Hitchcock 2020 #9 - The 39 Steps (1935)

Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is a Canadian spending a few months in London. While at a performance hall taking in the show of Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson) he meets a woman named Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) just after shots have been fired. She asks for his help and he takes her to his flat where she explains that she's a spy and there are assassins outside waiting to kill her, that there's a group called The 39 Steps, and that they are after her because she knows of a plot to steal vital British military secrets. She needs to get to a town in Scotland and find the largest house in the small town. There, a man missing the tip of his pinky finger, All of which he doesn't really believe until Miss Smith staggers into his room in the middle of the night with a knife in her back. Soon Hannay is on the run fearing that he will be implicated for the murder. 

He flees by train to Scotland to find the village and the man who is missing the tip of one of his pinkie fingers. On the train he meets Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) when he ducks into her compartment trying to hide from the police and gives her a big kiss. She promptly turns him in and he is forced to flee the train. In Scotland, he seeks shelter with a farmer (John Laurie) and his wife (Peggy Ashcroft) for the night. He is suspicious, she is supportive. When the police come to their door in the night she gives him her husbands darker coat (so he won't be spotted) and sends him out the back door and onto the moors. When he finds the village he stops at the largest house and introduces himself as a friend of Miss Smith's, only to learn that the man of the house, Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), is the man missing part of his index finger. Who promptly shoots Hannay, who is saved by the hymn book in his borrowed coat. 

In the next scene Hannay has fled in the Professor's car and is explaining his story to the local sheriff. Who happened to have been a guest at the same house not an hour before. He doesn't believe Hannay, so Hannay again flees. He quickly joins into step with a passing parade, and then ducks into a nearby hall, where he is ushered on stage as he is presumed to be the tardy speaker. He is just as surprised to see Pamela walk in as she is to see him. And again, she quickly turns him in to the police. Only they aren't really police, they are the 39 Steps agents working for Professor Jordan. Pamela and Hannay are able to escape, after they've been handcuffed together, from these men and flee to a hotel pretending to be newlyweds. As Hannay sleeps, Pamela frees herself from the cuffs and leaves the room, only to overhear the agents speaking loudly on the phone in the lobby and giving away the game. Pamela goes back to Hannay and goes to sleep. The next morning she says she overheard them saying they were going to the London Paladium, so that's where they're off to. 

In the next scene Pamela is at Scotland Yard asking for help. They don't believe her either. She joins Hannay at the Paladium, where a variety of performers take the stage. Hannay notices Professor Jordan in the balcony, and when Mr. Memory takes the stage he begins to piece it all together. All the information is inside Memory's head. 

Closing shot shows Pamela and Hannay from behind, they reach for each others hands. 

Hannay stays remarkably calm throughout the film. Except in the scene where Pamela went to sleep after overhearing the spies plans, he is calm and collected throughout. And very easily slips into tall tales and lies to get him out of one situation after the next. I don't recall that they explain his background or his reason for being in London. Perhaps a reading of Buchan's original novel would help. When Roger Thornhill gets caught up in the plot of North By Northwest he fights the mistaken identity thrown on him for awhile. Here, Hannay just rolls with everything. What was his occupation?!

Hitchcock's cameo comes in around the 6:56 minute mark. Hannay and Miss Smith have just left the hall and are waiting at the curb as a bus pulls up. Hitchcock walks behind them, facing away from the camera, and tosses a pack of cigarettes. This is a tough one to catch because it happens so quickly and you see him from behind.

Hitchcock handcuffed Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll together for hours before filming the scenes with them handcuffed together so they could get in the right frame of mind. The idea of fleeing fugitives being handcuffed together was used in many later films, most notably The Defiant Ones (1958), Fled (1996) and No Mercy (1986).

I think my Hitchcock years were still ahead of me when I was head over heals for "Catcher".  I was reminded that in Chapter 10 of "The Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield reminisces about his younger sister Phoebe's love for this movie: 

        "Her favorite is The 39 Steps (1935), though, with Robert Donat. She knows the whole     goddam movie by heart, because I've taken her to see it about ten times. When old Donat comes up to this Scotch farmhouse, for instance, when he's running away from the cops and all, Phoebe'll say right out loud in the movie, right when the Scotch guy in the picture says it, 'Can you eat the herring?' She knows all the talk by heart."

And by the way, Mr. memory IS the McGuffin.

Hitchcock 2020 #8 - Waltzes From Vienna (1934)

Waltzes From Vienna is a strange little film to be a Hitchcock picture. It follows the story of Johann Strauss Jr. (Edmond Knight) writing the waltz, "The Blue Danube". He is tormented by his father, Johann Strauss Sr. (Edmund Gwenn), who is also a musician but doesn't believe his son has any talent. Junior succeeds in writing the "Blue Danube" with the help of his girlfriend, Resi (Jessie Matthews) and the (married) Countess (Faye Compton), who greatly dislike each other because they are both after the same man. 

Hitchcock's one and only musical, but not in the sense of a Rodger's and Hammerstein. The scenes were carefully plotted out so that the actors movements coincided with the arrangements being played. In his interview with Truffaut, Hitchcock called Waltzes From Vienna "the lowest ebb of my career". I don't think it's that terrible, but when one finds their niche one should stick with it. Not enough murder or espionage here! 

Hitchcock does NOT appear in a cameo in Waltzes From Vienna.

Hitchcock 2020 #7 - The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Jill (Edna Best) and Bob (Leslie Banks) Lawrence are on vacation in Switzerland with their daughter, Betty (Nova Pilbeam). Jill, a sharpshooter, is there to participate in a competition. While celebrating after the event, their friend Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) is shot while dancing with Jill. He quickly reveals that he is a spy and instructs her to get to his room and retrieve something from a brush. Louis hope they can reach the British Consulate and stop an assassination attempt. Bob and Jill do get the information before anyone else, but in retaliation, their daughter, Betty, is kidnapped by the would-be assassins. 

The assassins are led by Abbott (Peter Lorre) and Ramon (Frank Vosper), who was the sharpshooter competing against Jill in the opening scenes. Bob and Jill learn the location and date of the assassination attempt, but Bob is detained by the bad guys. Jill, alone, goes on to the concert at the Albert Hall where the assassination will be attempted of a diplomat during a crescendo in the performance. Can she stop the assassination and still save her daughter?

The 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much was Alfred Hitchcock's first American film. It marked the transition between his early work and the films in which he has more freedom to follow his own creative direction. Outside of the credits, there is only source music in this film. Meaning, the music we hear in the film is music being played and heard in the scene by the characters. It's not added over the top for suspense, it is played within the film.

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo in The Man Who Knew Too Much appears 33 minutes into the picture. He is walking across the road in a dark trench coat as a bus passes.

Hitchcock 2020 #2 - Juno and the Paycock (1930)

Juno (Sara Allgood) lives in a two-room tenement with her husband, the lazy Captain Boyle (Edward Chapman), whom she calls the "Paycock". That's "peacock" with a bit of a Gaelic accent thrown in! Their two adult children live with them, Mary (Kathleen O'Regan) and Johnny (John Laurie). Mary has a job, but is on strike. Johnny lost an arm during the Irish War Of Independence, and recently betrayed a fellow member of the Irish Republican Army who was murdered. The Paycock tells his friend, Joxer (Sidney Morgan), about his disgust with the informant, unaware that it's his own son. Johnny is in danger for his betrayal.

And then in walks Charlie Bentham (John Longden) a man who claims to have helped a cousin of the Paycock's write his will, and that the Paycock will inherit a bit of money. Before the cash is in hand the family buys things on credit including a gramophone, new clothes and furniture. Then the hammer drops. Bentham made a mistake in the will and the Paycock will inherit nothing. And Bentham has gotten Mary pregnant, and done a runner. And the IRA comes for Johnny. The film ends with Mary and Juno setting out on their own, knowing that the Paycock will never amount to anything.

Sara Allgood and John Longden starred in Hitchcock's first talking picture, Blackmail, the year before in 1929. At the time of it's release, Juno And The Paycock received critical praise. On my viewing I felt like I was watching Eastenders with all the accents and poor audio. This is when I would normally turn on Closed Captioning, but alas, it was not available on the disc in my possession. This is also a very poor video transfer to dvd as there are many heads cut off! Also, there is a buzz over the audio--no matter how loud I turned up the volume, the buzz overshadowed and often drowned out the audio. A reviewer on IMDB called for a restoration of all of hitchcocks pre-1934 films and I completely agree. Hitchcock did NOT appear in a cameo in Juno And The Paycock.

And for any Eastenders fans out there, isn't the Paycock the spitting image of Keith Miller?!

Hitchcock 2020 #1 - Blackmail (1929)

It's 1920s London and young Alice White (Anny Ondry) is a shopkeepers daughter who is reluctantly dating police detective Frank Webber (John Longden). After staging a quarrel one night about their evening plans Alice is able to meet with a young artist (Cyril Ritchard) instead. While out walking with him he offers to show her his artists studio. She accepts.  But when he tries to rape her she grabs for a knife and stabs him in self defense. She flees from the crime scene and Frank, of course, is the detective sent to investigate the murder. He finds her glove and immediately pockets it to protect her. But then a man comes forward (Donald Calthrop) claiming to have seen Alice with the artist that night. What will it take to keep this blackmailer quiet?

Blackmail was the first British film to feature sound and it was Alfred Hitchcock's first sound picture as well. It actually began production as a silent film (there are no voices for the first eight minutes of the film), but when Hitchcock learned that sound was available to him he was able to reshoot a few key scenes and make this his first talking picture. The only hurdle he had to get over was that his lead actress, Anny Ondry, had a thick Czech accent and post-dubbing was not yet available. He had to have actress Joan Barry standing offscreen with a microphone to dub Ondry's lines.

In silent pictures, according to Hitchcock, the villain was usually a man with a mustache. Hitchcock called the above scene, showing a shadow that looked like a huge mustache on the artists face before he attacks Alice, his goodbye to silent pictures. 

Hitchcock's cameo in Blackmail is at the ten minutes mark. The lead characters are on the underground and he is shown trying to read a book while be bothered by a young boy.

Hitchcock 2020 #3 - Murder (1930)

Murder is a rare Hitchcock whodunit. Diana Baring (Nora Baring) is accused of murdering her friend, Edna Bruce (Aileen Despard), but at the scene of the crime she seems stunned and can't remember what happened. The two women perform together in a traveling theatre troupe and had had dinner together. All of the evidence points to Diana and charges are brought against her for murder. The courtroom scenes are very brief but we spend quite some time in the jury room as they deliberate. The jury is polled over whether they think she is "guilty" or "not guilty". Most vote "guilty", but a few vote "not guilty" and each of them answers questions and changes their vote to "guilty" until we get to Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall). He brings up many points in her favor but the other jurors gang up on him and he eventually changes his vote to "guilty" as well. Diana is sentenced to death. Sir John, fueled by his continued feelings that she is "not guilty", begins his own investigation into the murder. 

Sir John then proceeds to question the Markhams, Ted (Edward Chapman) and Doucie (Phyllis Konstam), as they were lodging at the same residence when the murder took place. He goes over what they remember and they revisit the scene of the crime together. Doucie remembers that she saw a policeman in the street right after the scream, but that he disappeared. The owner of the house lists all the people who called on Miss Baring that night. There's the missing brandy. Little by little Sir John narrows down the list of suspects. 

Hitchcock creates a ground breaking scene in early sound technology in Murder. It is when Sir John is listening to a radio performance and drifts off into contemplation. It was still impossible to add sound to a film after the fact in 1930, so Hitch had a 30 piece orchestra hidden behind the set to perform the music from the "radio". And in order to create the voice over effect of John thinking out loud, the actor recorded his "thoughts" and it was played back during filming to create quite a unique scene.

Hitchcock filmed a German version of this movie, called "Mary", simultaneously while filming Murder. He used a different cast (but the same sets) and used a straight translation of the script, which he later regretted as the nuance of language doesn't translate so well. Also, Hitchcock does not have a deft hand when dealing with LGBTQ+ characters, and this movie contains one of his very first. Usually  his LGBTQ+ characters end up being the villains and are often sexually deviant, and this character is no exception. In this case the character is also called a "half-caste", meaning that one of his parents was of Indian descent. This is a groundbreaking film in many ways, but also one filled with inappropriate stereotypes that we struggle to watch today.

In only Hitch's third sound film, his cameo in Murder comes in just before the 60 minute mark. Watch for him briskly walking through a scene as the characters exit the boarding house.

Hitchcock 2020 #5 - Rich And Strange (1931) AKA East Of Shanghai

Fred Hill (Henry Kendall) is frustrated with the drudgery of his middle class life. But when he receives word from his uncle that he'll be receiving his inheritance now, instead of waiting for the man's death, he's revived and ready to travel the world with his wife, Emily (Joan Barry). They travel to Paris and Marseilles before boarding a transcontinental cruise where they both meet someone to tempt them (Percy Marmont and Betty Amann). Their adventures shows them, in the end, that money isn't everything. 

This film has many silent sequences, as well as many scene captions. Hitchcock, Truffaut and Spoto all seem to really like this picture. To me, all of these early pictures are a struggle because I do not have a good print to watch. Restoration please! 

The title of the film (European title) comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest: "Doth suffer a sea change into something rich and strange". The American title of this film is East Of Shanghai. Hitchcock did NOT appear in a cameo in Rich And Strange.

Hitchcock 2020 #6 - Number 17 (1932)

House Number 17 sits abandoned and available for sale or rent. Two strangers, Ben (Leon M. Lion) and Forsythe (John Stuart) - actually Detective Barton in disguise - wander in about the same time and stumble upon a dead body. And then Miss Ackroyd (Ann Cason) literally falls through the roof and joins them inside. She explains that she lives next door, that her father went onto the roof, and she came after him when he didn't return. The body vanishes, then three more people enter the house claiming the agent sent them to see the house - Sheldrake (Garry Marsh), Nora (Anne Grey) (who is introduced as a deaf-mute) and another man. Ben accidentally shoots Barton in the hand. Then the criminals pull a gun on Barton, Miss Ackroyd and Ben. One of the criminals sneaks up behind Ben and squeezes his neck until he falls to the floor, pretending to be knocked out. The criminal is able to retrieve the necklace he has hidden in the house but is seen by Ben, who sneaks the necklace out of his pocket while the man leans over him. The criminals handcuff Barton and Miss Ackroyd to the railing and leave. And then the missing body walks up the stairs, this is Mr. Ackroyd (Henry Caine), Miss Ackroyd's father, and the crooks knock him out too. Everyone leaves the house and Miss Ackroyd and Barton fall as the railing breaks way. They are helped by Nora (who is not deaf and mute) who has slipped back into the house to free them. Barton and Ben take off to intercept the criminals while Miss Ackroyd stays behind to get medical help for her father. Ben makes it on to the train, but Barton doesn't and he races to catch up. Then we have shots of a real train and a model train, and a real bus and a model bus, racing through the countryside as their routes overlap. Finally the train crashes into the boat that was to take it across the channel, the criminals have killed the engineers who would have known to slow down. Barton arrives and jumps in to save Nora. Sheldrake is captured. And in the final scene Ben is wearing the necklace. 

I had to watch this film three times and I still struggled to figure out who was who and understand the plot. I read others plot summaries and synopses and it's still confusing! Mainly because they misidentify some of the characters and that's not helpful! Truffaut also states that he couldn't follow the plot. I am not alone! Anyhow, this film has many plot devices later used by Hitchcock, but for the most part this is a film that the studio had him make under contract and it's a bit of a low period between his silent work and his American contract. And again, with proper restoration this experience would have been more enjoyable. And I wouldn't have had to watch it so many times just to try to follow the plot. But then again, maybe I would have!

Hithcock's cameo comes in the 51 minute mark. He is one of the many passengers on the bus with Barton who are bouncing in their seats. He is shot entirely from the back and is hard to identify. 

Hitchcock 2020 #4 - The Skin Game (1931)

The title The Skin Game comes from the slang for "an unscrupulous business operations". The rich Hillcrest family feels threatened when the Hornblower family buys a nearby estate. The Hornblowers are known for buying out farms and replacing them with factories. When the Hillcrests learn some gossip against a member of the Hornblower family, tragedy follows. Starring C.V. France, Helen Haye, Jill Esmond, Edmund Gwenn, John Longden and Phyllis Konstam.

The audio is better than Juno And The Paycock, but I'm still adding my voice to the call for full restoration of Hitchcock's early pictures. There is hardly any discussion at all about The Skin Game in the Truffaut or Spoto books on Hitchcock, so not giving it much attention myself.

McGuffin List - The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Charles Laughton's directorial debut, The Night Of The Hunter, is a very dark fairy tale. It begins with the interruption of the idyllic childhoods (or so we can assume) of John (Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) when their father, Ben Harper (Peter Graves), arrives home and drives hurriedly into the middle of the yard. He has just robbed a bank and killed two people. The police are hot on his trail and he has $10,000 to hide. And then he spies Pearl's doll. Ben makes John swear an oath to protect Pearl and never tell anyone where the money is. The police arrive and take him away to await trial, where he is sentenced to death by hanging. While waiting for his sentence to be fulfilled he shares a cell with Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a psychopath with a penchant for killing women who arouse men.

Harry, known as Preacher, is soon released from jail and turns up in John and Pearl's town and befriends, and then marries, their mother. He is after the money but when it becomes clear that Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) knows nothing about it, he gets rid of her and comes after the children. At this point in the film Laughton uses an unusual iris shot as Preacher is walking towards the house and the children are in hiding in the basement, but they can be seen peering out through the window. The iris shot here helps point them out and we know there is no one left to protect them. The target is on them. So they flee downriver in a stolen boat. 

Throughout the film Preacher is signing a religious song is a creepy tone of voice. This really stands out in his pursuit of the children. Could give you goosebumps. Even though they are floating with the current, he seems to be able to keep up with them on horseback. He never stops in his pursuit, and he never stops with the creepy signing. 

When the children are discovered by Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) they have unknowingly met their savior in this Joan of Arc type character. She may seem frail, but she shoulders a shotgun and puts the fear in Preacher. She sees right through his false self and knows to protect the children from him.

Based on a novel of the same name by Davis Grubb and a screenplay by James Agee,  Laughton's sole film as director received no Academy Awards nominations. Cinematographer Stanley Cortez and Director Laughton give this movie an Expressionist style that is second to none. The film is peppered with a dance of light and shadow in an ethereal, disquieting way. The film's cinematographer, Stanley Cortez, had said that he only worked with two directors who understood light, Orson Welles and Charles Laughton.

Upon it's initial release, Night Of The Hunter received mixed reviews. As sensitive as Laughton was he took this criticism to heart and never directed a film again. He should have. It's our great loss that he didn't.