The Manxman

THE MANXMAN                   B                     

Great Britain  (90 mi)  1929  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

There’s a certain physicality about this film that is reminiscent of Robert Flaherty or Michael Powell’s THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (1937), where the rugged landscape is the essential character of the film, all but dwarfing the fragility and vulnerability of the human population.  While this is an old-fashioned Adam and Eve story about original sin, one that recalls Nathaniel Hawthorne’s infamous 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, which is updated here to the Isle of Man (residents are called Manxmen), the home of Sir Hall Caine, the writer of the 1894 novel upon which the film is based, though Hitchcock shot the film in the small fishing village of Polperro in Cornwall.  Like Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950), these remote locations on the edge of the world make it difficult to survive the natural elements, where it’s a hard life, often bare-bones and beset with poverty, with little education and a rigorous adherence to a tough, hard-nosed religion that is often strictly regimented.  Nothing comes easy in this part of the woods, as you often pay heavily for your mistakes, where you learn early on that you have to scrape for every dollar and every scrap of food you put on the table.  In this hard-scrabble life two boys become best friends, one a poor fisherman without a penny to his name, Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson), the other an ambitious lawyer, Phil Christian (Malcolm Keen).  What they both have in common is the same girl, Kate Cregeen (Anny Ondra), who couldn’t be more rambunctious and carefree as a young girl, nearly skipping wherever she goes instead of walking, but she’s also the most beautiful woman on the island, known as the “Manx Fairy,” working as a barmaid under the stern and watchful eye of her father, Caesar Cregeen (Randle Ayrton), who has no interest in Pete getting anywhere near his daughter, as anyone penniless is without virtue in his eyes.  Nonetheless, these two keep their flirtations out of sight, where Pete promises to search the world for his fortune, returning as a rich and successful man, persuading Kate to promise she’ll wait for him.     

In Pete’s absence, Kate’s life is seen through little penciled scribbles in her tiny diary, where soon enough she meets up with Phil, quickly transferring her love interest to him, though he’s a much more pensive guy, studying to become a Deemster, which is the title of a local judge, one of the most respectful and prestigious positions on the island.  His mother warns Phil about carrying on with Kate, as it could have a disastrous effect upon his career, but he plunges ahead anyway, shown through some of the most beautifully photogenic scenic vistas found in any Hitchcock film, shot by Jack E. Cox, beautifully capturing the stunning magnificence and grandeur of the rocky coastlines overlooking the ocean.  If truth be told, however, despite her obvious sensual presence, with Kate at the center of a love triangle, stronger feelings are expressed between the two men, whose “friendship” has a homoerotic quality about it, as they’re always slapping each other around, smiling at one another, and both have a tendency to think of the other’s welfare often above their own, which is something neither one feels for Kate.  In this regard, the three-way relationship is way ahead of its time.  While the two men continually plod through their overly melodramatic performances, where Pete is much too animated and Phil is too subdued, the camera loves Anny Ondra, the real center of the story, who will go on to star in Hitchcock’s next picture, Blackmail (1929) and become the first of many notable Hitchcock blondes.  Here her mixed emotions comprise the dramatic heart of the film, as Pete and Phil’s loyal friendship is established early on and is never in question, becoming one of the fixtures of the picture.  But Kate has a fickle nature, perhaps most beautifully expressed on the night she agrees to wait for Pete, framed by a window, where the oscillating light from the nearby lighthouse continually flickers upon her, where we see her move in and out of the darkness, a reflection of her indecision, and a rather poetic visualization of her vacillating mind. 

One other aspect of the film is the slow and deliberate pace, where some may tire of the languorous nature, where it takes forever for the story to unravel, and other than the photographic elegance of the outdoor shots, there’s not much action anywhere in this picture, which is mostly an interior chamber drama reflecting the changing moods of the characters.  When they receive word that Pete has been killed, for instance, Phil and Kate grow even closer, feeling there is nothing separating them now, where they start to plan a future together, only to have Pete return with a bundle of money, where his returning ship is shown looming off in the distance as Kate is told the news, seen as an impending disaster, but even old man Caesar welcomes him with open arms and gives the lad permission to marry his daughter.  It happens with such a rush of anxiety that Kate hasn’t a chance to react, though the wedding is a picture of differing states of mind.  The groom couldn’t be more ecstatic, never even noticing the glum look on the bride, while no one is more shamefaced than the best man Phil.  Making it even more dour are the reflections of the grizzled old father, Caesar, who speaks with the severity of a fundamentalist preacher, warning them about the reverence of marriage, where if one strays from the path they’ll have to answer to God Almighty, actually turning on their grist mill for effect as he warns the entire congregation “The mills of God grind slowly,” where you can literally feel the guilty couple cringe as they continue to keep their affair a secret.  Pete has to remind people that this is a wedding and not a wake, as he remains the happiest guy in town but completely unaware of what happened in his absence, as Kate remains in love with Phil, but is continually forced to placate her new husband.  In scene after scene we see that she can’t share in his joy, even when announcing her pregnancy she withholds that she’s carrying Phil’s child.  Pete, however, couldn’t be a prouder father, where the baby’s arrival comes near the same time that Phil is about to become a Deemster.  Compounding that event, Kate can’t live with a lie any longer and finally leaves Pete, leaving him a note while she runs to Phil, who is consumed by the significance of the upcoming event, which should be the happiest day in his life.  The bleak and foreboding future, however, is expressed by having to choose between family and career, where events spiral out of control, as Kate has nowhere to turn, culminating with Phil’s ominous first day on the bench, where he’s in for a rude awakening as all the interweaving personal destinies finally coincide with an extraordinary late act confessional.  By the end, one feels this could easily have been the blueprint for David Lean’s overlong but lusciously photographed RYAN’S DAUGHTER (1970).  

Note – there is no Hitchcock cameo

Blackmail (1929)

BLACKMAIL           B+                    

Great Britain  (86 mi)  1929  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

Depending on how you look at it, this is either the final silent Hitchcock film or the first full-length British talking picture, as Hitchcock shot both versions simultaneously, though the talking version featured a few casting adjustments, including the use of an offscreen voice for the leading lady, Anny Ondra, Hitchcock’s first icy blonde, an aloof beauty, sophisticated, smart, and dangerous, traits that Hitchcock felt made the best victims, claiming “They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”  Ondra, however, spoke with a thick Czech accent, supposedly resembling Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, so they felt it was unsuitable for a talking picture (That never stopped Zsa Zsa).  Some of the original footage with spoken dialogue also implemented music and sound effects, but they also re-shot a few scenes and used the voice of actress Joan Barry speaking off camera, but the lip-synched words never found the natural rhythm of the silent version, which is now the preferred version, having been restored in 2012 by the British Film Institute along with 8 earlier silent era Hitchcock films, known as The Hitchcock 9, which are now making the rounds in theaters around the world in pristine 35 mm prints.  For some screenings, the film is accompanied by newly commissioned scores, original music written especially for the films by the Mont Alto Orchestra, a five piece chamber ensemble that has scored over 100 silent films using the repertoire and scoring techniques of the orchestras in movie theaters during the silent film era, while other screenings feature live pipe organ accompaniment.  Hitchcock had by now hit his stride in making silent films, which have a rhythm all their own, where in his view “silent pictures were the purest form of cinema,” where a director’s talent was largely based upon his ability to advance a story using the least amount of dialogue title cards.  While the talking version was the first version to hit the theaters, receiving overwhelmingly rave reviews, where sound in its inventive first use was certainly historical and far more influential, but most theaters were still not equipped for sound, so it was the silent version that proved most popular with the public. 

What marks this film among Hitchcock’s early silent features is the sophistication of theme, as it’s largely a character driven film where the focus continually moves back and forth between various characters, continually shifting throughout, offering the audience multiple points of view, written and adapted from screenwriter Charles Bennett’s own play, the first of several collaborations with Hitchcock, including THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1936), and Young and Innocent (1937), before leaving England to work with Hitchcock in America on Foreign Correspondent (1940).  The film opens as a strict police procedural, with a view of London’s streets whizzing by from the racing police paddy wagons, where after arresting a suspected criminal holed up in his seedy room, with point of view shots moving from the police, to the criminal, and back to the police again, it’s viewed as just another day at the job by Scotland Yard detective Frank (John Longden).  But Frank receives an earful from his waiting girlfriend Alice (Anny Ondra), who impatiently complains that she doesn’t like to wait.  In the sound version, it opens exactly the same way in a mechanized rhythm of silence, with streets sounds the first sounds heard slowly added, until by the time it gets to Alice, it is full-blown sound from then on.  As they go out to dinner to the Lyon’s Cornerhouse at Piccadilly Circus, they amusingly have to wait for an open table, as the place is packed, and once seated, it’s so busy they have to wait once again for someone to wait on them, which only infuriorates Alice, causing the two to get into an argument where Frank storms out in disgust, but sees her leaving with another gentleman.  Alice allows herself to be taken upstairs to the studio of a young artist (Cyril Ritchard, of Captain Hook fame), supposedly to view his paintings (No, he didn’t ask if she’d like to come up to see his etchings), but he has other intentions, plying her with alcohol as he has her change into various model’s costumes before he sexually assaults her, where in defending herself, expressed with a shadowy hand hovering over a knife that she can be seen frantically reaching for on the table, she kills him with a butter knife, all taking place behind a curtain, his limp arm finally hanging out the window.  In a wordless scene she emerges from behind the curtain shocked and in something of a daze afterwards, still holding the knife and dressed in her undergarments, one of the first Hitchcock scenes to attain this degree of intensity, where she walks the streets all night until returning home in the morning, acting as if nothing has happened.    

Her family owns a corner tobacco market selling cigarettes and cigars, where their morning routine is unchanged except her father (Charles Paton) takes a heightened interest in a murder that’s taken place just around the corner.  The picture of guilt all morning, constantly reminded of what she’s done, Alice soon realizes Frank has been assigned to the case, finding one of her gloves on the scene, which he doesn’t disclose to the police.  So while all the gossip in the shop is about a murder, Frank and Alice conceal their guilty consciences, which is given a somewhat humorous treatment by Hitchcock, playfully toying with their pent-up fears and emotions, first by her ever inquisitive father, then by a gossip who won’t shut up, and finally by a passing stranger named Tracy (Donald Calthrop) who has found the other glove and with sadistic relish attempts to blackmail Frank.  Tracy has the upper hand initially, but the tables turn when it’s discovered he has a criminal record and there is proof he was outside the scene of the crime, but he escapes out the window just as the police arrive, turning into a rollicking chase scene through the streets of London, reaching a climax at the British Museum, where due to a lack of sufficient light, Hitchcock utilized the Schüfftan process, shooting into mirrors that create the illusion of a huge, realistic looking room.  This is the first of three Hitchcock films shot on location at an actual national monument, the others being the Statue of Liberty in SABOTEUR (1942) and Mount Rushmore in North By Northwest (1959).  Inside the museum the blackmailer is seen continually eluding police, climbing down a hanging chain past the peering eyes of a colossal head of an Egyptian god that may be King Ramses, eventually climbing onto the domed roof of the British Museum Reading Room, much like Cody Jarrett’s legendary ascent up the steps of a fuel refinery storage tank in White Heat (1949), where at the top he slips and falls to his death, conveniently wrapping up the case for the police, except Alice is so tormented with guilt that she wishes to confess to the police.  This is the Hitchcock factor, the first of Hitchcock’s guilty women films, preceding the likes of Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedron, or Grace Kelly, vulnerable women wracked by an impending moral dilemma, placing them on the verge of a psychological breakdown.  Hitchcock has a recurring focus on staircases and hands, like Lady Macbeth trying to wash the blood away, which are used to express the emotional fragility of the character, but also there are constantly recurring knife motifs, where the most clever is Alice in her head seeing a neon sign suddenly change from a cocktail shaker to a stabbing knife.  Perhaps most interestingly is the condescending and comedic use of a large painting at the scene of the crime of a clown jester laughing, where the mocking face absurdly comments not only on what’s taking place during the murder scene, literally laughing *at* Alice, like how did you get yourself into this mess, but also the deceitful moral order surrounding the events, as the painting is seen again at the finale, suggesting an ironic offshoot of “The Wrong Man (1956)” theme, as the wrong man dies for a crime he didn’t commit, which in the end is being laughed off by the one who did, along with her boyfriend who helps cover it up.    

Note – Hitchcock had a different ending in mind, revealed in his infamous Truffaut interviews, where after the death of the blackmailer, Alice confesses to the crime, where Frank would be forced to process her arrest, exactly the same images as we saw in the opening scene, placing her in handcuffs, booking her arrest, taking fingerprints, where he and his partner would meet in the men’s room afterwards washing their hands, as they did in the opening, where the unknowing partner would ask, “Are you going out with your girl tonight?” and Frank would answer, “No, I’m going straight home.”  The producers claimed this ending was too depressing.  Hitchcock’s signature cameo appearance comes at about the 10-minute mark, and at 20-seconds is probably the lengthiest in his film career, as he’s reading a book while riding the London subway train alongside Frank and Alice, but he’s constantly irritated by a small boy who is a continual nuisance to the passengers, especially Hitchcock, seen grabbing at his hat.