The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rewatch: The Farmer's Wife to Blackmail

This is the second to last installment in The Great Alfred Hitchcock rewatch.  Time flies when you're watching great movies.

Previous Installments

Intro Post

The Final Five Movies

The Wrong Man to The Birds

Dial M for Murder to The Man Who Knew Too Much

Rope to I Confess

Shadow of a Doubt to The Paradine Case

Rebecca to Saboteur

Secret Agent to Jamaica Inn

Rich and Strange to The 39 Steps

Elstree Calling to The Skin Game

Just because we're getting close to the end doesn't mean that Hitchcock is going to phone it in.  We have big stuff to cover today.  We have our first talkie, and then we're going to jump back to the Golden Age of Silents, where the movies are gorgeous.  Here is today's list of movies, and we'll be talking about them in the order that I saw them, which is reverse order.  We're going to start out serious and deal with Adult Issues in Blackmail and The Manxman, and then we're going to chillax and have fun in Champagne and The Farmer's Wife.

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

Champagne (1928)

The Manxman (1929)

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

Before we get going, let's talk about the transition from silent movies to sound so that we have some context for Blackmail.  The ability to record sound existed for nearly the same time as the ability to record motion pictures, but playback technology was the limiting factor. Movies started without recorded dialogue but never without sound.  Instead movies had live music as an accompaniment.  You've probably seen the stereotype of someone thumping along on a piano, but the major movie theaters had full orchestras.

It wasn't until the mid 1920s and the development of radio technology that a viable playback system came along.  The first use of sound in movies was to record the accompanying music, because in the words of Jack Warner of Warner Brothers: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?".  That question got answered when Warner Brothers released a little movie called The Jazz Singer in 1927.  It is credited as being the first sound movie, but it is actually a silent movie with a few songs and some adlibbing between the songs.  That was all that it took for everyone to want to hear actors talk.  But there were a few technical details that needed to be worked out.

Behind the scenes, everything had to change because everything involved in movie making made noise.  Cameras made noise, lights made noise, and there were no soundproof studios, so that infrastructure had to be built.  Acting wise, there were silent movie actors and there were stage actors, but those skills are not the same as sound movie acting.  The early talkies were definitely an exercise in on the job training.

In front of the scenes, movie theaters had to change, and that was where the rollout was the slowest.  The major movie houses could afford to install sound technology, but the little guys couldn't.  Therefore everyone had to hedge their bets.  For a while movies were mostly silent with maybe one or two sound scenes inserted for the big movie theaters until everyone got caught up on their technology.

What was Hitchcock doing at this time?  He was finishing up a silent movie called Blackmail.  The front office asked him to reshoot the final scene with sound.  But Hitchcock had other ideas...

Spoiler rating for this post: very high for Blackmail.  I didn't recap the entire movie, but there is a small but significant difference between the endings of the two versions that I felt the need to blab about.  The ending is similar to the 1936 movie Sabotage, so I also spilled the tea on that.  I went mild on spoilers for the other movies.

Blackmail (1929 - Silent and Sound Versions)

General plot summary and trivia

We're in contemporary London, and we get to ride along with two detectives on Scotland Yard's Flying Squad as they track down, arrest, and book a suspect.  The two detectives are an unnamed older man and Frank, who is younger and less experienced in the job.

The day is over and we get to go on a date with Frank and his girlfriend, Alice.  Their relationship is on the outs: she feels that he is more interested in his job than her, and she's met someone else.  They have a fight and Frank storms out, and the other fella swoops in.

The other fella is an artist named Crewe, and he sweet talks Alice into coming up to see his studio.  There is an interruption when a man names Tracy stops Crewe on their way into the building.  We don't get to hear what they talk about, but Crewe is very annoyed.  When they step inside the building, the landlady tells Crewe that a man has stopped by to see him several times.

Crewe and Alice go to his apartment where he mixes up some strong drinks, gives Alice a paint brush and guides her hand into drawing a nude figure, and talks her into trying on a dance costume so that he can paint her.  Only he skips the painting part and drags her off to his bed, which is a canopy with drapes so we can't see what's going on but we know that Alice is not on board.

The table is right next to the bed with a loaf of bread and a large knife at the ready.  When you're in a bad situation, sometimes a knife can do what the word "no" can't, and Crewe's career as an attempted rapist is over.  Alice has it together just enough to cover up her traces in the apartment, or so she thinks.  As she leaves, we see a man's silhouette approach the door.

Alice walks the streets all night in a daze trying to process what happened.  The next day when the body is found, Frank is called to the scene where he finds Alice's glove and recognizes Crewe from the night before.  He pockets the glove and goes to see Alice.  He shows her the glove, which is the cue for Tracy (the creepy guy) to show up see Frank with the glove and to show them that he has her other glove.  Alice never gets to tell Frank what happened, and Tracy tells Frank that for the right price he won't say anything either.

Meanwhile the police are hard at work, and Crewe's landlady gives them a description of the creepy guy who was hanging around the apartment and so desperately wanted to talk to Crewe.  They are able to match her description to their perp file on Tracy, who has a lengthy criminal history.  The hunter becomes the hunted, which is is convenient for everything except for Alice's guilt complex.

So remember how Hitchcock was asked to reshoot the final scene in sound?  Well, he did and while he was at it he also reshot the rest of the movie to make a full sound feature.  This didn't mean that he had to start from scratch, since he was able to recycle a lot of the silent footage and add sound effects (example: the two detectives walk down the hall and chat while we watch them from behind, Frank and Alice walk down the street and take the subway to a crowded restaurant, and the big chase scene at the end where everyone is running and no one is talking).  He only had to reshoot the important scenes of the movie, and he made a few tweaks to take advantage of sound.  Keep in mind that no one was taking advantage of sound at this time.  It was enough if someone's lips were moving and you heard a noise.  But Hitchcock wasn't interested in doing the minimum, which is why we're still talking about him 100 years later.

Here's what we've got for differences between the two versions:

• The first ten minutes of the movie have the exact same footage, just with sound effects added for the sound version.
• Once Crewe shows up on the scene, we get a lot more foreshadowing that something bad is going to happen.  In the silent version the date starts out very innocent looking, but in the sound version he negs her almost from the start.
• Crewe has a piano in his apartment in the sound version, and he plays a song with lyrics that have a double meaning while Alice is changing into the dance costume.  A lot of this scene has recycled silent footage, but the way that the camera is setup it is very hard to tell that sometimes there is a piano there and sometimes there isn't.
• The nude drawing looks a little different since, duh, it had to be completely redrawn the second time.  In the sound version you can see the faint outline on the canvas that the actors draw over.
• The biggest change is to the breakfast scene the next day.  Alice is eating with her parents, and her dad asks her to cut a slice of bread and we all know what happened the last time she saw a loaf of bread and picked up a knife.  In the silent version we see the shadow of Alice's hand looming over the knife.  The sound version goes to town: a neighbor has stopped in to chat about the murder and is fixated on the stabbing part.  She keeps saying the word "knife", and the soundtrack muffles every word that she is saying except for "knife".  The closer that Alice comes to picking up the knife, the word is repeated louder and more frequently.

Now let's talk about the ending.  There is a subtle but mind blowing difference.

Silent version: Alice goes to the police station to confess, but the inspector is called away and Frank intercepts her.  He asks why she came and she says "I did it".  Frank looks like he has been punched in the gut, and they don't say another word to each other.

Sound version: Alice goes to the police station to confess, but the inspector is called away and Frank intercepts her.  They have the following conversation:
                    

Frank: Alice, whatever made you come here?

Alice: I did it.
Frank: I know.
Alice: You don't know. He tried...oh I can't tell you.  It's too terrible.  I was defending myself.  I didn't know what I was doing.  And then...

Frank: My dear.

My interpretation is that in the silent version Frank was being a good cop and really believed that Tracy had killed Crewe and is devastated when he learns otherwise.  Also he has no idea why Alice killed Crewe, and he's not going to ask.  When he says "I know" in the sound version, his motivations seem more sinister: he knew that Tracy did not kill Crewe, but he didn't tell the police that.  On the plus side, when Alice tells him what happened, his very British "my dear" is code for: "it's okay, I understand, I've got your back".

So silent Frank is a good guy but the relationship between Frank and Alice is headed in an awful direction.  Sound Frank is a bad cop but a good boyfriend.

Blackmail has the distinction of being the first British all talking movie, and it was a smash hit.  Except that most movie theaters still weren't equipped for sound, so outside of the big cities everyone was watching the silent version.  Either way, they were watching hella good movie.  FYI, if you're watching the movie today, you will most likely get the sound version.  The only place that I know of for the silent version is on the DVD.

What I think of the movie

• Before: Love it
• After: Love it

Blackmail is not a perfect movie, but it is an early example of prime Hitchcock.  Every other movie maker at the time had a problem transitioning to sound, but not him.

There is one technical issue with the sound version of Blackmail that happened in other silent movies that were converted to sound.  Someone's curtains did not match their drapes.

Say what?  This is a British movie about British people.  The actor who plays Alice was Czech, and there was nothing wrong with her voice except that it was very definitely not a British voice.  We have some footage that shows off her voice and Hitchcock's sense of humor (it's up to you to interpret if he is being funny or pervy...probably some from column A and some from column B).

Today we think nothing of one person having a different accent than everyone else, but this was not going to fly in a British movie in 1929.  The silent movie was complete so it was too expensive to replace Alice.  What was the workaround?  If you've seen Singing in the Rain, you know the answer.  An actor with a nice British accent spoke Alice's lines off camera while the actor who played Alice mouthed along.  Conveniently Alice is in a state of shock for most of the movie, so she doesn't say much, but when she does it's awkward.  It doesn't help that the voice actor has a very high class, proper accent, so it sounds like the Queen dropped by to pay a visit.  Alice doesn't sound Czech, but she also sounds nothing like her parents or anyone else in the movie.

Is there a MacGuffin? Tracy is the MacGuffin.

Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie?  No, but early in the movie a detective uses a pair of handcuffs as a can opener.

Is there a Wrong Man theme?  Yes!  Tracy is not a great guy, but he is also not a killer.

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 theme of guilt, which we've had before and have had since in many Hitchcock movies.  Technically speaking, Alice did nothing wrong, but it is clear that the events of the movie have unleashed one hell of a guilt complex that is going to last for along time afterwards.
• The chase in the British Museum foreshadows the chases on national landmarks in Saboteur and North by Northwest.
• The ending where the cop covers up the girlfriend's involvement in a death and stops her from talking to the cops was repeated in Sabotage.
• A lingering shot of a staircase, which you can see in the trailer that I linked.  Oops I forgot to mention one of Hitchcock's biggest tropes until now.

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

• Anny Ondra is Alice.  We'll be seeing her again in The Manxman.
• Joan Barry is Alice's voice.  We got to see and hear her in Rich and Strange, where her voice was very lovely but did not sound like The Queen.
• Donald Calthrop is Tracy.  This was his first Hitchcock movie, and by far his best.  He is incredible as the creepy, nasty, but ultimately pathetic bad guy in both the silent and sound versions.  We've seen him as the Shakespearean actor in Elstree Calling, very briefly in Juno and the Paycock and Murder, and for a bit longer in Number 17.
• We have a ton of other obscure names that we've seen before and will see again.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes, if you can get them in front of the TV to watch it.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!  Cameos have been hard to come by lately, but Blackmail delivers with one of Hitchcock's longest cameos ever.  He is a passenger on the subway with Frank and Alice as they are on their way to their date.

The Manxman (1929)

General plot summary and trivia

We're on the Isle of Man, and we meet Pete and Phillip, who have a "brothers from another mother" lifelong friendship.  Pete is a hunky fisherman and Phillip is a lawyer who is on the verge of becoming a judge.  Phillip is helping Pete to advocate for a fishing issue, so we know that he's a good guy.

Pete and Phillip have something else in common.  They are both nuts about Kate, who is the daughter of a bar owner.  Kate likes Pete well enough and they're an item.  The problem is that Kate's dad calls 'em like he sees them, and a poor fisherman is not what he wants for Kate.  Pete knows that he needs to up his game, so he decides that he's going to go off the sea to make his fortune and asks Kate to wait for him.  He asks Phillip to keep Kate company while he's gone, and Phillip agrees, strictly in the best friend sense.

Once Kate and Phillip start keeping company, they find that they like each other a lot, but they stay loyal to Pete.  Phillip is getting closer to getting his judge role, and his aunt tells him that the amount of time that he is spending with Kate doesn't look right.  Phillip says that he's just looking after his best friend's gal, but Aunty tells him she knows what she's seeing, and reminds him that something bad happened to his dad's career when he married a poor girl.

But then the word comes that Pete has died at sea, and Kate and Phillip find that they are not entirely unhappy about this.  They visit an old mill together, and Kate starts the mill works, they kiss, and the scene fades to black...in case you're not picking up what the movie is putting down, this means that they have gone to pound town.

It turns out that rumors of Pete's death were greatly exaggerated, and he comes back to the island with tons of cash.  Kate faints, and everyone assumes that it's from joy but the audience was there at the mill, so we're thinking that it might be for another reason.  Since Pete now has money, daddy says that he and Kate can get married.  Kate and Phillip decide that they need to forget about their little fling and get back in line.  Kate and Pete get married, Phillip is the best man, and the wedding reception is held at the mill.

Kate and Pete have a beautiful baby girl, and Phillip gets his judgeship.  Everyone is happy right?  What could go wrong?  And when it does, what is Kate's dad going to have to say about it?

What I think of the movie

• Before: Like even though it's a weird and dated story with a bad message.
• After: Same.

Good things to say: The Manxman is a gorgeous movie, so the plot is almost irrelevant.  It is always interesting to see how old movies handle sex, pregnancy, and other assorted adult issues.

Bad things to say: it's a good thing that the plot is irrelevant, because there isn't a lot of it, and the story asks us to suspend disbelief a few times too many.  We have a very different take on paternity issues today, and the reason is exactly what happens to Pete at the end of the movie.

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? Kate's dad and Phillip's aunt do them no favors.

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  The biggest thing is the sense of guilt that crushes Kate and Phillip.

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

• Anny Ondra is Kate, and we just saw her in Blackmail.  Her accent isn't a problem in a silent movie.
• Carl Brisson is Pete, and we'll be seeing him again in The Ring.
• Malcolm Keen is Phillip.  We'll get him back in The Lodger.  He was a strange looking man, but a good actor who is perfect for Hitchcock.  The lead character in Saboteur's last name is Keen, and I kind of wonder if the name was borrowed from this actor.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? If they like silent movies, then sure.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  Sigh.  We got nearly 20 seconds of him in Blackmail, and that's going to have to tide us over for a while.

Champagne (1928)

General plot summary and trivia

The Girl is rich and irresponsible, and Daddy wants to put a stop to her antics in general and her current boyfriend in particular.  After a particularly rowdy episode the girl ends up in Paris, and Daddy comes out there and tells her that he lost all of his money and they are broke.  The Girl and Daddy move into a rundown apartment and The Girl takes a shot at learning how to cook and getting a job.  Meanwhile Daddy seems to still be having nice lunches, so it seems like something is going on that neither The Girl or the audience knows about.  It turns out that Daddy just wanted to teach The Girl a lesson and ha ha they're still rich.

What I think of the movie

• Before: Don't remember it, no opinion.
• After: Meh, but kind of a good meh.

Hitchcock is on record as saying that Champagne was his least favorite movie.  To that my response is, "Sir did you see Juno and the Paycock, The Skin Game, The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn, and Family Plot?"  I agree that there is nothing memorable going on here, but sheesh we've seen way worse on our Hitchcock journey.

What Champagne has to offer is prime 1920s eye candy and a some Hitchcockian camera work.  There is a killer POV shot from a glass of champagne at the beginning and the end of the movie.  I agree that there is no plot but it was a very pleasant watching experience.

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, but The Girl and Daddy are American, and supposedly some of the scenes are set in New York, so it's the closest that we've been to the West Coast since 1940.

Does a character have Mommy Issues? No

Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies?  Apart from the dope camera work, no.

Adhoc tracking point: does the movie have implied gay or lesbian characters?  Yes!  In the Paris nightclub scene, two women dance together.

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

• The one to watch here is Daddy.  We previously saw Gordon Harker as the man having problems with his TV in Elstree Calling, and we'll be seeing him a ton more in our next few movies.  Harker had a long career, and while his comedy was stronger in the sound era, he doesn't do too badly in the silent world.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? If they like silent movies, sure but there are probably better uses of their time.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  Nope.

The Farmer's Wife

General plot summary and trivia

The movie opens with the farmer's wife dying, and after a decent interval the farmer decides to get married again.  But just because he wants a wife doesn't mean that anyone wants to marry him.  It takes him most of this one hour and 40 minute movie to figure out that what he seeks was waiting for him at home all the time.

What I think of the movie

• Before: Don't remember it, no opinion.
• After: Meh, but a cute meh.

I don't have much to say about the Farmer's Wife.  It's a pretty forgettable movie that could stand to be 20-30 minutes shorter, but it was pleasant, heart warming, and mildly amusing.

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

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

• Lilian Hall-Davies is the housekeeper, and we'll get to see her again in The Ring.
• Gordon Harker is the farm manager.  Unfortunately in this one he's more funny looking than funny with a bad wig, but you can't win 'em all.

Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? If they like silent movies, then sure but I think this is the least likely of this bunch to appeal to the young 'uns.

Rate the Hitchcock cameo!  Sigh, how long is the cameo dry spell going to last?

_______________________

Friends, the End is Nigh!  Join me next time for Hitchcock Begins:

The Pleasure Garden (1925)

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926)

Downhill (1927)

Easy Virtue (1928)

The Ring (1927)

Who's seen Blackmail?  Or heard of any of these movies?  Who has seen a silent movie?