The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rewatch: Elstree Calling to The Skin Game

Friends, welcome to the third to last installment of the Great Alfred Hitchcock Rewatch!  It's not over yet, but we are getting closer.

What are we going to be seeing today?  We are fully in the world of early sound film, and this is the post where we get to experience all of the growing pains that came along with the transition from silent to sound.  These movies are all very much products of their time, and I mean that in a somewhat negative way.  But don't forget that we're still dealing with Hitchcock, so he's not wasting our time.  He's learning and setting the groundwork for the masterpieces yet to come.

Elstree Calling (1930)

Juno and the Paycock (1930)

Murder! (1930)
Mary (1931) [this is the German version of Murder]
The Skin Game (1931)

Spoiler rating for this post: we're getting into some obscure territory here, and while I didn't go all out, I also didn't hold back when the mood struck me.  I spilled some tea on Murder/Mary and Elstree Calling.  We're not doing the 🚨🚨🚨 warning this time because the chances of anyone watching these movies is slim to none.

The Skin Game (1931)

General plot summary and trivia

We're in contemporary England and out in the country.  The Hillcrest family is old money, and the Hornblower family is new rich.  There is a real estate deal that goes horribly wrong.  This is a boring movie that results in something really bad happening to someone.  The End.

I had to phone in an assist from IMDB to explain the title.  According to them it means "an unscrupulous business deal" and it is not the same thing as "having skin in the game".

What I think of the movie

• Before: Don't remember it, no opinion
• After: Shudder...it was boring.  I need a ranking that covers the territory between "meh" and "I hate this movie".  This movie is too dated to be worthy of a meh, but I don't care about it enough to hate it.

The movie is based on a novel turned stage play by John Galsworthy, and his contract stipulated that the dialogue and story could not be changed, which left Hitchcock with limited options.  Everything about The Skin Game screams "this is a stage play", but let me be very clear that you can say the same thing about a lot of 1929-1932 movies.  The soundtrack is very poor and I had to turn on the subtitles to be able to understand it.

The Skin Game has two good things going for it: Hitchcock does some creative camera work in an auction scene, and the lead actor is terrific.

Is there a MacGuffin? No

Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie?  I wish, but no

Is there a Wrong Man theme? No

Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No

Does a character have Mommy Issues? No

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  Yes.  After the auction, the Hillcrests believe that everything is OK, and they get into their car to leave.  Hornblower gets into the car with them and lets them know that things are not going the way that they think they are going.  This scene feels very similar to the scene in Rebecca where Jack gets into the de Winters' car at the inquest to blackmail them.

Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers: 

• Edmund Gwen in his Hitchcock debut!  He didn't make the most appearances but he had the longest span of any actor in Hitchcock movies.  This was his first in 1931, and his last was in 1956 in The Trouble with Harry.  His performance makes the movie bearable.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? It's so boring that I don't think that it's OK to show it to adults let alone children.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  None to report.

Murder! (1930) and Mary (1931)

General plot summary and trivia

Let me start by telling you why there are two versions of this movie.  Back in the silent days, it was easy to make a movie for a world wide audience.  All that you had to do was to change out the title cards to the audience's target language, and you were in business.

Sound movies couldn't do that.  It was difficult to add subtitles to early sound movies, and frankly no one wanted to see a sound movie that you had to read.  So what was the solution?

If it was an ordinary movie that no one cared about, you shot the movie in your native language and called it a day.  But if you had a movie that you thought would have an appeal in other countries, then you got yourself an alternate cast of actors who spoke the target language and you shot another version of the same movie at the same time.

Other examples of multiple language versions are:

• Dracula in 1931.  The American version was made during the day, and the Spanish cast and crew filmed at night.
• Free and Easy in 1930.  This is a Buster Keaton movie, and there is no substitute for Buster Keaton, so he shot version one in English and then phonetically learned his lines in Spanish for version two.
• And of course, Murder and Mary.  Hitchcock's career started in Germany, so there was no need to bring in a German director for the second version.

What is different between the two versions?  The big thing is the actors, and there is a curious tweak to the story.  The German version is 20 minutes shorter, and the killer's motive and background are a bit different.  I watched the German language version first just to be pure about watching the movies in reverse order.  I'm assuming that it was made made concurrently or just after the English version wrapped.

Okay, now that we have the background, let's tell the story.  The movie opens in the middle of the night with a scream.  We go into a house and see an attractive woman sitting at a table in a daze and another woman dead at her feet.  We learn that both women are actresses in a theater troupe, and that they did not get along.  The surviving woman is named Diana Baring in the British version and Mary Baring in the German version, and she remembers that she and the victim were arguing but she can't remember anything else that happened.

Well, naturally Diana/Mary gets arrested and goes on trial.  The jury takes their first round of votes, and the score is nine guilty and three not guilty.  The first two not guilty votes get talked into switching to Team Guilty pretty easily, but the last vote is from Sir John, who is a famous actor and who knows Diana (IMBD makes the point that having someone who knew the defendant on the jury is extremely unlikely, but hey that's what the movie gives us so we have to roll with it).  Sir John sticks to his guns that Diana isn't guilty but he eventually gets talked down.  The verdict is guilty and Diana receives a death sentence.

Sir John goes home and thinks things over, and he is not OK with the verdict.  What's a guy to do when something is bugging him and he's a wealthy celebrity?  Well, naturally he drops some cash and hires the stage manager and some of the actors in Diana's theater troupe and starts his own investigation.

The thing that makes Murder/Mary different than all other Hitchcock movies is that it is a true whodunit.  Normally we know who did it and the purpose of the movie is to find out why.  But this time it really is who more than a why.

Let's take a peak:

What I think of the movie

• Before: Don't remember it, no opinion
• After: Meh to both versions, but they are interesting mehs.

Murder/Mary is not a good movie, but it has a ton of interesting things going for it.  The "not good" part is that it's very dated and it's hard to swallow Diana/Mary's position.  She may not remember what happened on the night of the murder, but it seems like she does have a clue that it had something to do with the fella in her life, and the fact that she doesn't say anything is not believable.  At one point she tells Sir John that she's OK with getting the death penalty because it's better than the alternative of a 20 year prison sentence.  Look, I have not been in this character's shoes but it feels like a stretch.  Overall the story makes no sense whatsoever.

Now let's talk about the good stuff!  The striking thing about Murder and Mary is that we're not just talking to talk.  Hitchcock uses sound to its full capability and makes it a feature and not a bug.  In the jury room, he uses sound to play with the word "guilty" in a similar way that he used the word "knife" in Blackmail.

The revolutionary for the time scene is the first movie inner monologue.  In both versions after the verdict, Sir John goes home, talks to his servants, turns on the radio, and shaves.  While he's looking at the man in the mirror, we get to hear his thoughts, and the sound from the radio adjusts to fit the mood.  There was no way to edit a soundtrack in 1930, so this was achieved by first recording the monologue, and playing it back while the actors recorded the scene with a full orchestra playing off camera.

I said before that the stories are similar but not identical.  Here is what we've got:

• The casting of Sir John is radically different.  British Herbert Marshall was Mr. Sexy and German Alfred Able was older and gives off dad vibes.
• There are two small roles that are played by the same actors in both movies, just with someone else doing the voices in the German version: the victim's husband and the prosecuting attorney/barrister.  FWIW, the prosecuting attorney/barrister is a woman.
• The victim's wounds are a little more graphic in the German version.
• The movies were shot on the same set, and both are set in England.  The German movie has German dialogue and there is a note that is written in German.  There are some signs on the theater in English in both versions.  The German dialog uses English titles when referring to  people: example, the German dialogue refers to people as "Mr. und Mrs. Smith" instead of "Herr und Frau Smith".
• In the German version, the killer is an escaped convict.  The victim was about to blow his cover, which is why he killed her.
• In the British version, the killer is spicier.  He is mixed race, and falls somewhere on the LGBTQ scale.  Again, the victim was about to spill the tea, which is why he killed her.
• The killer's death is identical in both movies.
• The German movie ends with Sir John reading the killer's letter, and then the scene cuts to Mary walking out of jail and riding home with Sir John.  They are embracing and out of nowhere it seems like they're going to be a couple.
• The British movie has two endings!
• Ending #1 which is the "official" ending: Sir John reads the letter, and then we cut to the curtain going up on a new play staring Diana and Sir John. 
• Ending #2 which is on the DVD in the bonus features: everything that was in the official ending plus the same territory that was covered in the German ending.  Sir John reads the letter, we cut to Diana leaving jail and she and Sir John are shown in an embrace so we know that they have started a relationship.  Then the curtain goes up on the play. In other words, ending #1 doesn't give us a romantic relationship for Sir John and Diana and ending #2 does.

Is there a MacGuffin? No

Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie?  No

Is there a Wrong Man theme?  Not exactly.  Diana/Mary is innocent but even she doesn't know it.

Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No

Does a character have Mommy Issues? No

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  Yes!

• The way that Hitchcock uses sound is similar to his first talkie, Blackmail.  He plays with the word "guilty" in the jury room, and he emphasizes the word "knife" in Blackmail.
• There is a similar vibe to Stage Fright, where the stage is used as a metaphor to tell us that things are not what they seem.
• There is a scene in court where the jury is listening to the evidence, and their heads turn back and forth as the prosecution and the defense speak.  This is very similar to how the heads follow the ball at the tennis match in Strangers on a Train.

Adhoc tracking point: does the movie have implied gay or lesbian characters?  Wow, we haven't had this bullet point since Rebecca.  The answer for the German movie is no, but it's a different story for the British version.  We're in full LGBTQ territory here.  I'm very curious why the spicy stuff was taken out of the German version, since this is pre-Nazi Germany and there is an "anything goes" spirit in other German movies of this time period.

Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers: 

• Herbert Marshall is Sir John in the British version.  We previously saw him as the dad in Foreign Correspondent.
• Alfred Able is Sir John in the German version.  He played the dad in Metropolis.
• Norah Baring is Diana Baring. If you're up to speed on the great British silent movies, then you've seen her before in Underground and A Cottage on Dartmoor (and if you're not up to speed on the great British silent movies, those are two great titles to start with).
• We have a couple of familiar faces that we've seen before and will see again, but the names aren't familiar, so there is no point in typing them out.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yeah technically it's OK but good luck getting them in front of the TV to watch it.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  Woo hoo we get a cameo, but in the British version only.  He walks by Sir John on the street.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)

General plot summary and trivia

Do you want to see a really boring movie where heartbreaking things happen to our lead characters?  If so, Juno and the Paycock is for you!

It's 1922 and the Irish revolution is in full swing so we're hearing gunfire on the regular.  We meet the Boyle family: Mama is Juno, and dad thinks the world of himself, which has earned him the nickname of The Peacock (that would be the Paycock of the title).  They live with their adult children, Johnny and Mary.  Johnny lost an arm in the war and isn't doing well mentally, and Mary has a posh new boyfriend.  Dad doesn't work and is happy to let Juno support the family.

Then word comes that the Boyles have inherited money!  Woo hoo, the bad days are over!!!

Not even close.  Bad things happen to everyone concerned, but at least the ladies fare better than the menfolk.  The End.

What I think of the movie

• Before: Don't remember it, but I think it was boring
• After: So boring.  I hate this movie.

Juno and the Paycock is a typical stage play turned early talkie.  Apparently the story was a big deal at the time, and the movie did well, which says a lot about the kind of movies that were being made at this time.  It feels like everyone was asleep at the wheel, especially in a scene toward the end where the characters' heads aren't in the shot.

My favorite part of the movie watching experience?  Letting it play out while I did the Sunday crossword puzzle in the NYT app.  The entire run time is either boring or bad things happening.  We're just passing time here to get to better sound technology and a stronger place in Hitchcock's career.  Recommended for Hitchcock completism purposes only.

Is there a MacGuffin? No

Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie?  No

Is there a Wrong Man theme?  No

Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No

Does a character have Mommy Issues? No

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  No, thankfully.

Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers: 

• John Laurie is back as Johnny the one armed son.  He had a much better role in The 39 Steps and a long career after that.
• We have other actors in common with Murder and Blackmail, but the names are so obscure that I can't be bothered to type them out.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Same comment as The Skin Game.  I've seen this movie twice in my life and I will never get that time back.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  None

Elstree Calling (1930)

General plot summary and trivia

For me to tell you what Elstree Calling is about, I first need to tell you what it is.  When sound came out, all of the big studios put out vaudeville style "revue" movies that were made for the sole purpose of showing off the new technology.  MGM's The Hollywood Revue of 1929, Warner Brothers' The Show of Shows, Paramount's Paramount on Parade, and Universal's King of Jazz are the most famous examples.

Over on the other side of the pond, Elstree was the major movie hub, and Elstree Calling was the British version of the revue movies.  Like the American movies, it's a bunch of music and comedy sketches with a few connecting threads.

The movie opens with an announcer kicking off a television broadcast.  That's right, this movie is so ahead of its time that it's about TV.  We switch to an apartment building where a man and his wife are watching the show.  The man adjusts the TV set which has a perfectly good picture to get an even better picture which causes him to break the TV.  His neighbor stops in to tell him about the great show that's starting and invites him and his wife over to see it.  The wife is all for going over, but the man tells him that he's going to fix the set, so the invitation isn't needed.  As the movie progresses, we see a slew of trials and errors that result in an even more broken TV set and injuries to the owner.

Meanwhile the show goes on and we get music and comedy sketches and our second connecting thread where an actor is trying to sneak onto the stage and perform Shakespeare.  He gets ousted, but keeps coming back.  Finally he gets to perform a Shakespeare farce complete with a motorcycle and people throwing pies.

We have our grand finale musical number and return to the TV repair project.  The man is now covered from head to toe in bandages, but he finally gets the TV working...just in time to see the announcer tell us that the show is over.  The End.

So what does this have to do with Hitchcock?  Well friends, welcome to the most curious director's credit in movie history.

Adrian Brunel was the Big Deal Director du Jour, and he had Big Plans for Elstree Calling.  He also had a small budget, and when his dreams turned out to be bigger than the money, he was sent packing.  The studio looked at their pool of directors and tapped Hitchcock to finish the movie.

There is a lot of chatter about exactly which "sketches and other interpolated items" were directed by Hitchcock.  The word on the street is that he directed the TV repair scenes, the Shakespeare "pie in the face" scene, and a very macabre sketch about a woman who is with her lover when her husband walks in on them.  No one was keeping exact records, so we'll never know for sure.

What I think of the movie

• Before: Guilty pleasure!
• After: Guilty pleasure!

Is Elstree Calling a good movie?  Of course not!  None of the revue movies are.  They are museum pieces with little gems here and there.  Is it entertaining to watch?  Kind of.  All of the revue movies have a much of a muchness that gets old quick, and I had to take a couple of breaks to make it through this 80 minute movie.

But at the same time, we get to see a couple of big-ish movie stars, and the incoming next generation of British musical stars.  The tunes are toe tapping, some of the jokes are mildly funny, the bit about TV is interesting, and oooh there's color.  Well, there is kinda sorta color.  We're not working with a Technicolor budget, so we have hand stenciled color for a few of the dance scenes.

Apart from the curiosity factor, this movie was my gateway into the world of British musicals of the 1930s, so it led to many pleasant watch hours and toe tapping.

Is there a MacGuffin? No

Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No

Is there a Wrong Man theme?  No

Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No

Does a character have Mommy Issues? No

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  Ha ha apart from the morbidly humorous sketch, no.

Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers: 

• Anna May Wong!!!  In case you are not familiar, she was a Chinese American actress who made it big in an era that did not like non-white people and especially did not like Chinese people.  Are you for real that you've never heard of her?  Take a look at your spare change, because she was on the quarter in 2022.
• I won't list out the names for the sake of time but we've got a ton of frequent fliers who were in the Hitchcock silents and early talkies.
• Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge!  No you've never heard of them, and I wouldn't either if not for this movie.  They were theater stars who were on the verge of bankruptcy and aging out of their careers when the producers bought the rights to one of their shows to use in this movie.  They went on to make a slew of musicals in the 30s that are nothing profound but were very enjoyable.
• Music by Ivor Novello🥰🥰🥰  We'll be seeing that name a lot in our final Hitchcock post.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? There is no way that you will be able to get a kid to sit through this.  If one happens to walk in, be prepared to have a discussion about blackface and a couple of other topics that have not aged well.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  If only.  Nope, there is none.

______

Whew, this one was a little tough going but we made it and we ended on a fun note with Elstree.  What's in store for us next time?  The Roaring Twenties, silent movies, and Hitchcock's first talkie!!!

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

Champagne (1928)

The Manxman (1929)

Blackmail (1929) - we will be watching both the silent and sound versions