Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, Elsie
Randolph
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 ninth part of our 11-part review of the boxset, we look at Rich and Strange.
Immediately after bringing Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock to the screen, Hitchcock set about adapting Dale Collins' novel Rich and Strange. O'Casey's play and Collins' book share the same central theme of
protagonists who think their lives have been enriched by a sudden
unexpected inheritance, only to go through an ordeal that makes them
ultimately realise they didn't have it so bad to begin with. Is this
thematic duality merely a coincidence or the very reason Hitchcock chose
the play and novel? Does it perhaps reflect a desire on the director's
part to shake off the new "freedom" of the sound era and return to silent
cinema?
Much of Rich and Strange suggests so. Like Blackmail, it opens with an extended silent sequence. There are several lengthy
passages with minimal dialogue. Most of the comedy is of the visual rather
than verbal variety. Hitchcock even adds (rather pointless) silent
era-esque intertitles at points. It all creates the impression that the
director isn't entirely comfortable with the new medium of sound at this
point.
The movie stars Henry Kendall and Joan Barry as Fred and Emily a married middle class London couple. While Emily
is happy with her lot, Fred has grown tired with the humdrum repetition of
his life, represented in that silent opening sequence which posits him as
just another office drone, one of millions of identically dressed office
workers bumping into one another on the underground. When he receives a
surprise inheritance from an uncle, Fred immediately quits his job and
whisks Emily away to Paris, where they take in the city's dazzling sights
before boarding a Far East-bound cruise liner in Marseille.
The ship proves something of a floating Garden of Eden as the innocent
Fred and Emily find themselves corrupted by temptation. Fred is seduced by
a smoky-eyed temptress (Betty Amann) who claims to be a princess while Emily falls
for Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont), a wealthy but lonely
ex-military man with a sadness in his eyes.
Hitchcock claimed that Rich and Strange failed with audiences because it featured unlikeable leads played
by charmless actors. He's half right. Fred is so easily tempted by the
dubious charms of the "princess" that he immediately sets about making
plans to ditch Emily, cruelly talking about how she was never good
enough for him. It's impossible to like Fred from that point on, and
despite the film's best efforts to rehabilitate him in our eyes later
on, he's irredeemable. It doesn't help that Kendall plays him without an
ounce of charm.
On the other hand, Barry is fantastic as Emily, who unlike her husband,
actually makes an effort not to fall for Gordon. We find ourselves
rooting for Emily and Gordon to run away and leave the awful Fred alone,
as Barry and Marmont truly sell the idea of two people who had to meet
one another to realise how empty their lives have been. Hitchcock's
dismissal of Barry is odd, as she really is the beating heart of the
film. For all its comic trappings, Rich and Strange is a tragedy of emotional unfulfillment. I'm not sure if the
director understood this, but his leading lady certainly did. Barry's
tender performance is heartbreaking in points.
Most of the more overt comedy in Rich and Strange doesn't quite land, but there are some small throwaway visual
gags that raise a smile, like Fred accidentally reefing the plumage from
the hat of a woman seated on the underground, or the trio of permanently
sozzled young ladies who wobble around the ship in unison like penguins.
There are some wonderful visual moments, as you might expect, with a
beautifully composed shot involving a model of the cruise ship passing
an island that would have Wes Anderson fawning over its doll's house
detail. The aforementioned opening sequence is a marvel, utilising a set
purposely constructed so as to convey much in a simple panning shot. If
you didn't know you were watching a Hitchcock movie you might mistake it
for the work of Chaplin. The film's most clever shot involves Fred and
Emily seated in a pair of rickshaws. At this point they both suspect
their partners of infidelity but their passive aggressive reserve
prevents them from openly discussing the situation. What Hitchcock does
instead is have the rickshaw drivers engage in an argument, their
clashing vehicles representing the conflict Fred and Emily can't bring
themselves to initiate.
The film takes a bizarre turn in the final act when the ship capsizes,
leaving Fred and Emily as seemingly the only survivors, save for a black
cat. What has mostly been a knockabout comedy up to that point jarringly
morphs into arguably the most upsetting work of Hitchcock's macabre
career. We see the bloodied corpse of an old man in his pyjamas,
reminiscent of the pecked to death cadaver in The Birds. It's when a small Chinese boat arrives that things really take a dark
turn. Attempting to climb down after ransacking the cruise liner, one of
the Chinese sailors catches his foot in a rope and is hung upside down
in the water, left to drown as his shipmates coldlessly watch on. As if
that wasn't enough, we're then treated to the sight of the black cat's
corpse being nailed to a wall, having been skinned, cooked and served as
dinner to the unwitting Fred and Emily. For all the bloodshed on display
in his filmography, Hitchcock would never depict such disturbing acts
again.
Rich and Strange is part of
Studiocanal's 'Hitchcock: The Beginning' bluray boxset, available
now.