Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Phyllis Konstam, Edward Chapman, Miles
Mander, Esme Percy, Donald Calthrop
Hitchcock: The Beginning is a new
11-disc bluray boxset from Studiocanal featuring 10 of Alfred Hitchcock's early films and a new documentary, Becoming Hitchcock, which explores the legacy of Hitchcock's first sound film,
1929's Blackmail.
In the seventh part of our 11-part review of the boxset, we look
at Murder!.
Always preferring his audience to be emotionally rather than
intellectually engaged, Alfred Hitchcock was never a fan of the
whodunit mystery format. Hitchcock felt that if a viewer was thinking
about his movie while watching it they weren't fully engaged. He did
however make one whodunit early on in 1930's Murder!, a film that provides ample evidence of his disdain for and discomfort
with such a storytelling format.
While performing with a theatre troupe in provincial England, young
actress Diana Baring (Norah Baring) finds herself accused of the
murder of another actress, Edna Druce. Diana was found in a room with
Edna's corpse, a bloodied poker and an empty glass of scotch nearby, and a
stench of alcohol on her breath. Having blacked out, Diana has no
recollection of killing Edna, but she has no way to prove her
innocence.
After some deliberation, the jury finds Diana guilty, but one juror
begins to feel he was cajoled into changing his initial "not guilty"
verdict. That juror is Sir John (Herbert Marshall), a famed actor
who was responsible for sending Diana on tour. Feeling Diana is innocent,
Sir John begins his own investigation with the aid of the troupe's manager
Ted Markham (Edward Chapman) and Ted's wife Doucie (Phyllis Konstam).
For a thriller to work as a whodunit, a certain number of suspects are
required. This is where Hitchcock and his co-writers (Walter Mycroft
and the director's wife Alma Reville) go wrong. Where Agatha
Christie would introduce a variety of characters and cast the shadow of
suspicion on each and every party, there's really only one suspect in
Murder!, other than Diana herself that is, and they're not introduced until the
final act. This means the audience is denied the fun of figuring out "who
done it" because we're not given any options to choose from.
If Murder! is a non-starter as a thriller, it's far more
effective as a comedy. Much of the humour comes from riffing on the
infamous class divisions of early 20th century Britain, with the
hoity-toity Sir John forming an uncomfortable alliance with the earthy Ted
and Doucie. All three feel awkward in each other's company, constantly
observing their specific class-based foibles and doing their best not to
cause offence. Sir John's investigation is hilariously half-assed, as he
quickly regrets leaving the comfort of London for a provincial B&B
where he's rudely awoken by the children of the landlady (the great
Una O'Connor) climbing all over him first thing in the
morning.
What makes up for the blandness of Murder!'s plodding plotting is how Hitchcock elevates so many potentially
humdrum scenarios with comedy and clever staging. A policeman's attempts
to question the members of the performing troupe are constantly
interrupted by the actors in question having to go on stage, Hitchcock
finding a way to turn what is essentially an exposition heavy scene into a
comic romp.
The movie's comedic and dramatic highlight is the jury deliberation
scene, one of the earliest examples of a trope that persists to this day
(see the recent Clint Eastwood thriller
Juror #2). With Sir John initially holding out, the scene plays like a condensed
12 Angry Men featuring a dozen very British eccentrics. The
interactions between the characters here and the wonderful actors
portraying them makes for great entertainment, and you'll likely find
yourself wishing the entire film had revolved around this scenario. When
the verdict is read, Hitchcock defies convention by having his camera
remain in the jury room as a cleaner rifles through rubbish and pockets
half-smoked cigars while the judge's words are heard offscreen. The scene
bluntly suggests that the worst day in Diana's life is simply business as
usual for the justice system (Indian filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane
homaged this scene for his 2016 drama
Court).
Murder! is also notable for how Hitchcock continues to
explore the possibilities of sound. A scene in which we hear Sir John's
thoughts as he shaves while a radio plays Wagner's Tristan & Isolde
might be the first time voiceover was deployed. The setup seems simple
today but with no over-dubbing available at the time, Hitchcock had to
have a 30-piece orchestra perform offscreen while Sir John's thoughts
played via a pre-recorded gramophone record.
Murder! serves as an example of both Hitchcock's strengths
and weaknesses, his interests and his dislikes. At this point in his
career he was still largely at the mercy of whatever material was foisted
upon him by his employers, in this case British International Pictures,
who required him to adapt Clemence Dane and
Helen Simpson's novel 'Enter Sir John'. In the years to come
Hitchcock would become the master of his own destiny but early efforts
like Murder! remain worthwhile as documents of a master
sketching his signature in someone else's sandbox.
