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

Woman to Woman (1923)

 

Alfred Hitchcock's first movie for producer Michael Balcon, does not have Hitch in the director chair. However, Hitch had more than a small hand in this film. For this movie, The Master worked as a screenwriter, an assistant director and the film's art director. When Francios Truffaut asked if Hitch was the assistant director on this film, Hitch responded, "More than that! My friend the art director was unable to work on the picture. I volunteered to work as art director. So, I did all this and also helped on the production. My future wife Alma Reville was the editor of the picture as well as the script girl. In those days the script girl and the editor were one and the same person. Today the script girl keeps too many books, as you know. She's a real bookkeeper. It was while working on that picture that I first meet my wife. Then I performed these various functions for several other films. The second was The Passionate Adventure, the third was The Blackguard. And then there was The Prude's Fall." He also remembered, "Woman to Woman was the best of the lot and the most successful."
  
The storyline of this film begins when David Compton (Clive Brook) leaves his pregnant girlfriend, Louise Boucher (Betty Compson), to join the war. During the war he loses his memory. After the war he gets married and starts a life in London. Meanwhile she, now a single mother, thinks he is dead. She becomes a famous dancer; however, she falls incredibly ill and knows she won't live much longer. One night David is at one of Louise's performances and this causes him to regain his memory. Learning that David is married, she leaves her son in the care of him and his wife (Josephine Earle). The main writer for this film was Michael Morton, who also wrote the play that this was adapted from. 

The actual director of this film was Graham Cutts, who was just beginning his career at this time. He had however previously directed Mae Marsh in Flames of Passion (1922) and Paddy the Next Best Thing (1922). With these movies he helped revitalize Marsh's career at a low point. Marsh is of course a much better-known name by film buffs with a filmography that includes such well known movies as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Great Guns (1941), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and many more. Graham Cutts however is a figure in film history that deserves more attention. He cofounded the prestigious British movie studio, Gainsborough Films and helped guide the career of Ivor Novello, a major British star of the period. He was also considered to be one of the finest British directors of his time and his movies commanded equal respect from audiences and critics. It is a shame that he is almost completely forgotten today.

Graham Cutts was also a director who knew the value of costume design. The costumes for this film were made by Dolly Tree. Fans of classic Hollywood films might recognize her name as she worked on many MGM films of the 1930's and 40's. This allowed her to design dresses for such actresses as Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Rosalind Russell, Maureen O'Sullivan and Judy Garland. The amount of sheer movie classics she worked on is incredible. For Woman to Woman, Graham Cutts made sure that Dolly Tree had every advantage to work here. Dolly definitely delivered. She had worked in Paris and had an extensive knowledge of the Parisian nightlife. This certainly helped when making a film like this. The ostrich feather dress that she wore in scene towards the end of the film was as one of the most elaborate and beautiful dresses to appear on the cinema screen. This dress supposedly consisted of 200 ostrich feathers and 1,000 pearls.    

Dolly Tree's familiarity with the Parisian lifestyle is not the only factor leading to a form of authenticity. Both Cutts and Hitchcock took a trip to Paris for research.  

The star of this movie is American actress Betty Compson. Despite being not as well know as she should be she has a very distinguished filmography that includes The Miracle Man (1919), Beggar on Horseback (1925), Paths to Paradise (1925), The Pony Express (1925), The Docks of New York (1928), The Great Gabbo (1929), The Spoilers (1930), A Slight Case of Murder (1938) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941, directed by Alfred Hitchcock). She was paid £1,000 a week, which was considered to be a record for an actress working in a British film. 

Production for this film began in April 1923 and ended by August of that year. 

The film was a major box office success and was just as popular with the critics as it was with audiences. Many critics at the time hailed it as one of the best British films. A review in Variety stated, "An example of the better grade of work over there. It is unquestionably equal to a vast majority of the releases viewed in the first run houses over here." A review in Bioscope said, "This is a film of exceptional artistic and dramatic interest." Probably the most telling of reviews for this movie was from Kineweekly which stated, "Woman to Woman… does one important thing astonishingly well – it forever blasts the delusion that a production, technically perfect cannot come out of a British studio." A review in Motion Picture Studio said, "The director has certainly had at his disposal a greater latitude of treatment and an accompanying freedom in expenditure which few British directors have ever been able to experience…the gorgeous dance and stage settings are quite lavish – and as daring as any American efforts on the same lines." The critics especially praised Betty Compson's performance, many referring to it as the best performance of her career. 

Betty Compson agreed to star in Woman to Woman on the condition that her contract would be for two films. However the filmmakers were so engrossed in making this film that they did not prepare for a second. When they did make the second film, The White Shadow (1924), it proved to be nowhere near the critical or box office success that this movie was. 

Unfortunately, this movie is considered a lost film. However, the 1929 remake (which has Betty Compson reprising her role), with the same name, is still available to watch. It can be found on YouTube listed as this 1923 version. However, the fact that it is a talkie immediately gives away that this is not the same film. 

Resources Used

Hitchcock by François Truffaut

https://www.jazzageclub.com/woman-to-woman-1923/429/

 

  

Always Tell Your Wife (1923)

 

It may surprise some that Alfred Hitchcock's earliest completed film as a director was a two-reel comedy. However, for his whole career, comedy would remain an important element of Hitch's films. Try to think of North by Northwest (1959), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941) or Frenzy (1972) without their comedy. He even directed some all-out and out comedies like Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) and The Trouble with Harry (1955). And of course, comedy would play an important role in his television work. Yet Always Tell Your Wife is not a Hitchcock film in the traditional sense. That is because it was never intended as a Hitchcock film. In Francios Truffaut's famous book length interview with Alfred Hitchcock, Hitch would state, "... I worked on a picture called Always Tell Your Wife, which featured Seymour Hicks, a very well-known London actor. One day he quarreled with the director and said to me, 'Let's you and me finish this thing by ourselves.' So, I helped him, and we completed the picture." Different sources have debated whether Hugh Crosie (the film's original director) had rough words with Hicks or fell ill. It has also been debated just how much Alfred Hitchcock had to do with the completed picture or what parts of the short he had directed. It is believed that he was probably an assistant director before becoming a full director for this film. Always Tell Your Wife was actually a remake of a 1914 comedy short by the same name that also starred Seymor Hicks. 

Seymour Hicks, though little talked about today, was one of the most respected British stage actors of the time. He first acted professionally at only in the age of 16 when he performed in In the Ranks at the Grand Theatre in Islington. By the age of 18 he was touring America with Dame Madge Kendal and her husband W.H. Kendal's popular acting troupe. In 1898, he became a successful playwright as well with the play The Runaway Girl, which was followed by a series of light comedies he co-authored with Charles Frohman. However, the most famous role for this respected actor was Ebeneezer Scrooge. He had first played this character on stage in 1901 at only the age of 30. The great actor later recounted that he must have played this character in over 2,000 performances. As well as playing the character on stage, the actor also played him in a 1913 silent film version and the talkie movie adaption, Scrooge (1935). By the 1935 film he was well seasoned when it came to playing this role and at the age of 64, he had grown into being the age of the character.

His co-stars include Stanley Logan (who would appear in many uncredited roles in Hollywood movies of the 1940's), Gerturde McCoy (who played Light in Maurice Tourneur's The Blue Bird (1918)), Ellaline Terriss (an accomplish stage actress and Hick's wife) and Ian Wilson (whose career would last until the 1970's with his last movie being The Wicker Man (1973)). 

This short is a martial farce about two couples and an affair that arose between them. 

Only one reel of this two-reel comedy is known to survive. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch this short. 

This short was intended as the first in a series of 10 comedy shorts to star Hicks. However, the other 9 films were never made, and it has been questioned whether this film ever received a proper release. However, this film did a world of good for Hitch's filmmaking career as producer Michael Balcon took notice of him at this time and would make him an important part of his new movie studio. Under Balcon, Hitch would at first work as a writer, assistant director and/or art director on a few movies, as well as directing his earliest feature length films. 

Though this is the first completed film that Alfred Hitchcock directed it was not his first attempt at directing a film. He had been the director on a movie entitled Number 13, which was never completed. This movie was to be written by Anita Ross, who claimed to be an associate of Charlie Chaplin. Hitch said about this, "In those days anyone who worked with Chaplin was top drawer: She had written a story, and we found a little money. It wasn't very good really." The movie was to star Clare Greet and Ernest Thesiger. Little is known about the story, except that it was about a low-income couple living in a building funded by The Peabody Trust, which offered affordable housing to those hard on their luck. Hitch's uncle John Hitchcock was to fund them film but eventually these funds ran out. Afterwards, Clare Greet helped fund the movie until that funding also ran out. However, Hitch's movie career started with him as an intertitle designer on various silent films such as The Great Day (1920), The Call of Youth (1920), The Princess of New York (1921), Three Live Ghosts (1922).

Resources Used

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1422787/index.html

Hitchcock by François Truffaut