Movie Review: Jamaica Inn
Year of Release: 1939
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Leslie Banks
Plot outline: In Cornwall, around 1800, a young woman discovers that she's living near a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecks for profit (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. 
Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, Jamaica Inn was the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted (the others were Rebecca and The Birds). Having set his own standards, Hitchcock must be judged by them; and, by them, this movie is merely journeyman melodrama, good enough of its kind, but almost entirely devoid of those felicitous turns of camera phrasing, the sudden gleams of wicked humor, the diabolically casual accumulation of suspense which characterize his best pictures. Without them, Hitchcock is still a good director, imaginative and cinema-wise, but with no more individuality than a dozen others in his field and subject, like them, to the risk of having a mere actor run away with the movie. That had never happened to Hitchcock before. His pictures always were his. Jamaica Inn will not be remembered as a Hitchcock picture, but as a Charles Laughton picture. It bears the Laughton stamp. Perhaps that is the root of the evil, if it is an evil. For Hitch never faced a player his size before. With two such stalwart individualists battling on a bare sound stage they might have come to a draw. Laughton sets the pace, slower than Hitch would have ordered it. Laughton is such a bulky man to get into motion. I had the impression, as the movie rolled on, of Hitch rushing the action to his doorstep and then having to wait three or four minutes for Laughton to answer the bell. Actually, the wait must have told more on Hitch than it did on me. There are other virtues: Maureen O'Hara, who is lovely, has played Mary Yellen well this side of ingenue hysteria, with charming naturalness and poise, with even a trace of self-control in her screams. Leslie Banks is capital as Joss Merlyn, the wrecker ringleader, with a fine crew of cutthroats around him - Emlyn Williams, Wylie Watson, Edwin Greenwood among them. Marie Ney as the girl's aunt, Robert Newton as the undercover man, George Curzon as one of Sir Humphrey's blanker friends are splendid in their degree. I enjoyed it all, Laughton most, but it doesn't seem like Hitchcock. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Lady Vanishes
Year of Release: 1938
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty
Plot outline: While traveling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest 
early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Adapted from the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, this movie was the penultimate movie of Hitchcock's British period. The movie was a great success and brought him to the attention of Hollywood. Considered to be the second best of his British movies (after The 39 Steps), The Lady Vanishes skilfully combines suspense thriller and black comedy, making this one of Hitchcock’s most entertaining – and unpredictable – movies. The movie’s cast is as perfect as its direction and scripting. Margaret Lockwood makes a terrific Hitchcockian heroine – resilient, vulnerable and attractive (!); her pairing with the great Michael Redgrave is a stroke of genius. This is just one of the many well-formed double acts the movie has to offer – the most memorable being Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as the cricket-obsessed Caldicott and Charters. These latter two proved to be so popular that they re-appeared in a number of subsequent movies. The more shocking sequences in the movie are offset by some superlative – and wonderfully downplayed – comedy, which curiously adds to the suspense. There are even a few nice expressionist touches, notably the sequence when the heroine struggles to hold onto her consciousness as the train begins its nightmarish journey. The movie’s strengths – particularly in its characterisation and atmosphere – manage to carry it through its weaker moments (an unconvincing model shot at the start of the movie, and a needlessly drawn-out shoot-out sequence near the end). On a bigger budget, Hitchcock would undoubtedly have managed to make a more polished production, but it is doubtful that he would have improved upon the movie he did make, the compelling and irresistibly funny The Lady Vanishes. (JT)
My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Secret Agent
Year of Release: 1936
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young
Plot outline: After three British agents are assigned to assassinate a mysterious German spy during World War I, two of them become ambivalent when their duty to the mission conflicts with their consciences (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, Secret Agent is one of those affairs in which practically every member of the cast turns out to be a spy. It is a defect of the screen narrative that all the spies seem to be continually engaged in melodramatic shadow boxing, but the script never really makes out a case for the necessity of spying and never convince you that there is anything in Geneva worth spying on. The movie is marred by inexpert camera technique, film editing whose incorrectness hits one between the eyes, and strangely uneven sound recording which, at one point, simply causes the screen to go dead. Madeleine Carroll is a bit above her surroundings, and she unluckily gets mixed up in the most terrible clichés. But there are scattered high-lights, e.g. Peter Lorre plays one of the most amusing and somehow one of the most wistfully appealing trigger men, a homicidal virtuoso, a student of the theory as well as the practice of garroting and throat-slitting, repulsively curly and Oriental in make-up. The sequence in which he regretfully shoves a charming but suspected gentleman (Percy Marmont) from the peak of a Swiss Alp, only to discover later that he was the wrong man, is a priceless one. His harmless and ineffectual little gallantries with servant girls are also admirably carried off. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: White Heat
Year of Release: 1949
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
Plot outline: A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. Shortly after the plan takes place, events take a crazy turn (IMDb).
Based on a story by Virginia Kellogg, White Heat is considered one of the classic gangster, and the most explosive, movies that Cagney or anyone has ever played. The script has pulled all the stops in making this movie the acme of the gangster-prison movie. Cagney plays his role in a brilliantly graphic way, matching the pictorial vigor of his famous Public Enemy job. As the ruthless gang-leader in this furious and frightening account of train-robbery, prison-break, gang war and gun fighting with the police, Cagney indeed achieves the fascination of a brilliant bull-fighter at work, deftly engaged in the business of doing violence with economy and grace. His movements are supple and electric, his words are as swift and sharp as swords and his whole manner carries the conviction of confidence, courage and power. Cagney's performance is not the only one in this movie. Director Raoul Walsh gathers vivid acting from his whole cast: Virginia Mayo is excellent as the gangster's disloyal spouse - brassy, voluptuous and stupid to just the right degree. Edmond O'Brien does a slick job as a Treasury Department T-man who gets next to the gang-boss in prison and works into a place of favor in his mob. Steve Cochran is ugly as an outlaw, John Archer is stout as a Treasury sleuth and Margaret Wycherly is darkly invidious as the gangster's beloved old "Ma". Perhaps her inclusion in the story is its weakest and most suspected point, for the notion of Cagney being a "mama's boy" is slightly remote. And this motivation for his cruelty, as well as for his frequent howling fits, is convenient, perhaps, for novel action but not entirely convincing as truth. However, impeccable veracity is not the first purpose of this movie. It is made to excite and amuse people. And that it most certainly does. (NYT)
My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Suddenly, Last Summer
Year of Release: 1959
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift
Plot outline: The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane. Now, Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth (IMDb).
Based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams, the point of the story is somewhat missed, because the true nature of the most-talked-of character could not be tagged (he was obviously a homosexual, as well as a sadist of some sort) and the precise and horrible details of his death could not be explained (he was literally eaten by urchins). What should be thoroughly shocking in the flash-back scenes of his death is only confusing and baffling, because I can't really see what's happening, and the girl who is describing the incident is much less vivid and exact than she could be. In structure, as well as in content, the story is a simple mystery, a psychological whodunit - or howdunit, to be exact - how did the man die? The script does not tell how the urchins killed the man, to justify frequent mention that it was "horrid and obscene". It does not tell why they did it, other than to suggest that they were "hungry", which is a feeble explanation and gastronomically far-fetched. And it certainly does not complete an image, made much of by the wealthy widow early along, that vultures swooping down upon young turtles and devouring them reveal the cruel "face of God". The script indulges in sheer verbal melodramatics which only add to the audience confusion and are barely elevated from tedium by some incidental scenes of inmates of a mental institution. Nevertheless, Elizabeth Taylor is rightly roiled as the niece, Katharine Hepburn is craftily mischievous as the wealthy widow, but Montgomery Clift seems racked with pain and indifference as the brain surgeon, Albert Dekker growls and gropes as his dull boss, and Mercedes McCambridge and Gary Raymond do a routine - a vaudeville routine - as the mother and brother of the girl. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Sabotage
Year of Release: 1936
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder
Plot outline: A Scotland Yard undercover detective is on the trail of a saboteur who is part of a plot to set off a bomb in London. But when the detective's cover is blown, the plot begins to unravel (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, this movie (a.k.a. The Woman Alone) is imperfect narrative, but perfect dramaturgy. Impatiently brushing aside all but the semblance of motivation, Hitchcock plunges his camera into the heart of the story and brings out a brilliantly executed fragment of a plot that has more logic than he gives it. Always the master of his picture's destiny, he reduces the movie to the bare essentials of its narrative, selecting only those incidents which he could bend to his melodramatic will. His pace is deceptively deliberate, but he builds ruthlessly to his climaxes and he makes their impact hard and sudden. He directs the sequence fiendishly. It is almost an agonizing experience to have to sit silently and watch the careless youngster's (Desmond Tester) dawdling progress across London, idling at shop windows, selected by a sidewalk vendor for a hair-tonic demonstration, delayed by a parade, by traffic and by fussy bobbies. What a brilliant suspense (!) I won't tell you what happens ... that would be to cheat Hitchcock of his just reward, but it is a warning what you may expect - which, as is the way of all his melodramas, is the unexpected. Oskar Homolka as Verloc is a perfect tool for Hitchcock's deliberate tempo. Sylvia Sidney as his bewildered wife, tragically mothering her young brother, Desmond Tester as the engaging youngster, John Loder as the romantic sergeant from Scotland Yard and William Dewhurst as the bomb maker are severally perfect. Sabotage is Hitchcock's picture and a valuable one, for all its refusal to give us the whys and the wherefores of the sabotage plot. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much
Year of Release: 1934
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Frank Vosper, Hugh Wakefield, Nova Pilbeam
Plot outline: A man and his wife receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. This taut, suspenseful thriller, aided by the director’s wry wit and tight pacing, was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed movies of Hitchcock's British period. He remade the movie in 1956, the only one of his movies that he ever remade. The two movies are however very different in tone, setting and many plot details. Critics continue to argue the movie's merits versus those of its 1956 remake. In this movie, the British cinema, never notable for its command of filmic pace, goes in for a blistering style of story-telling. Directed with a fascinating staccato violence, this movie is a swift screen melodrama. Normally the work would be important chiefly because it offers Peter Lorre in his first part since his remarkable performance as the insane killer in M. But this movie is distinctly Hitchcock's picture. Although the photography and lighting are inferior according to Hollywood standards, it is an interesting example of technical ingenuity as well as an absorbing melodrama. Hitchcock tells the story in a succession of brief and tantalizing scenes which merge so breathlessly that you are always rapt and tense. The method, of course, subordinates the actors to the technique, but Lorre, as the anarchist leader, is able to crowd his role with dark and terrifying emotions without disturbing his placid moon face. Then there are Leslie Banks as the husband, Edna Best as the wife, Hugh Wakefield as the amateur sleuth and Nova Pilbeam as the kidnapped child. Pierre Fresnay becomes a corpse so hurriedly that you scarcely have time to know he is in the cast. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Number Seventeen
Year of Release: 1932
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, John Stuart
Plot outline: A gang of thieves gather at a safe house following a robbery, but a detective is on their trail (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. 
Based on a stage play by J. Jefferson Farjeon, rather than make a serious thriller, Hitchcock used the opportunity to send up the genre as far as he could, whilst performing experiments with lighting and camera movement which would have been impossible on a more conventional movie. The end result is truly bizarre – looking like a film noir that was concocted in Britain’s maddest lunatic asylum. This movie is certainly an atypical Hitchcock movie - an unbridled parody of the low budget crime thrillers that were prevalent in the early 1930s. It probably helped that this movie had a shoestring budget – evidenced by the poor quality of the models in the chaotic denouement. This movie has often been criticised for its production weaknesses and virtually incomprehensible plot, but such criticisms generally miss the point of the movie. Number Seventeen is a warning of what cinema was in danger of becoming - a mindless spectacle of muddled intrigue and artistic self-indulgence, without any real substance or meaning. If Hitchcock were around today he would probably grin nonchalantly and mutter: "I told you so." (JT)
My judgement: ** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Rich and Strange
Year of Release: 1931
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, Elsie Randolph
Plot outline: Believing that an unexpected inheritance will bring them happiness, a married couple instead finds their relationship strained to the breaking point (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Adapted from a novel by Dale Collins, this atypical Hitchcock effort is a cautionary fable which lends credence to the old saw "Love flies out the door when money flies in the window." Joan Barry and Henry Kendall play a young married couple who suddenly come into an inheritance. Bored with their working-class existence, hero and heroine embark upon a world cruise, and it isn't long before Barry gets romantically involved with a landed-gentry gentleman. Meanwhile, Kendall is swept off his feet by a phony princess, who tricks him out of all his money. Partly a sophisticated sex comedy, partly a grim seafaring melodrama, Rich and Strange had the negative effect of confusing the public in general and Hitchcock's fans in particular, and as a result the movie, which remains one of his best early talkies, died at the box office. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Murder!
Year of Release: 1930
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Phyllis Konstam, Edward Chapman
Plot outline: A juror in a murder trial, after voting to convict, has second thoughts and begins to investigate on his own before the execution (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest 
early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Based on a novel and play called Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, Murder! has the distinction of being Hitchcock’s one and only true whodunit, in the mould of the classic British murder mystery popularised by such writers as Agatha Christie. Hitchcock’s preference for suspense over surprise is evident in this movie which, whilst competently directed and entertaining, lacks the master’s distinctive touch, even though it deals with a familiar Hitchcockian theme: the wrongful arrest of an innocent person. In this movie, his great innovation is the internal monologue, where the audience hears what a character is thinking, not just what he is saying. In common with several of his early work, this movie explores the relationship between life and art – in particular, how the two feed off one another and how it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the one from the other. The exaggerated theatricality seen in this movie (which is taken to almost absurd limits by Herbert Marshall’s overly mannered performance) makes it hard to tell what is real and what is not – reminiscent of what we find in his later movie Vertigo. Murder! is often slow-moving, but it has some good features, and is worth watching the whole way through. (JT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Young and Innocent
Year of Release: 1937
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Nova Pilbeam, Derrick De Marney, Percy Marmont
Plot outline: Man on the run from a murder charge enlists a beautiful stranger who must put herself at risk for his cause (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. 
Loosely based on Josephine Tey's 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles, although it misses the heart-tearing suspense, this movie (a.k.a. The Girl Was Young) serves his purposes - and ours - quite well. Hitchcock has the demonic knack of filling the commonplace with terror: a serene English countryside under his glance suddenly grows ugly and threatening; a rail road yard can be made as ominous and mysterious as Herr Frankenstein's castle; a crowded dance floor in a hotel dining room becomes sinister and dread. When murder blights a drowsy English village, Hitchcock twists and weaves these melodramatic commonplaces into a taut skein of adventure and romance. Nova Pilbeam plays the constable's daughter with a wholesome and natural charm and a delightful ease of manner. Derrick De Marney, as the suspect, is agreeably light-hearted in the shadow of the noose. And there are a panel of delightful characters around them - in particular, the annoyingly optimistic solicitor, J. H. Roberts, the frowsy old china mender, Edward Rigby, and the several muddling-through constables and Yard men. But chiefly, of course, I admire Mr. Hitchcock. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Juno and the Paycock
Year of Release: 1930
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Maire O'Neill, Edward Chapman, Sidney Morgan, Sara Allgood
Plot outline: During the Irish revolution, a family earns a big inheritance. They start leading a rich life forgetting what the most important values are (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest 
early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Hitchcock's second talkie was a surprisingly static adaptation of Sean O'Casey stage drama Juno and the Paycock. Set during the Irish "troubles" of the early 1920s, the movie focuses on the trials and tribulations of a typical Dublin tenement family. Sara Allgood is brilliant as family matriarch Juno Boyle, who must contend with her bibulous, braggadocio husband, Captain Jack Boyle (Edward Chapman), known as the "paycock" because he always struts around like he owns the world. As Captain Jack carouses with his drinking buddy Joxer Daly (Sydney Morgan), Juno tries to keep her family together, a task that proves harder with each passing day, especially when daughter Mary (Kathleen O'Regan) is impregnated by her irresponsible boyfriend. Things take a tragic turn when Juno's weakling son Johnny (John Laurie), a member of the IRA, is shot as an informer by his own comrades. Sara Allgood's scenes after the death of her son are absolutely heart-wrenching, offering ample compensation for Hitchcock's plodding direction and the hopelessly hammy performance by Edward Chapman. (NYT)
My judgement: ** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Blackmail
Year of Release: 1929
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, Charles Paton, John Longden, Donald Calthrop, Cyril Ritchard
Plot oultine: A shopkeeper's daughter fights off blackmail after she kills a young artist who tries to rape her (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest 
early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Adapted from Charles Bennett's play of the same name, Blackmail was Hitchcock's (and Britain's) first sound movie. It utilized the new sound technology in a rather creative way off-camera. The lead actress, Anny Ondra, had a strong Eastern European accent that was difficult for British audiences to understand, so Hitchcock's solution was to have British actress Joan Barry speak Ondra's lines of dialogue off-camera. Hitchcock used several elements that would become his "trademarks" including a beautiful blonde in peril and a famous landmark in the finale. The movie was a critical and commercial hit. The sound was praised as inventive. The silent version of Blackmail actually ran longer in theaters and proved more popular. Despite the popularity of the silent version, history best remembers the landmark talkie version of Blackmail. It is the version now generally available although some critics consider the silent version superior. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Manxman (silent)
Year of Release: 1929
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Carl Brisson, Malcolm Keen, Anny Ondra
Plot outline: A fisherman and a rising young lawyer, who grew up as brothers, fall in love with the same girl (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. 
Based on a romantic novel by Sir Hall Caine, The Manxman was the last silent movie Hitchcock directed before he made the transition to sound. This movie is filled with enchanting scenes and the story itself is quite well told. There are periodical posings by the players and their movements are frequently either too slow or much too fast; yet, considering the task he undertook, Hitchcock, the young British director who produced Britain's first talking movie, Blackmail, has done a worth-while job. This movie is said to have been photographed on the Isle of Man, the locale of the story, and it is another instance where backgrounds count for a great deal in unfurling the narrative. Not only are the out-of-doors stretches as beautiful as anything that one would hope to behold on the screen, but the interiors are evidently faithful reproductions of an old inn and a fisherman's cottage. The production is not brilliant, but the shortcomings in acting and to a certain extent in the direction are atoned for by the artistry of the scenes. Moreover, it is a movie in which Hitchcock exercises laudable restraint, even though suspense is seldom particularly keen or sustained. Carl Brisson plays Pete Quilliam. He appears to be devoting more attention to his smile or having a lock of his hair protrude under his cap than he does to the mood of the moment. Malcolm Keen is competent as Philip Christian. He is quite aware that he is not good-looking and therefore is less guilty of posing than the others. Anny Ondra does some fair acting as Kate Cregeen, but her performance hardly causes one to think that she is in earnest. Randle Ayrton figures as Caesar Cregeen, whom he fails to make sufficiently human. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Farmer's Wife (silent)
Year of Release: 1928
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker
Plot outline: After his daughter weds, a middle-aged widower with a profitable farm decides to remarry but finds choosing a suitable mate a problematic process (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. Adapted from Eden Phillpotts's stage comedy of the same name, The Farmer's Wife is a lethargic affair with ingenuous fun. It has been nicely directed with a keen eye for the sunlight and shadows over the winding country roads, and the indoor scenes are always correct as to furnishings. There are old taverns, with queer old persons who loll on the wooden benches, and, in spite of the limited number of words, the most has been made of the subtitles to give the onlooker an idea of the dialect of that section of England. It all takes pace in the days of very long skirts and other peculiar ideas of the Victorian era. Farmer Samuel Sweetland, well-to-do and bewhiskered like a squire, decides that he has been a widower long enough. He discusses with his attractive housekeeper, Araminta Dench, likely women who might make a good wife. This comedy is one that would obviously prove far more amusing in audible form. It would give audiences a chance to hear the Devonshire dialect and also offer further opportunities for fun if the awkward Sweetland and the women to whom he proposes could be heard as well as seen. Jameson Thomas gives an easy performance as Sweetland. Lillian Hall-Davis is attractive as Araminta. The other players, especially Gordon Harker as the surly workman, rise to the occasion. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Easy Virtue (silent)
Year of Release: 1928
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Isabel Jeans, Franklin Dyall, Robin Irvine
Plot outline: A divorcée hides her scandalous past from her new husband and his family (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. In the early stages of his directing career, Alfred Hitchcock made 
a number of hackneyed studio movies which barely resemble the works he would go on to direct. The society drama Easy Virtue is one of the nine silent movies Hitchcock directed. The movie opens with Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) posing for her portrait in an artist's studio. The behaviour of her boorish, philandering husband, Aubrey Filton (Franklin Dyall), drives her into the artist's arms where her husband discovers her. In the melee that follows, the artist shoots the husband, wounding but not killing him. Aubrey sues for divorce and Larita falls from grace in the courtroom while journalists feed the public a salaciously inflated account. Ruined, Larita flees to the south of France and meets John Whittaker (Robin Irvine), a young, upstanding British man. They fall in love, marry, and the happy couple returns to England to mummy. Mother Whittaker, a Victorian in the modern age, strenuously opposes the union and upbraids John for bringing scandal upon the family name. Neither John nor his father has the strength to withstand Mother Whittaker's onslaught, and the movie, and Larita, end miserably. Hitchcock does one of his wordless cameos in the movie. (NYT)
My judgement: ** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Ring (silent)
Year of Release: 1927
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis, Ian Hunter
Plot outline: Two boxers compete for the love of a woman (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. The Ring is a traditional prizefighting melodrama, 
elevated by the richness of the characterizations and the stylish, Germanic use of the camera. But, the movie has its faults, but they are not faults of showmanship. The story is of the competition of two professional boxers, one her husband - Carl Brisson plays "Round One", a cocky young boxer who matriculates from sideshow bouts to the big time - and the other her nearly successful suitor, for one woman. Round One's marriage to Lillian Hall-Davis goes sour when she throws him over for the champ. An old and rather a thin story, but well told and well acted by Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall Davis and Ian Hunter. There is, too, an appearance in a minor part of Gordon Harker, which proves him to have a sense of humor and character and an extraordinarily flexible and expressive face which should some day make his reputation on the screen. Mr. Hitchcock's method of treating his subject may be roughly described by saying that it has something in common with both German and American technique. It has a German variety of photographic angle and a German love of suggesting emotion very skilfully by means of circumstantial detail, and it has sometimes an American smoothness and swiftness. During the climactic big fight, Hall-Davis realizes that she's still in love with Round One when she witnesses the brutal beating he's getting. As in Hitchcock's later suspense movies, sparks ignite between hero and heroine only when there's an element of danger involved. There are scenes of irrelevant farce which should have been omitted, but the big scenes are well contrived and in spite of its rather commonplace subject, the movie has distinction. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Lodger (silent)
Year of Release: 1927
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June, Malcolm Keen, Ivor Novello
Plot outline: A landlady suspects her new lodger is the madman killing women in London (IMDb).
An assortment of Hitchcock's greatest early movies are featured in a three-disc collection. 
The Lodger, while it was not his first movie, was the first to truly deserve the designation "A Hitchcock Movie". A serial killer known as "The Avenger" (in reference to "Jack the Ripper" - the serial killings taken place in the autumn of 1888 in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London) is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man - British matinee idol Ivor Novello plays Jonathan Drew, a quiet, secretive young man - arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. Drew's arrival coincides with the reign of terror orchestrated by "The Avenger". The lodger quickly builds a close friendship with Daisy, the Bunting's daughter, who is seeing one of the detectives assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of him and begins to suspect he may be the murderer ... causing plenty of anxiety for the house's other residents. As the story proceeds, circumstantial evidence begins to mount, pointing to Drew as the selfsame murderer. As the movie progresses, tension and fear continue to build until an ending that is exciting, if somewhat melodramatic. In addition to Novello's 1932 remake, The Lodger was remade in 1944 with Laird Cregar, then again in 1953 as Man in the Attic, with Jack Palance as Jonathan Drew. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: A Man for All Seasons
Year of Release: 1966
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles
Plot outline: The life story of Sir Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarriage (IMDb).
Adapted from Robert Bolt's hit play of the same title, director Fred Zinnemann presents us with an awesome view of a sturdy conscience and a steadfast heart. He crystallizes the essence of the drama in such pictorial terms as to render even its abstractions vibrant. This movie is an extended exposition of a man's refusal to swerve from his spiritual and intellectual convictions at the insistence of his King. And such ideological disagreements are difficult to state in visual terms, no matter how pyrotechnic the proponents and opponents may be. He doesn't allow his excellent cast to resort to pyrotechnics, except in the singular case of Robert Shaw's tempestuous performance of the unbalanced Henry VIII. Mr. Shaw is permittedly eccentric, like the sweep of a hurricane as he shapes a frightening portrait of the headstrong, heretical King who demands that More give acquiescence to his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Mr. Scofield is brilliant in his exercise of temperance and restraint, of disciplined wisdom and humour, as he variously confronts his restless King or Cardinal Wolsey, who is played by Orson Welles with subtle, startling glints of poisonous evil that, even to this day, are extraordinary for him. Mr. Scofield is equally disciplined and forceful in his several dialectical duels with the King's advocate, Thomas Cromwell, who is played by Leo McKern with truly diabolical malevolence, or in his playful discourses with his son-in-law, William Roper, whom Corin Redgrave makes a bit of a flop. In fact, it is this delineation of More's sterling strength and character, his intellectual vigour and remarkable emotional control, that endow this movie with dynamism in even its most talky scenes. And, heaven knows, it is talky - full of long theological discourses and political implications that you must know your history to understand. Throughout, Mr. Scofield manages to use the glowing words of the script and his own histrionic magnificence to give a luminescence and power, integrity and honor, to this man who will not "yes" his King. And he also gets some deep emotion in his ultimate farewell scene with his stalwart wife, played by Wendy Hiller, and his daughter, played (too softly) by Susannah York. This movie won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, as well as seven British Film Academy awards. A Man for All Seasons is a movie that inspires admiration, courage and thought. (NYT)
My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Sting
Year of Release: 1973
Country of Origin: USA
Director: George Roy Hill
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw
Plot outline: In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker (IMDb).
The Sting looks and sounds like a musical comedy from which the songs have been removed, leaving only a background score of old-fashioned, toe-tapping piano rags. Mr. Newman and Mr. Redford, dressed in best, fit-to-kill, snap-brim hat, thirties splendor, looking like a couple of guys in old Arrow shirt ads, are more or less reprising their roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Mr. Newman is Henry Gondoroff, the older con artist in charge of the instruction of Johnny Hooker (Mr. Redford), the bright, eager, younger man who yearns to make what the movie calls the Big Con (swindle). Their quarry is a ruthless, vain, fastidious New York racketeer named Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw in the broad manner. The director supplements the period sets and costumes with elaborate technical devices to move from one scene into another: wipes, iris-outs, images that turn like pages, title cards. It's all a little too much, but excess is an essential part of the movie's style. The Sting has a conventional narrative, with a conventional beginning, middle and end, but what one remembers are the set pieces of the sort that can make a slapped-together Broadway show so entertaining. These include a hilarious, thoroughly crooked poker game in which Henry blows his nose on his tie to the horror of Lonnegan, as well as a chase that lasts approximately two minutes, and the final swindle, the mechanics of which are still none too clear to me. The only woman with a substantial role in the movie is Eileen Brennan, who plays a madam with a heart of gold and enough time off to be able to assist the stars in the final con. It is not a terrible perversion of the romantic movie-team concept idealized by William Powell and Myrna Loy, Clark Gable and Lana Turner but, rather, a variation on the old Dr. Gillespie - Dr. Kildare relationship, with a bit of Laurel and Hardy thrown in. It is also apparently very good box office. (NYT)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: The Quick and the Dead
Year of Release: 1995
Country of Origin: USA, Japan
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio
Plot outline: Lady avenger returns to western town owned by a ruthless gunslinger hosting an elimination tournament (IMDb).
Ms. Stone makes a smashing entrance and then says little, with her mind occasionally wandering back to the childhood trauma that explains why she has come to town. In playing to her formidable strength, it's a definite improvement on Ms. Stone's other post-Basic Instinct career choices. It's hard to think of another actress who followed such an electrifying star turn with so many wan, unflattering roles and ineptly directed movies. This time, at least, she has the chance to taunt, mock, smolder and otherwise do what she does best. "What if you get killed? " asks the admiring little girl who watches Ellen carefully, providing an element of Shane appeal. "Well, I won't be around to answer any more of your dumb questions," Ellen replies. Mr. Hackman, whose presence makes Unforgiven another of the countless other westerns recalled here, is himself no slouch in the taunting department. Nobody plays a bile-dripping villain to quite the same slinky effect, even if he seems to have baited a dozen gunfighters too many before the quick-draw contest is finally over. On the night Herod lures Ellen to his lair for an intimate dinner - the kind where she secretly hides a gun in her garter - he and Ms. Stone prove themselves well matched when it comes to insinuating remarks. He: "I could give you more money than you'd ever spend." She: "I wouldn't feel liked I'd earned it." He: "Oh yes, you would." Not enough of this movie succeeds in being that wicked, but it uses a large and varied cast to sustain interest. Veteran actors from Pat Hingle to Woody Strode turn up in small roles, and Russell Crowe has a nice turn as the reformed gunfighter who has turned his back on violence until ... well, you can guess the rest. Also here, and commanding enough limelight to show why the camera loves him, is the immensely promising Leonardo DiCaprio, as the boastful young gunfighter who claims to be Herod's son and calls himself ... well, you can guess that, too. (NYT)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Year of Release: 1939
Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, Jamaica Inn was the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted (the others were Rebecca and The Birds). Having set his own standards, Hitchcock must be judged by them; and, by them, this movie is merely journeyman melodrama, good enough of its kind, but almost entirely devoid of those felicitous turns of camera phrasing, the sudden gleams of wicked humor, the diabolically casual accumulation of suspense which characterize his best pictures. Without them, Hitchcock is still a good director, imaginative and cinema-wise, but with no more individuality than a dozen others in his field and subject, like them, to the risk of having a mere actor run away with the movie. That had never happened to Hitchcock before. His pictures always were his. Jamaica Inn will not be remembered as a Hitchcock picture, but as a Charles Laughton picture. It bears the Laughton stamp. Perhaps that is the root of the evil, if it is an evil. For Hitch never faced a player his size before. With two such stalwart individualists battling on a bare sound stage they might have come to a draw. Laughton sets the pace, slower than Hitch would have ordered it. Laughton is such a bulky man to get into motion. I had the impression, as the movie rolled on, of Hitch rushing the action to his doorstep and then having to wait three or four minutes for Laughton to answer the bell. Actually, the wait must have told more on Hitch than it did on me. There are other virtues: Maureen O'Hara, who is lovely, has played Mary Yellen well this side of ingenue hysteria, with charming naturalness and poise, with even a trace of self-control in her screams. Leslie Banks is capital as Joss Merlyn, the wrecker ringleader, with a fine crew of cutthroats around him - Emlyn Williams, Wylie Watson, Edwin Greenwood among them. Marie Ney as the girl's aunt, Robert Newton as the undercover man, George Curzon as one of Sir Humphrey's blanker friends are splendid in their degree. I enjoyed it all, Laughton most, but it doesn't seem like Hitchcock. (NYT)
