On the set of Rich and Strange, 1931
Hitchcock’s own marriage to
Alma Reville, 1926
RICH AND
STRANGE
B-
aka: East of Shanghai
Great Britain (83 mi) 1931 d: Alfred
Hitchcock
Full fathom five thy
father lies,
Of his bones are coral
made,
Those are pearls that
were his eyes:
Nothing of him that
doth fade,
But doth suffer a
sea-change
Into something rich
and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring
his knell – ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them.
—Ariel’s song from The
Tempest, Act I Scene 2, by William Shakespeare, 1611
Only Hitchcock’s third sound film, this is a perfectly
enjoyable love comedy that acts as a travelogue following a thoroughly
miserable couple on an ocean cruise stopping in various ports of call from
London to Singapore, having their dreams and love interests heightened and then
dashed along the way, where much of it actually appears to float, like a
daydream reverie, as if all of this was conjured up in someone’s imagination,
like a working man’s fantasy, where perhaps it all takes place in someone’s head
while sitting at their desk in their tedious dead-end job. Hitchcock
claimed it was inspired by his own honeymoon with Alma Reville in 1926, two
innocents abroad on a strange journey with no familiarity whatsoever with the
strange and exotic places they visited. Even the names of the central
characters, Fred and Emily, bear a close similarity to Alfred and Alma, but
this one suffers from indifferent casting, where no one is ever capable of
holding a scene, so instead some good material goes to waste. Perhaps one
would like to read something autobiographical into it, as it does have the
makings of married lore, perhaps the kind of “make-your-own-version” impromptu
story that a husband and wife continually recount back and forth to one another
for amusement while continually changing the details. The opening plays
out like a silent film, a clever Chaplinesque working man montage that is done
in silence, a choreography of workers grabbing their umbrellas in unison after
work, where two at a time open them up in front of the camera, creating a
blossoming spectacle from a musical without the music, until Fred (Henry
Kendall) joins the fun only to discover his umbrella won’t open.
Following the stream of workers down the stairs onto the street to the subway
train, the film captures what workers dread the most during rush hour, getting
squashed like sardines, where every ounce of energy is drained out of you just
to survive this daily ordeal. By the time Fred makes it home, his
umbrella finally opens! Their drab apartment couldn’t look more
depressing, meeting his weary wife of eight years, Emily, Joan Barry, who
supplied the voice of Anny Ondra in the sound version of Blackmail
(1929). From out of the blue, like a Buster Keaton fantasy, Kendall’s
rich uncle decides to send them their inheritance while he’s still alive,
sending “money to experience all the life you want by traveling,” suggesting
why wait until he’s dead?
Instantly wealthy beyond their dreams, they embark upon an
ocean cruise to the Far East, sending them to exotic ports of call that include
land adventures such as a shopping spree in Paris, then Marseille, and Port
Said in Egypt, before heading through the Suez Canal, seen under the exotic
beauty of the moonlight, and eventually Colombo, Ceylan, all picture postcard
perfect where things eventually get out of hand on deck. Initially Fred
is seasick and confined to his quarters, so Emily is kept company by the gracious
attention of an explorer named Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont in his second of
three Hitchcock films), who is all manners and old-world charm, where one does
not violate social etiquette by taking advantage of the situation. Elsie
Randolph, who turns up again forty years later in FRENZY (1972), plays the Old
Maid, a plain Jane character on her own that nobody wants to associate with,
yet she so wants to be the life of the party. Her continual foolishness
offers comic relief, yet she also provides a cure for seasickness. Once
on deck, Fred meets a beautiful woman introduced as “The Princess,” Betty
Amann, wasting no time falling madly in love, displaying his affections openly,
not showing an ounce of discretion, where he wines and dines her, is deliriously
drunk most of the time and behaves like a buffoon, providing attention that she
apparently craves, with Fred spending money for the finest of everything,
thinking this is the way it’s going to be for the rest of his life.
Emily’s courtship by the Commander, on the other hand, remains politely
restrained, where a closeness develops from daily conversations, both appalled
by her husband’s behavior. “Love makes everything difficult and
dangerous,” Emily confesses to the Commander — words to live by, apparently, as
they are prominent themes explored throughout Hitchcock’s works. Each of
them falls in love with somebody different, and while Emily keeps her
composure, Fred self-destructs, spending extravagantly while giving his entire
fortune away at the mere thought of living with a Princess, leaving him
ultimately betrayed, humiliated, and penniless. Whatever chance of
reconciliation exists between them is in acknowledging the shambles that they
made of their lives.
For all its clumsiness and uncertainties, Hitchcock
interestingly experiments with the camera in a movie that tinkers with the
sacred vows of marriage, where the movie failed commercially, much to the
director’s surprise, but most of it is shot as a silent film, using intertitles
and long wordless sequences, freeing the camera to greater mobility, telling
the story through images rather than dialogue, like using a wobbly camera to
evoke the sensations of seasickness, as he did in Champagne
(1928). The film exhibits the exaggerated acting style of the silent era,
heavy make up, and screen captions, perhaps confusing an audience that was
already making the transition to sound films, while also experimenting with
camera techniques and shot compositions, including the use of miniature model
ships and water tanks. While the couple tries to escape the boredom of
their lives and the staleness of their marriage by seeking adventure, finding
it only makes things worse, as anything outside their sterile existence is
viewed as strange and terrifying, which they confusingly experience
individually rather than as a couple, sinking back into the same old doldrums
they seemingly crawled out of, this time with a bit of relief. Marriage,
equated with normality, is viewed as an empty and unsatisfying bourgeois
existence, much like Fred’s meaningless job, where the idea of love is simply
out of the question, as that exists only in the storybooks of fantasy.
Fred thought he was madly in love but he was deluded by his own fatal mistakes,
willingly allowing his pocket to be picked, turning a blind eye to a blatant
act of theft, seeing what he wanted to see, which is hardly love, but a
mirage. Emily was able to channel her shared feelings of love with the
Commander, but he wasn’t the man she loved, instead it was that man out there
making an idiot of himself. Shamed and humiliated, they gather what
little money they have left and start a voyage back home on a tramp steamer,
but true to the reference to The Tempest,
a heavy storm occurs causing a shipwreck, where the couple is locked in their
cabin and can’t get out, believing they are doomed, reflecting the state of
their marriage as a shipwrecked, self-imposed prison. By the time they
can escape out the window hatch, all the rest of the passengers have already
abandoned ship and they are left alone, adrift at sea, until a Chinese junk
passes by, offering them safe passage. There is a bit of dark humor in
the meal offered to them, which they eat heartily, as if it’s the best meal
they’ve ever eaten, until they see the source of their meal hung on the cabin
wall. By the time they make it home, they’re back to the same bickering
that defined their marriage before any of this adventure happened. While
the set design by C. Wilfred Arnold is notable, in a rare occurrence both Mr.
and Mrs. Hitchcock receive writing credits for this film, co-adapting a Dale
Collins novel with Val Valentine, a rather mediocre British screenwriter that
wrote dozens of forgettable scripts.
Note – no Hitchcock cameos.
