Hitch (13 page)

Meanwhile, the shooting of
The Farmer's Wife
had gone reasonably smoothly, though in the course of it Hitch had been forced to add another string to his bow when the cameraman, Jack Cox, fell ill and Hitch had to handle the camera himself for much of the picture. Though he had observed the cameraman's work, he had never done it himself. He decided that most of the process had to be common sense, and with his art director's training he should at least be able to light a set without too much difficulty to produce a satisfactory pictorial composition. But he was not too sure of the technicalities, so to be on the safe side he would send the film over to the lab as he shot it, for a rush processing job, and rehearse the actors on subsequent scenes until he got it back to check that he had achieved the effect he wanted. Not that the actors ever knew this—to outward view he was confident and imperturbable, as though he always shot films this way.

The subject in this case did not give him much leeway for any kind of a personal statement: the film is based on a light comedy by Eden Philpotts which had just had enormous success on the London stage, concerning the wooing of three unlikely ladies by a widower-farmer before he comes to appreciate that his own unnoticed house-keeper is the right one for him. Like
Easy Virtue
it was a very dialogue-bound piece, but this in itself was a challenge to Hitch, stimulating him to an especially active interest in the problem of telling his story in visual terms. And the result, if not very
characteristic of Hitchcock as we have come to know him, is a lot more charming and lively than he gives it credit for. One senses in his treatment of the details of rustic life more of the town child's mistrust than of urban romanticism about the country, but he obviously warms to his task in depicting the gallery of grotesques who populate the story. Already in
The Ring
he had shown a pawky sense of humour in the bizarre details of the wedding, with the Siamese twins from the fairground arguing over which side of the church they should sit on and the assembled freaks and show people responding to the verger's clap for silence with a hearty round of applause. Here the three principal objects of the farmer's frustrated wife-hunt—a horsey widow, a prim, hypochondriac old maid and a simpering overweight baby-doll—are pilloried with a relish which may have lent some colour to Hitch's cinematic reputation as a misogynist; and the sustained scene of the refined tea party given by the old maid, which is gradually, inexorably reduced to a shambles by the unfortunate interaction of the mismatched guests and by rebellion and hysteria below stairs, shows talents for immaculately timed knockabout comedy which one would not otherwise have suspected in Hitchcock.

Champagne
is if anything even slighter than
The Farmer's Wife
. Hitch's producer had the title, and a star, Betty Balfour, a charming comedienne who was at that time the leading feminine attraction in the British cinema. The thought appealed to Hitch since he was by this time more than casually interested in champagne, its production and consumption. So he elaborated a plot which would turn on the experiences of a girl making a humble living nailing down the lids of champagne crates in Reims, who goes to Paris, gets to live for a while the high life associated with the champagne she has never actually tasted before, is ‘ruined' and becomes a sort of high-class whore, and finally, disillusioned with night-clubs, parties and men, returns to her old job in Reims, hating the stuff. The story was a bit moralistic, and the studio wanted something much lighter and more comic as a vehicle for their effervescent star Betty Balfour. So instead we get a not too sensible story (by Walter Mycroft, a friend of Hitch's, soon to become an enemy) of a headstrong heiress who is taught a lesson when her father pretends to be bankrupt and she has to cope with love-in-a-hut and the necessity of making her own living as best she can with no training in the practical things of life. Details remain vivid, like the rousing opening in which the voyage of
a transatlantic liner is disrupted when the heroine arrives in a seaplane, to general excitement and confusion, or the ruthless fun Hitch has with the rolling ship and sickening food and the quarrel played for laughs (taking up the idea he had had to cut from
Downhill
) by using the pitching of the liner in a storm to break up the dignity of those involved. The rest of the film seems rather perfunctory, though, and Hitch himself complains that it has no story—even if it does yield one memorable image of degradation, fixed in a very famous still, when the heroine applies for a job at a model agency and one of the agents, standing behind her, coolly lifts her skirt with his toe to look at her legs.

This film had the comforts of being a fairly staid, studio-bound venture. But
The Manxman
took Hitch out to the wilds of location shooting again. Though Hall Caine's novel specified the Isle of Man as the seat of the action, Hitch did not fancy that—it was altogether too far afield—and settled instead for Polperro and near-by stretches of the Cornish coast. By this time, in the autumn of 1928, the coming of sound was clearly inevitable.
The Jazz Singer
finally opened in London on 27 September, and suddenly there was a rush to be the first on the market with a British-made talkie. Various shorts were being made, mostly in the cumbersome home-grown Phonofilm system, and Hitch naturally wanted to experiment. There was, however, no way that
The Manxman
could be made as a sound film, and even as he made it Hitch chafed at the delay—he later dismissed the film with the curt statement that its only point of interest is that it was his last silent picture. The judgement is unfair. Even if
The Manxman
is not the film Hitch would have chosen to make at this time, and is not made in the way he might have chosen to make it, it still has qualities—and qualities which set it apart from most other Hitchcock films, then or since.

Above all, it is directly sexual in a way surprising in the brisk, masculine world of Hitchcock's British films. This seems to have something to do with the extraordinary quality of Anny Ondra, perhaps the first clear example of a classic Hitchcock blonde. One has only to compare the scenes of the romantic triangle in which she is involved with those in
The Ring
featuring the charming but anodyne Lillian Hall-Davies: suddenly there is a living, sensuous woman in front of us, one who seems conceivable as the object of such passionate conflict between the two childhood friends—and as a participant, herself torn by passion, rather than merely a light-minded
flirt. Partly this must have something to do with the actress's training and background in the German cinema. In the early sequences she has a playful, winsome quality a little reminiscent of Elisabeth Bergner. When passion strikes—while the fisherman fiancé is away, presumed lost at sea, his best friend and his girl discover they are in love with each other—she throws herself into her lover's arms with the rush and abandonment of a figure from Expressionist drama, with no preliminary, no transition. And when the fiancé comes back she is held like a bird in a cage, looking wildly round for escape, palpitating, instinctive, a creature of the senses rather than a product of society.

It is difficult to say whether this side of the film is the personal contribution of the actors concerned, or something which Hitchcock, consciously or unconsciously, put into it, or a bit of both. Mostly, it must have been a happy mutual response. Personally, Hitch and Alma enjoyed Anny Ondra, a very lively, open-natured girl who remained a friend through the years. During the shooting of
The Manxman
they introduced her to their doctor, who promptly fell madly in love with her. Unfortunately, he was a devout Catholic who absolutely would not consider any kind of sexual connection without marriage, and she was by no means prepared for marriage. So nothing came of that and shortly after she returned to Germany Anny Ondra married the boxer Max Schmeling. When Hitch read of this marriage he sent Anny a cod telegram asking her what terrible thing was this—she had married a
boxer
? To his amusement he received back a three-page letter of impassioned defence of her new husband, his gentleness, his charm, his lovability.

The nature of Hitch's relationship with Anny Ondra is perhaps best captured in a tiny fragment of film which has by chance survived in the British National Film Archive. It is a voice test in which Hitch is seen directing Anny, in one improvised shot, and the exchange between them goes like this:

HITCH: Now, Miss Ondra, we are going to do a sound test. Isn't that what you wanted? Now come right over here.

ANNY ONDRA: I don't know what to say. I'm so nervous.

HITCH: Have you been a good girl?

ANNY ONDRA (
laughing
): Oh, no.

HITCH: NO? Have you slept with men?

ANNY ONDRA: No!

HITCH: NO?!

ANNY ONDRA: Oh, Hitch, you make me embarrassed! (
She giggles helplessly
.)

HITCH: Now come over here, and stand still in your place, or it won't come out right, as the girl said to the soldier. (
Anny Ondra cracks up completely
.)

HITCH: (
grinning
): Cut!

The combination of jollity and edginess is very characteristic of Hitch's relations with his leading ladies: a mixture of humour and authority, the ability to put them at their ease and at the same time keep them sufficiently off balance to give light and shade to their performances. It is a sort of seduction—he seduces them into producing something extraordinary on screen, with a kind of ruthless, even brutal charm. Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint … these are the ones who fit naturally into the pattern. Others, like Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren, have required a little forcing. But always the same meshing of senses of humour, always the same physical and psychological profile: that of Hitch's famous ‘cool' blonde. Something about the cast of feature, something about the colour of hair and the way it falls about the ears, a tantalizing glimmer of sensuality almost hidden beneath the controlled, ladylike surface. Least hidden, though, in Anny Ondra—it is as though she has the makings of the image, but it is not yet completely formed, partly because Hitch does not yet have it clear in his own mind, partly because the roles she has to play in the two films he starred her in required the character she plays to act in a violently impassioned way at odds with the studied cool of the later Hitchcock heroine.

Blackmail
, of course, is something else again. In the history of the cinema, it is the first real British talkie. In Hitchcock's own history it is a return to the thriller, which he had not tackled since
The Lodger
, a reaffirmation of his mastery, and a triumphant vindication for the critics of their first enthusiastic assessment of his talents. It marked an epoch, and provided an object-lesson in how this still dangerous new medium, the sound film, might be used. Though Hitch was to have his reverses and thin periods during the next few years, there was never again after
Blackmail
any danger of his being ignored or discounted.

The film did not quite start out that way. Its origin was a play of the same name by Charles Bennett, a young writer of, mainly, thrillers. Bennett was to figure importantly in Hitch's subsequent life and work, but for the moment their contact was rather remote: the credits of the film say that he collaborated on the screenplay, but he denies that he did. The play had been a moderate success in February 1928 at the Globe Theatre, with Tallulah Bankhead in the lead, directed by Raymond Massey. Shortly afterwards, Bennett had a tremendous success with another play of his,
The Last Hour
, at the Comedy Theatre, and mainly on the strength of this rather than its own merits
Blackmail
was dusted off early in 1929 and sent out with three touring companies simultaneously. It was at this stage that the proposal to make the play into a silent movie came up, and Bennett, grandly enjoying his current affluence, was not particularly interested. He met Hitch at that time, and maybe contributed a few ideas verbally, though he doubts it. As usual, Hitch was responsible for the adaptation and continuity, with the aid of the playwright Benn Levy for the dialogue.

Dialogue? What was dialogue doing in a silent movie? Well, initially there was no dialogue beyond what was included in the
titles, and a completely silent version of the film does exist, made for showing in those backward cinemas, of which there were still quite a few in 1929, that had not yet made the investment of conversion to sound. It was an investment that John Maxwell also was reluctant to make, despite Hitch's urging. Hitch was longing to get into the new medium, and let his mind play freely around the question of how he would make
Blackmail
if it were a talkie. But there seemed no way that it could be, and he started shooting it as a silent film. History was catching up with the British film, however, and while
Blackmail
was in production Maxwell made the decision to jump on the sound bandwagon by putting some dialogue in the last reel, so that the film could be advertised as ‘part talking'. As far as they knew in the front office this was all Hitch was doing—making an alternative version of the last reel with some spoken dialogue.

But Hitch had more confidence—and more guile—than that. The film as he had made it was structured along very similar lines to
The Lodger
, with an elaborate opening sequence of purely visual exposition, this time showing the whole process of an arrest: the man with a gun in a dingy upstairs room disarmed by detectives who take him in, book him, fingerprint him, question him, photograph him and finally put him in a cell, then wash and make their ways homeward just like anyone else who has done an ordinary day's work. The heroine of the film has a policeman boy-friend, as in
The Lodger
, and the film climaxes, like
The Lodger
, in an elaborately staged chase sequence. Hitch felt there was more than enough very visual material in the film for him to experiment with sound effects and snatches of dialogue elsewhere than in the last reel, so that is what he did—to such effect that when he presented his producers with the part-talkie version he was able to impress them with the sensational possibilities of the new medium in his hands. From there it was a short step to getting them to allow him to reshoot certain key scenes as a fully fledged talking picture.