately the storyline was the same type of sappy romantic melodrama as many of the films Hitch worked on at this period. Many of the plot points feel so over the top and melodramatic (a fault just as much of the source material (a 1923 novel by Raymond Paton) as the actual film) that it is hard to take much of it seriously. Unfortunately, this movie takes itself very seriously. What makes the story kind of work though is that the male hero is quite likable (he may not be a complex character, but he is likable) and the entire cast provides good performances.

Like the previous films that Alfred Hitchcock worked on, this movie would star an American actress. For this film that American actress would be Jane Novak. Despite not being well remembered today, Novak played opposite such major movie stars as William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Alan Hale, Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone. During the silent era she was a major movie star herself and was one of the earliest movie stars to be paid a four-figure salary for one film. By time she started making talkies she was no longer as the big star she had been. However, she would appear intermittently throughout the talkie era. One of these appearances was in Hitchcock's film, Foreign Correspondent (1940) for which she had a small uncredited role. Her leading man here was German actor Walter Rilla. A very prolific actor Rilla would continue working in films and TV shows through the 1970's. This movie also marked the final film appearance of German actress, Dora Bergner.
 

Writing the intertitles for this film was Adrian Brunel. Brunel would become a director himself directing such films as The Constant Nymph (1928, featuring Alfred Hitchcock's future wife Alma Reville as one of the writers) and The Invader (1936, starring Buster Keaton). 

Dover Express, 1925

 Hull Daily Mail, 1926

Lichfield Mercury, 1926

Derby Daily Telegraph, 1925

Below is a short 1925 article about this film. If you have trouble reading it click on the image below and use your touch screen to zoom in. If you don't have a touch screen, click here.

The following is a review that George T. Pardy wrote for Motion Picture News, "A TRIFLE slow in getting started, but once this picture striker-its gait it maintains fast action to the finish and provides virile entertainment. The early sequences are devoted to showing the formation of the young hero's character and the influence upon him of a hallucination caused by an injury to his head, whereby he is dominated by a vision of a music-god, Maliol, who promises him success as a violinist, so long as he confines his affections to his art. He really wins through hard work, but the Maliol idea rules him so sternly that the woman he loves, Princess Marie, is led to share his belief. The big thrills come during the revolution, when he risks all to save Marie, and the mob scenes, the fight with Levenski and escape from the burning palace are staged with tremendous spectacular effect. Jane Novak and Walter Rilla do excellent work in the leading roles and are well supported. Photography A-1."

Working on a film in UFA in Germany would end up playing an important role in Hitch's development as a filmmaker. It was here he was able to witness the great German director F.W. Murnau (best known today for directing Nosferatu (1922)) directing The Last Laugh (1924). Hitch would later remember the profound influence this experience had on him. Hitch stated in his famous book long interview with Francios Truffaut, "I made a silent film, The Farmer's Wife, a play that as all dialogue, but we tried to avoid using titles and, whenever possible, to use the pictorial expression instead. I suppose that the only film made without any titles at all was The Last Laugh, with Emil Jannings. ... They were making it was I worked at UFA. In that film Murnau tried to establish a universal language by using a kind of Esperanto. All the street signs, the posters, the shop signs, were in this synthetic language." Truffaut corrected him stating, "Well some of the signs in Emil Jannings' house were in German, but those in the Grand Hotel were in this Esperanto." Hitch would mention The Last Laugh in an article (entitled If I Were Head of a Production Company and written by Hitch himself) that appeared in the magazine, Picturegoer (in an issue dated January 26, 1935), "UFA built a whole city-center for The Last Laugh. The expanse would have been justified for that fine film alone; but the set was used for years afterwards." Being without intertitles, The Last Laugh is one of the most exemplary examples of what Alfred Hitchcock would later refer to as pure cinema. This is a type of cinema that tells it stories in a visual way without relying too heavily on dialogue (or intertitles).     

The Blackguard is available to watch on YouTube below. 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

Hitchcock Truffaut by Francois Truffaut

Hitchcock on Hitchcock edited by Sidney Gottlieb

https://britishsilentfilmfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/the-blackguard.pdf

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1422989/index.html

https://mediahistoryproject.org/

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Blackguard_(1925)

The Passionate Adventure (1924)

 

With The Passionate Adventure, Hitch would again work as an Assistant director, screenplay co-writer, and art director on a film directed by Graham Cutts and produced by Michael Bolton. This marked the first film for Michael Balcon's new Gainsborough studio. After Balcon made Woman to Woman (1923) and The White Shadow (1924) with Victor Saville and John Freedman, he and director Graham Cutts formed their own studio taking along some of the crew used on those previous movies including Hitch. Like the previous two films, Clive Brook would once again play the male lead. The female lead would again go to an American actress, this time Alice Joyce. Joyce was a very prolific actress appearing in more than 200 films over a career that stretched through the 1910's, 20's and early 30's.

The story for this movie involves a married couple (Clive Brook, Alice Joyce) whose marriage has grown loveless after the husband has returned from World War 1. Unhappy with his home life, the husband heads to the East End of London. There he meets a young woman (Marjorie Daw) and forms a friendship with her. This gets him in trouble with her criminal boyfriend (Victor McLaglen).

This story was based off a novel of the same name by Frank Stayton. The movie was sold as a socially conscious film that would go "right to the root of the social institution of marriage." Some reviewers found the subject matter and the messaging tasteless. However, Walter Mycroft for the Evening Standard praised the film for its "absolute skill in production and for inspiration in setting." Mycroft would later be a screenwriter on the Hitchcock movie, Murder! (1930). 

Graham Cutts at this time was interested in a plight "to eliminate the explanatory letterpress [intertitles] as much as possible, as it is his belief that the perfect film is one which tells its own story in a series of pictures." This is very similar to Hitch's later comments about "pure cinema," where Hitch argued that films should tell their stories visually instead of through a plethora of dialogue. At the same time for an article entitled What Does the Public Want?, Cutts wrote about the classic German film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) that it "is too violent a swing into the realms of mental experiences to be universally acceptable, but along that line future developments lie if the public is to have the variety and breadth necessary to hold it." 

The greatest challenge for Hitch with this movie was creating a cannel set inside Islington studio’s 90-foot stage. 

Only one print of this film is in existence. It is in the BFI National Archive. It is a European release print with German intertitles. Unfortunately, this film is not available for me to view. 

-Michael J. Ruhland 

Resources Used

https://web.archive.org/web/20160305031858/http://www.britmovie.co.uk/films/The-Passionate-Adventure

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1422860/


  

The White Shadow (1924)

 

Sadly, only three reels (about 45 minutes) of this film exists today. However, since the previous films Hitch had worked on are not available for the average person to watch, this movie provides us with our earliest peek into the master's filmography. Once again Hitch was not the director that credit goes to Graham Cutts. Hitch played no small part in the making of this movie though. He worked as screenwriter, assistant director, art director, and possibly editor. 

The storyline is very melodramatic, similar to many of the master's early credits. It involves two identical twin sisters (both played by Betty Compson). One of them is very social conservative, while the other is a free spirit. A man falls in love with them without knowing they are different people.

For anyone who regularly watches silent films, the story here will feel very familiar. There is nothing original or fresh about this film at all. In many ways this is the type of melodramatic fluff that is hard to take seriously. The problem is that the movie does take itself very seriously. This is not to say that this film is a waste of time. In fact there are definitely some things to recommend about this movie. Betty Compson is wonderful in her dual role. She commands the screen and brings so much energy, charm and heart to these rather standard characters. This is also a visually beautiful movie. Director Graham Cutts shows why he was considered one of the best British directors of his time and Alfred Hitchcock's art direction is nothing short of brilliant. So many of the shots here are perfectly composed from the lighting to the color tinting to the sets to the cinematography (Claude L. McDonnell). There are visual moments here that will stay in your mind long after you forget the story. One moment involving a light shining through a window is a great example of a simply perfect shot. Much of the visual filmmaking also lends this film a wonderful sense of atmosphere that enhances many cliché scenes. The beautiful countryside where an early romantic scene takes place and the seediness of The Laughing Cat Cafe are perfect examples of this. It is simply too bad that these truly wonderful qualities this movie has, could not have been attached to a better story.     

 When American actress Betty Compson accepted to work on the British film Woman to Woman (1923), a condition of her contract stated that she would make two films with the Balcon-Savile-Freedman team. However, the filmmakers were so invested in the first film, that there were few plans for a second. After work on the first movie wrapped, the filmmakers rushed into making another. The film would be another adaption of another book by Michael Morton, Children of Chance. Working titles for this film included The Awakening and The Eternal Survivor.

Upon its release, The White Shadow proved to be a massive disappointment both at the box-office and with critics. Critics praised the visual filmmaking but criticized the story. Biograph stated, "the best part of the production is the magnificent settings, photography and lighting which are worthy of a better plot. As a whole the White Shadow makes fair entertainment as a conventional melodrama, admirably staged (both in the lavish interiors and unusual continental exteriors) and featuring a well-known American star." A review in Kine Weekly stated, "There is a complete lack of conviction in the way in which the sisters are mistaken for each other, and no attempt at a coherent and well-proportioned sequence of events. Everything happened in a haphazard sort of way as though the plot had been evolved as the production progressed." Motion Picture Studio stated, "When a production is made in this country with the pick of British stars and the added commercial and artistic presence of a pretty and clever American screen actress of great box office repute one is entitled to expect a better result than The White Shadow…. If the picture had been the first effort of a modest little firm one could understand more readily some of the shortcomings and their causes." This movie was such a box-office disappointment that it lost all of the money that Woman to Woman had made. 

For those who wish to see what exists of this film you can watch it on YouTube below. 

Resources Used

Hitchcock/Truffuat by Francios Truffau

https://www.jazzageclub.com/the-white-shadow-1924/1997/t