THE SKIN GAME C+
Great Britain (77 mi) 1931 d: Alfred Hitchcock
Great Britain (77 mi) 1931 d: Alfred Hitchcock
Who knows where things
end when once they begin?...What is it that gets loose when you begin a fight,
and makes you what you think you’re not?
What blinding evil! Begin as you
may, it ends in this — skin game! Skin
game!
— Mr. Hillcrest (C.V. France)
Adapted from the John Galsworthy play, where Hitchcock used
two actors from the original 1920 stage production in his 1931 film version,
Edmund Gwenn and Helen Haye, while also using other actors too old to replay
their original stage roles in his other sound films, adding an element of theatricality
to his British period that doesn’t exist in his American films. This film, however, hardly typifies
Hitchcock’s talent, and by all accounts he was rather bored with the project,
especially hampered by a clause in the playwright’s contract that not one word
of his play could be changed without his permission. This fairly straightjacketed the director,
while both Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville did what they could with this
British chamber drama, making the film bleaker than the play, but it’s still overly
stagy, showing little stylistic innovation and could easily have been directed
by someone else. Nonetheless, it is a
Hitchcock film, reflective of the early sound films where the sound is erratic,
missing altogether in certain moments, despite seeing the lips moving of a
minor character, or losing sound as characters move across a room while
speaking, where the consistency of sound that audiences are used to today is
simply missing. However, it is
considered one of the more accomplished sound films of its time due to the
constant speaking throughout, using four cameras and a single sound track to
capture the sound live as it was being spoken, as opposed to his next film Rich and Strange (1931), which was still shot mostly as a silent film. This bears some similarity to an earlier Hitchcock film, Easy
Virtue (1928), based upon a Noel Coward play. In both, the director targets the real or
imagined crimes of women, where the mere suggestion of immorality was
considered scandalous, subject to gossip and slander, where people were
literally driven out of “proper” society by the upper class’s insatiable desire
to remain morally superior over the working class. Society rewards wealth and status, and the
appearance of virtue, where they’re pretty much free to live as they like,
flaunting their wealth and aristocratic assumptions, but one must never allow salacious
rumors to bring shame and dishonor upon a family, which, come to think of it,
sounds more like mafia rules. This film
plays on the falsely accused theme, where the accusation lingers in the air for
awhile, tempting the audience, before the merciless hand of truth is revealed
to be more than one can bear. The woman
in question is Phyllis Konstam as Chloe, easily the most intriguing character
in the film, where her shadowy past haunts her throughout the film.
Set in a small country village of Lancashire in the postwar era
of horses being replaced by automobiles, the story concerns itself with old
wealth and new wealth, where the well-mannered aristocracy of the paternalistic
Mr. Hillcrest (C.V. France), a landowner from generations of self-made wealth, has
sold a parcel of his vast estate to Scotsman Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), who
goes back on his word and plans to evict an elderly couple that are longtime
tenants on his new property. This
defiant act boldly challenges the imperious rule of the Hillcrests, living in
the idyllic splendor of their unspoiled pastoral landscape, and then has the
audacity to suggest removing all the tenant farmers to build factories on the
grounds, bringing in heavy machinery and filthy smokestacks to take the place of
trees and meadows, something that would surely be an eyesore, but Hornblower is
more interested in profits and will not be dissuaded, as he’s a man that doesn’t
take no for an answer. While both men
stubbornly refuse the usual social courtesies, both families are drawn into the
center of the firestorm, with charges and countercharges about character
issues, becoming an example of class warfare, as Hornblower vows to bring
nothing but misery to the Hillcrest way of life. The centerpiece of the film is a public
auction of the land adjoining the Hillcrests, given several humorous asides,
but also a build-up of uncanny suspense by continually stringing out that final
bidder, where the two men go at it neck and neck, as if their way of life was
in jeopardy, where Hillcrest grows so obsessed, Hitchcock portrays his agitated
state of mind with a series of floating images of Hornblower’s superimposed
head, anticipating some of the more experimental techniques of Vertigo
(1958). Hornblower seems even more
determined at what he deems the disgraceful treatment of his daughter-in-law,
Chloe, who is shunned from the usual social circles and treated as an outcast. Chloe is a woman of mystery, often seen
hidden behind a veil, who always plays her character over-the-top, seen
swooning with moments of hysteria throughout the film, always claiming a
headache, supposedly weak at the knees from constant fatigue, using exaggerated
silent era melodrama as she literally slinks from room to room, where one
suspects she is hiding something or plotting some nefarious revenge to get back
at her adversaries. In contrast,
Hillcrest’s daughter Jill (Jill Esmond, Laurence Olivier’s first wife), is the
preppy, free-spirited sort who seems to have an open mind about the future, which
includes helping and befriending Chloe, even when no one else will.
While Gwenn plays the more flamboyant character, filled with
bluster and Scottish charm, he’s completely unsympathetic due to his black
aims, where he may as well represent the British view towards the Northern
Irish, that he’s some vermin relying upon lies and dirty tricks, a scourge that
needs to be eradicated from the community at all costs, offering what is,
according to British author and academic Charles Barr, “the most savage
representation of class hostility in all of Hitchcock’s films.” By contrast, Hillcrest is the doting father
filled with a benevolent spirit, who’s interested in everyone’s welfare,
irregardless of class, and as such is the moral pillar of the community. It’s Mrs. Hillcrest (Helen Haye), however,
that plays the offended party, barely holding her tongue when expressing her
outrage at Hornblower’s underhanded methods.
She employs Dawker (Edward Chapman) as a kind of private detective to
snoop around the Hornblower family history and see what turns up. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they uncover the
mystery surrounding Chloe, who becomes the target of character assassination
and the talk of the town, with her secret spread by vicious behind-the-scenes
rumors even before the viewers discover it for themselves. The mantle of moral authority is passed to
Mrs. Hillcrest in all matters concerning women, where it is her duty to inform
Hornblower of his daughter-in-law’s shockingly disreputable past where due to
dire economic circumstances growing up she was forced to support herself as a
prostitute, earning a living by playing the professional “other woman” in
prearranged divorce cases. While
Hornblower and Chloe initially cry foul, claiming it’s all lies and slander until
the Hillcrest’s trot out the men she was involved with, turning the tables on
her, where she’s forced to admit the truth, “When I deceived him, I’d have
deceived God Himself—I was so desperate.
You’ve never been right down in the mud.
You can’t understand what I’ve been through.” All of this plays out like a dirty, dark
secret that is utterly scandalous to the upper class elite, who are themselves
quite familiar with the practice of maintaining “kept women” in addition to
their wives, all part of the hedonism of the wealthy, who provide the
appearance of moral rectitude while violating every known rule behind the
scenes. While the main characters are
deliberate postwar caricatures, this allows one to suppose that the playwright
Galsworthy was not taking sides in the dispute, preferring to put a pox on both
their houses. Konstam rarely utters a
word, playing one scene from behind a curtain, but can be seen in all manner of
distress, even as she is dressed in revealing evening gowns and adorned from
head to toe in the latest fashion, a stunning beauty that becomes one in a long
line of Hitchcock fallen women, where her tragedy sets off a chain of events,
becoming a sacrificial pawn in a dangerous game. Hitchcock met with the playwright Galsworthy
a few times, claiming he lived in baronial splendor, describing one visit to
his estate as “the most cultured dinner table I ever attended.” While the class analysis by Galsworthy may
have been scathing in its time, his name is not held in the same esteem as
Hitchcock’s, and unfortunately it was the playwright’s insistence to remain
faithful to his play that prevented Hitchcock from exploring this subject more
deeply.
Note – no Hitchcock cameos.
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