The film places us in a factory, where Fred Hill (Henry Kendall) works, with many other, then he arrives at home with his wife, Emily (Joan Barry); in the behavior of Fred it is noticed some discomfort. While they talk about certain dissatisfactions in their lives, he suddenly receives a notification, a wealthy relative has given him an inheritance, a large amount of money to fulfill his dream of traveling around the world. Immediately they collect their new capital, and immediately begin to spend it, going to sumptuous shows, and then already making the long-awaited international trip on a luxurious cruise. They travel through the most exotic and attractive locations in the world, and soon Emily meets an individual, Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont), with whom adultery soon materializes, while Fred passes it dizzy in his cabin. Fred himself, when feeling better, also knows a female, who seems to be distinguished and of good lineage, a foreign Princess (Betty Amann), with whom, although going slow, finally also have an idyll. After experiencing each one disappointments in their adventures, and after almost sinking the cruise and being rescued by Chinese pirates, rediscover their love, they realize the genuineness of their feelings, and stay happily together the Hill marriage.
If there is something recognizable on the present and irregular picture, among the few Hitchcockian elements we find, there is the traditional beginning of the film, with images fast-chained, expressing a lot and without words, they print to us in seconds the world in which unfolds the unsatisfied Fred, the suffocating and enslaving system. The first thing we see is a pencil and an accounting book, characteristic business elements, then a zoom out of the camera will show us the complete picture, with a large human mass working, formed with great precision in rows, arranged in endless rows of desks, everyone at a distance, but the picture frame shows us closer to a clock. Then the employees leave in endless rows, board the train to home, all shown in frenetic rhythm, a typical beginning for a Hitchcockian movie, all of which configures the suffocating and enslaving capitalist world, the office routine of which there is no escape, a world where individuality is reduced to nothing, where everybody is part of the same mass. Hitch does not stop, he is a master, in the midst of that frenzy of images, which almost suffocate as the same they represent, inserts the image of a text in a newspaper, which reads the question "are you happy with your current circumstances?" with which Hitch unequivocally reinforces the idea of tiredness, of being tired of that routine, of those circumstances, which extend beyond his work, to his life itself, the discontent and boredom of man are thus made evident. And Hitch continues, with his well-known narrative economy, promptly shows us the detail of the notification, soon and without wasting time, and without further explanation, we already know that the inheritance has arrived, that their world has changed. And so the whole feature, brief and succinct, shows just the necesary, few characters, few scenarios, minimal spaces, almost just the cruiser, economy of resources. It is undoubtedly one of the movies of this period of Hitchcock, the British period, and you can see it, features in which his definitive style, the suspense, was not yet defined at all, pictures that are moving a little far -or much in this case-, of the slopes where the cinema of the best Hitch flows.
The person who knows only the masterpieces of the britanish, will find the works of this stage as unrecognizable, and certainly are atypical, the tone of the movie is noticed from the beginning, there is an almost total absence of his artistic norms, knowing what Hitch later produced. However, the picture is identifiable in this period of Hitchcock, in which they seems to have many other topics the English, it feels particularly close, in many, to
Champagne (1928), with the obvious detail of the lavish cruiser, luxuries and the frivolities of the affluent class, their whims, lightheartedness, the situations that border the absurd, the themes that he had already approached in
Skin Game (1931), where the aristocracy is portrayed, but from a more fatalistic perspective, always presenting, though, the human relations, his defects, his complexes; apparently it is a subject that attracted Hitchcock for those years, always setting a detail of moral teaching, as later would nottice and claim the great Truffaut. Is thus moralizing the movie, they looked outside for a satisfaction that end up discovering there was, between themselves. As well, it seems as if Hitch almost misses some elements of the silent cinema, as you can see in the various text frames that appear during the film, documenting the journey, their destinations, the stopovers they make in their long international journey. This way, it feels a flat feature, without breaking the linearity of the film, although certainly the story did not invite much to it, but Hitch in similar movies always managed to find, where there seemed not to be, opportunities to insert audiovisual experiments, something to which in the present work did not encouraged to do. Among the few visual adventures in the making of the picture, we see some overlaying of frames, to portray Fred's dizziness, but as said, are scarce, somewhat regrettable. Appreciable, yes, are some metaphors, the wife soon meets a gentleman, confessing some of their marriage difficulties, while Fred rests in his cabin, dizzy, as if the hardships of his life extend even on the high seas, as if he remained dizzy, with stupor of his life.
Likewise, as she falls into the charms of Commander Gordon, she also longs to free herself from her routine, in which she feels trapped, wants to be free from those chains that have her tied, like those chains that appear while they are looking for a location more suitable for his affair. Finally their love will triumph, although perhaps that happy outcome has obeyed more the canons of the time than the taste of Hitch himself, this because then was unthinkable and unacceptable that the pair would have finished broken, each with their respective lovers, with the false princess who walks coolly on the ship, even talking to Emily, with remarkable cynicism. We see that the film is a brief study of human relations, weariness, tediousness, boredom ahead an existence that absorbs, subjugates, eliminates with its routine the taste for living, where frustrations, passions, libidine are printed, but finally, true love that triumphs. We also appreciate the metaphor of sinking, for the sumptuous transatlantic, in spite of its luxury and security, sinks, like their adventure itself; it fails, as the ephemeral idylls they had; is false, like the artificial lineage of the princess; is extinguished, like the life of the Chinese drowned. But their union resurfaces, reborns, as the newborn son, their love grows, it is incredible that those last ten minutes contain so much, more than the rest of the film. And the element of the Chinese pirates is crucial, symbolically save the marriage from the falsehood of their initial and apparent happiness on the cruise, they, despite their astonishing coldness, letting drown impassively one of his comrades (with them, the Hills eat extravagant food with their hands), or attending evenly the birth of a baby, a new life is born, as a new existence for the Hills is born as well. Nevertheless, in this type of avatars, human dramas framed in stories that are actually innocuous, which feel harmless, loses the filmmaker all the effectiveness and forcefulness of which we know is possessor when he prints his suspense; but you must have patience and understanding, the genius was in the final moments of his training. The best was yet to come. A film not extraordinary, but that serves to continue studying and configuring a global understanding of the oeuvre of such referential filmmaker.
Hitchocck continued during the thirties of the last century evolving and developing as a talkies filmmaker, with filmic exercises that still were not near the higher summits that the director would achieve some years later, but it can be recognized some of his main features already. If in previous exercises to this picture Hitch had been ostensibly moved away from his most recognizable imprint as master of suspense (not to go further, we see it on immediatelly previous Rich and strange, released the same year), with themes and topics far from mysteries, intrigues and uncertainties, recovers in the present work a bit of his innermost essence the director. In order not to lose the custom, Hitchcock once again adapts to the cinema a new literary work, a new theatrical piece, written by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, to capture one of the shorter films that he ever shot, with the simple history of a group of thieves, a band that takes refuge in an abandoned house, being followed by a detective; when a young woman, member of the gang, prevents the detective from being killed, in love with him, an intense persecution to recover a jewel will begin. Another picture with which, without being the best work of the director, you can follow the evolutionary path of the filmmaker.
Also in this short film Hitch recovers to a certain extent what was always one of his cinematic watchwords, the efficient and attractive camera work in his visual narration, a camera of free and precise movements, good-timing zooms and resolute travellings that follow the action of the protagonists by times, and by others places us practically in their perspectives, in their points of view. It is also added to that remarkable and recovered camera mobility, the aforementioned montage, with those changes of rhythm that are distributed in the film, and that suddenly unleash a frantic pace in the presentation and the way these images are intertwined. Images reinforced powerfully by high-angle shots, or low-angle shots, obtaining with those sudden changes of pace a suspense that is distended during the film, capturing efficiently the attention with that deployment, that work by the camera. The change of pace is something that will repeatedly use Hitch on the picture and always with good results, because then again will change the pace of his film in a notticeable way, with the second and shorter, but more intense part, the frantic chase to the train, the turning point in the film. The final persecution is a well-succeeded sequence, where all the aforementioned work of montage, of rapid concatenation of frames, reaches its culminating point, its highest cusp, to portray the speed of both the train and the bus, and the inertia in the protagonists, the frenetism reaches its greater point, good way to close the film, it was saved for the end that exciting outcome. Again we see travellings, more risky and dynamic than ever, diversity of angles, frames, camera mobility that also reaches its best moments, everything converges in a sequence that also has a lot of dynamism, diversity in their expressive records, correct and effective dynamism for that final persecution.
It is a film coherent with the moment of Hitchcock's career, that stage of his career, in which was still in formation the great genius, but who was already taking the final steps in that formation. Thus, as pointed in the opening paragraph, the feature immediately precedent to this work had been the atypical Rich and strange, also released in 1931, an unusual and innocuous study of the aristocracy and its frivolities, a subject that would not be exclusive to that film for Hitch by the way. But the present work recovers, from the aesthetic point of view, passing through the camera work, in addition, warmly, to the topic, much of what is the essence of the highest Hitchcockian cinema. Although almost all those guidelines are reflected to a lesser extent than in his masterpieces, and although the film feels to me at times a little slow, already it is perceived as an approach to what it was always Hitchcock; warm approachement, because it is a suspense not yet framed in all the artistic edges of the british, but already the path of his best norms is resumed. The film, in short, can not be counted among the best productions of the british filmmaker, but it has positive things, within its limitations, and in its brief footage, it achieves its objective, captures and maintains interest, weaves some intrigue, and aesthetycally the director meets again with some guidelines of his that had diluted strikingly in previous exercises. Does not recruit Hitchcock flashy actors, nor does he continue working with actors of his previous silent stage -as he did in other early talkies-, is a simple movie, simple plot, but with those elements, it is enough for Hitch to configure a decent, decent and appreciable work. Like almost all the productions of this moment in the cinematographic creation of the enormous Hitchcock, this is a film that can surprise the one who only knows the masterpieces of the english, but for the connoisseur of all his filmography, will serve as a useful tool for a global understanding of the oeuvre of the immortal master of suspense.
