Wow

Yeah, the version I saw was pretty bad quality. It really needed to be restored. However, considering I was able to get it at the 99 cent store, I doubt that means there is a huge group interested in it. This is actually the oldest Hitchcock movie I have seen. The next two oldest I saw were Sabotage and The 39 Steps. I've seen all of his later work (Psycho, Vertigo, etc.). It's interesting to see where the great director started.


I'm too indecisive to decide on a signature.

I watched it yesterday and I'm still a bit confused. I don't think it's such a bad film as some say, but... It had its good moments, OK, but it was more like "oh, here we are supposed to get thrilled" rather than getting thrilled actually. Perhaps it was the bad quality of the picture or the 21'' TV screen I watched it on, or maybe just the fact that so many decades have passed since then. Anyway, perhaps back in 1932 it may have been a quite good thriller, perhaps not. But today it's only worth watching for fun and curiosity (leaving out the academic-style comparative study of Hitchkok films).

No, you folks clearly haven't seen Rich and Strange. I didn't think it was possible for Hitchcock to make a film that was not only downright bad but also uninteresting at the same time, but that one certainly tops them all off. I'd rank it even below Jamaica Inn.

Number Seventeen was a nice surprise; quite an interesting little curio from a budding director who was only beginning to realize his full potential. As for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I found it to be an amusing diversion, and quite funny in parts. It's the most unusual film project he ever undertook, but it works rather well on it's own level.

But one of Hitchcock's better early British films that few seem to know about is Blackmail, one that I'm surprised doesn't have more of a fan following.

When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you

Hi, Miss Rae! Fancy meeting you here. As I mentioned to Xylonian (have you two met?) elsewhere on this thread, a group of us on the Watercooler just watched this film: http://us.imdb.com/board/bd0000101/nest/118351991.

I really enjoyed this, crude and badly plotted though it was. The shadows and the camera angles and the sound effects (never mind the unintelligible dialogue; I think the soundtrack just needs to be restored) are all expertly chosen. Hitchcock's talent is very much in evidence, especially when he makes a chase scene with laughably obvious models exciting nonetheless. I'm very happy to have finally seen this one for the first time.

Anyway, my vote for worst Hitchcock? Probably Juno and the Paycock or Murder! Juno is just a filmed play, and not filmed very well. Murder!, by contrast, is very cinematic and experimental -- but unlike, say, Blackmail, his experiments almost invariably fail. It has one great scene: the climax at the circus.

I enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It's not really a Hitchcock film; but it's a fairly likable screwball comedy. Carole Lombard makes any movie worth watching.


...Om