For The Blackguard, producer Michael Bolton 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
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)
