Authors: Patrick McGilligan
Kirk Bond, “The Other Alfred Hitchcock,”
Film Culture
, Summer 1966
1932
Number Seventeen
As coscenarist and director.
Sc: Alma Reville and Rodney Ackland, from the play by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Ph: John J. Cox, Bryan Langley. Art Dir:
C. Wilfred Arnold. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Music: A. Hallis. Musical Direction: John Reynders. Sound Recordist: A. D. Valentine. Ed: A. C. Hammond.
Cast: Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones, Ann Casson, Henry Caine, Herbert Langley, Garry Marsh.
(B & W, John Maxwell for British International Pictures, 64 mins.)
“
The movie has all it takes to become a camp cult, and something more, something strangely precious, distilling a kind of essence of childhood pulp.
”
Raymond Durgnat,
The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock
Lord Camber’s Ladies
As producer.
Dir: Benn W. Levy. Sc: Edwin Greenwood and Gilbert Wakefield, based on the play
The Case of Lady Camber
by H. A. Vachell. Additional Dialogue: Benn W Levy. Ph: James Wilson. Asst Dir: Frank Mills. Art Dir: David Rawnsley. Sound Recordist: Alec Murray.
Cast: Gerald du Maurier, Gertrude Lawrence, Benita Hume, Nigel Bruce, Clare Greet, A. Bromley Davenport, Hal Gordon, Molly Lamont, Betty Norton, Hugh E. Wright, Harold Meade.
(B & W, Hitchcock for British International Pictures, 80 mins.)
“
Although basically a crime drama, there is a great preponderance of comedy in this picture, which is at times so facetious that it takes the punch out of the dramatic moments.
”
Picturegoer Weekly
, March 18, 1933
1934
Waltzes from Vienna (U.S.: Strauss’ Great Waltz/The Strauss Waltz)
As director.
Sc: Guy Bolton and Alma Reville, from the play
Walzerkrieg
by Heinz Reicherts, Dr. A. M. Willner, and Ernst Marischka. Music: Julius Bittner and E. W. Korngold, featuring the works of Johann Strauss Sr. and Johann Strauss, as adapted for the screen by Hubert Bath. Musical Director: Louis Levy. Ph: Glen MacWilliams. Art Dir: Alfred Junge, Oscar Werndorff. Set Dec: Peter Proud. Asst Dir: Richard Beville. Editor: Charles Frend. Sound Recordist: Alfred Birch.
Cast: Jessie Matthews, Edmund Gwenn, Fay Compton, Esmond Knight, Frank Vosper, Robert Hale, Charles Heslop, Hindle Edgar, Marcus Barron, Betty Huntley Wright, Sybil Grove, Bill Shine, Bertram Dench, B. M. Lewis, Cyril Smith.
(B & W, Tom Arnold for Tom Arnold Productions/Gaumont-British, 81 mins.)
“
It has a rhythm not unlike that of Lubitsch’s silent
The Student Prince,
and Hitchcock often uses his music track in satiric counterpoint to the action. … Despite his own repudiation of the film, there is too much vintage Hitchcock in the film for his claims of disinterest and frustration to hold water completely.
”
W. K. Everson, “Jessie Matthews,”
Films in Review
, December 1975
The Man Who Knew Too Much
As director
Sc: A. R. Rawlinson and Edwin Greenwood, from a story by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis. Additional Dialogue: Emlyn Williams. Ph: Curt Courant. Art Dir: Alfred Junge. Set Dec: Peter Proud. Ed: H. (Hugh) St. C. Stewart. Sound Recordist: F. McNally. Music: Arthur Benjamin. Musical Dir: Louis Levy. Prod Mgr: Richard Beville.
Cast: Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Frank Vosper, Hugh Wakefield, Nova Pilbeam, Pierre Fresnay, Cicely Oates, D. A. Clarke Smith, George Curzon, Henry Oscar, Clare Greet.
(B & W, Michael Balcon with Ivor Montagu for Gaumont-British, 75 mins.)
“
Critics who elevate the second
Man Who Knew Too Much,
the Hollywood film of the 50s, over the bouncing, bounding, sharp-shooting original, seem to be preferring technique to pristine zest, sentiment to humor, exploitation of star appeal (James Stewart and Doris Day) to fast story-telling, and an American tourist’s scenery to seedily persuasive sets like the run-down little chapel and the gang’s murky hideout. … There is less danger and less surprise [in the second version]. … one suspects that the critics who prefer it feel there is something a bit lowering and demeaning about the thriller from as such. Their request to Hitchcock is always to transcend it.
”
Penelope Houston,
Cinema: A Critical Dictionary, Volume One
1935
The 39 Steps
As director.
Sc: Charles Bennett, based on the novel by John Buchan. Dialogue: Ian Hay. Continuity: Alma Reville. Ph: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Ed: Derek N. Twist. Sound Recordist: A. Birch. Musical Dir: Louis Levy. Wardrobe: Marianne. Dress Designer: J. Strassner.
Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Helen Haye, Frank Cellier, Wylie Watson, Gus MacNaughton, Jerry Verno, Peggy Simpson, and Alfred Hitchcock (litterer, as Donat and Mannheim leave the Music Hall).
(B & W, Michael Balcon with Ivor Montagu for Gaumont-British, 87 mins.)
“
This is Hitchcock’s most virtuoso and most famous work during his English period. Its chase is handled with great technical finesse and with marvelous touches of macabre humor and banter, moving the hero from a train to a leap from a bridge, across the nicely observed Scottish landscape to a party in a large house (whose owner turns out to be the chief of the spy ring), to a political meeting, to a Salvation Army rally, through yet another flight across the landscape handcuffed to a girl, and finally to a musical hall in London. Though its plot is unbelievable, Hitchcock’s continual mastery of suspense keeps it alive.
”
Georges Sadoul,
Dictionary of Films
1936
Secret Agent
As director.
Sc: Charles Bennett, from the Campbell Dixon play and based on the Ashenden novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Dialogue: Ian Hay. Continuity: Alma Reville. Additional Dialogue: Jesse Lasky Jr. Ph: Bernard Knowles. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Set Dec: Albert Julian. Ed: Charles Frend. Recordist: Philip Dorté. Dresses: J. Strassner. Musical Dir: Louis Levy.
Cast: John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, Robert Young, Percy Marmont, Florence Kahn, Lilli Palmer, Charles Carson.
(B & W, Michael Balcon with Ivor Montagu for Gaumont-British, 86 mins.)
“
The privileged moments are all incidental to the ultimate intrigue—a box of chocolates, a secret message on an assembly line, a dead mans head pressing an eerie note on a church organ, a convenient train wreck to sort out the active sinners from the not-so-innocent bystanders. Despite the relative fastidiousness of its two leads
, Secret Agent
remains one of Hitchcock’s most engaging films from his British period.
”
Andrew Sarris,
You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet:
The American Talking Film: History and Memory, 1927-1949
Sabotage (U.S.: The Woman Alone)
As director.
Sc: Charles Bennett, from the novel
The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad. Dialogue: Ian Hay, Helen Simpson. Continuity: Alma Reville. Additional Dialogue: E. V. H. (Ted) Emmett. Ph: Bernard Knowles. Ed: Charles Frend. Art Dir: Oscar Werndorff. Set Dec: Albert Julian. Sound: A. Cameron. Dresses: J. Strassner. Wardrobe: Marianne. Music Dir: Louis Levy. Cartoon Sequence: By arrangement with Walt Disney.
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour, Matthew Boulton, S. J. Warmington, William Dewhurst, Peter Bull, Torin Thatcher, Austin Trevor, Clare Greet.
(B & W, Michael Balcon with Ivor Montagu for Gaumont-British, 76 mins.)
“
Mr. Hitchcock keeps perfectly within the bounds of the movie art. He knows exactly what a movie should be and do; so exactly, in fact, that a live wire seems to run backward from any of his films to all the best films one can remember, connecting them with it in a conspiracy to shock us into a special state of consciousness with respect to the art.
”
Mark Van Doren,
The Nation
, March 13, 1937
1937
Young and Innocent (U.S.: The Girl Was Young)
As director.
Sc: Charles Bennett, Edwin Greenwood, and Anthony Armstrong, based on the novel
A Shilling for Candles
by Josephine Tey. Continuity: Alma Reville. Dialogue: Gerald Savory. Ph: Bernard Knowles. Sound: A. O’Donoghue.
Ed: Charles Frend. Art Dir: Alfred Junge. Music Dir: Louis Levy. Wardrobe: Marianne. Song: Lerner, Goodhart and Hoffman.
Cast: Nova Pilbeam, Derrick de Marney, Percy Marmont, Edward Rigby, Mary Clare, John Longden, George Curzon, Basil Radford, Pamela Carme, George Merritt, J. H. Roberts, Jerry Verno, H. F. Maltby, John Miller, and Alfred Hitchcock (photographer with tiny camera, as de Marney escapes from the courthouse).
(B & W, Edward Black for Gaumont-British, 84 mins.)
“
I like it best of all his pictures. It may not be, academically speaking, the cleverest. The adepts who go to a Hitchcock film to grub out bits of montage may be disappointed. … The real charm of the film is its eye for human values. Hitchcock seems to know, with a certainty that has sometimes evaded him, what is important and what is immaterial to a person in certain circumstances, just how far emotion can affect behavior.
”
C. A. Lejeune,
Observer
, January 3, 1938 (
The C. A. Lejeune Film Reader
)
1938
The Lady Vanishes
As director.
Sc: Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the novel
The Wheel Spins
by Ethel Lina White. Continuity: Alma Reville. Ph: John J. Cox. Ed: R. E. Dearing. Cutting: Alfred Roome. Sound: S. Wiles. Settings: Alex Vetchinsky. Music Dir: Louis Levy.
Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty, Cecil Parker, Linden Travers, Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford, Mary Clare, Emile Boreo, Googie Withers, Sally Stewart, Philip Leaver, Zelma Vas Dias, Catherine Lacey, Josephine Wilson, Charles Oliver, Kathleen Tremaine, and Alfred Hitchcock (at Victoria Station, near the end, crossing the screen and smoking a cigarette).
(B & W, Edward Black for Gainsborough, 97 mins.)
“
Hitchcock builds suspense on suspense, deception on revelation, like a maestro playing the fifty-two card trick. With the heroine, we cannot believe the evidence of her eyes. Miss Froy’s handwriting on the window, the only surety of her existence, disappears like the Uncertainty Principle on the moment of its discovery. The bandaged patient may contain the vanished lady, or a corpse, or anyone. As for the nun in high heels, she is the stuff of dream as well as deception. And the illusion of the moving train itself, though filmed in a small studio, hustles us towards an excitement, a denouement, and explosions of laughter to relieve the suspense.
The Lady Vanishes
is Hitchcock at his most worldly and assured. Yet beneath the entertainment, there is the menace of a Europe about to be plunged into the horror of war.
”
Andrew Sinclair,
Masterworks of the British Cinema
1939
Jamaica Inn
As director.
Sc: Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison, based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier. Dialogue: Sidney Gilliat. Additional Dialogue: J. B. Priestley. Continuity: Alma Reville. Ph: Harry Stradling, Bernard Knowles. Settings: Tom Morahan. Costumes: Molly McArthur Ed: Robert Hamer. Music: Eric Fenby. Musical Director: Frederic Lewis. Special Effects: Harry Watt. Sound: Jack Rogerson. Makeup: Ern Westmore. Prod Mgr: Hugh Perceval.
Cast: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, Leslie Banks, Robert Newton, Marie Ney, Emlyn Williams, Wylie Watson, Horace Hodges, Hay Petrie, Frederick Piper, Herbert Lomas, Clare Greet, William Devlin, Jeanne de Casalis, Bromley Davenport, Mabel Terry-Lewis, George Curzon, Basil Radford, Morland Graham, Edwin Greenwood, Mervyn Johns, Stephen Haggard.
(B & W, Erich Pommer and Charles Laughton for Mayflower Pictures, 98 mins.)
“
It has suspense and a good run of motion. It has a fine tone—the Inn and the doings there, the coaches and night roads, the English types Hitchcock knows so well how to keep both vivid and credible. … What it is above everything else is true to its form, without pretensions but without fawning. Better movies can be made, and have been; more ambitious movies are being made all over the place without half the honest picture skill, consequently without half the audience satisfaction and freedom from pose.
”
Otis Ferguson,
The New Republic
, September 6, 1939
1940
Rebecca
As director.
Sc: Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison. Adaptation: Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan, from the novel by Daphne du Maurier. Ph: George Barnes. Music: Franz Waxman. Music Assoc: Lou Forbes. Art Dir: Lyle Wheeler. Interiors: Joseph B. Platt. Special Effects: Jack Cosgrove. Interior Dec: Howard Bristol. Supervising Ed: Hal Kern. Assoc. Ed: James E. Newcom. Scenario Asst: Barbara Keon. Recorder: Jack Noyes. Asst Dir: Edmond Bernoudy.
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Gladys Cooper, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Florence Bates, Leo G. Carroll, Melville Cooper, Leonard Carey, Edward Fielding, Lumsden Hare, Forrester Harvey, Philip Winter, and Alfred Hitchcock (passerby outside phone booth, toward the end of the film).
(B & W, David O. Selznick for Selznick International Pictures, 130 mins.)
“
One feels the genuine chill when watching
Rebecca.”
Peter Cowie,
Fifty Major Filmmakers
Foreign Correspondent
As director.
Sc: Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison. Dialogue: James Hilton, Robert Benchley. Music: Alfred Newman. Art Dir: Alexander Golitzen. Assoc Art Dir: Richard Irvine. Ph: Rudolph Maté. Special Photographic Effects: Paul Eagler. Supervising Ed: Otho Lovering. Ed: Dorothy Spencer. Interior Dec: Julia Heron. Costumes: I. Magnin & Co. Asst Dir: Edmond Bernoudy. Sound: Frank Maher. Special Production Effects: William Cameron Menzies.