Waltzes from Vienna (1934) - Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock, during the 1930s, prolificly produced more than one feature annually, was a stage in which the cinema world was largely still assimilating the gigantic change and evolution that the arrival of sound meant. The master of suspense was as well growing as a filmmaker, was founding himself, still drawing the definitive seals of his own cinema, and would produce those years some of the most unusual pictures of his career. For the present film Hitch surprises propers and strangers, adapting part of the life of the great composer Johann Strauss son, the younger, and as it almost never stopped being a rule in the hitchockian creation, the English filmmaker adapted to the cinema a literary work, in this occasion by Heinz Reichert and Ernst Marischka, in which the beginnings of the young Strauss junior are set, the moment in which composed the immortal waltz, The Blue Danube, the interpersonal relations that had with a girlfriend of his, jealous of the attentions that one distinguished countess put in the young composer, but also the suspicion of his father, Johann Strauss senior, facing the effervescent musical ascent of his son. Cinematographically, this work contributes little, relatively little to Hitch's prolific and extensive work, and divides critics' opinions about its worth and significance throughout his filmography.

           


The picture begins in a residence, is Vienna, there is much activity in the surroundings, in the interior of the house is the young Johann Strauss (Esmond Knight), playing the piano, whereas the beautiful Rasi (Jessie Matthews), his girlfriend, accompanies by singing. Johann charmes all the ladies who listen to his melodies from outside the room, and also attracts the attention of the distinguished Countess Helga von Stahl (Fay Compton), while there is much activity, many outrages for a cultural activity. The countess soon meets her admired composer, professes her admiration and even sets an appointment at her home, to hear him composing. The young Johann plays in the orchestra led by his father, the renowned Johann Strauss senior (Edmund Gwenn), but when the son plays for the father at the piano his most recent creation, still in process of creation, only gets mocks. The opposite happens to the Countess, who appreciates his music, and with whom he meets Prince Gustav (Frank Vosper); but it is with Rasi that he manages to advance in his new creation, until it is ready. Rasi feels jealous of the countess and her closeness to Johann, even thinks about ending their relationship, but finally, the song is performed in public, is a resounding success, Strauss Father recognizes the undeniable talent of his son, and Rasi realizes that she is Johann's true sweetheart.












The present movie feels atypical from the very beginning, because there are concatenated together some representative images of the area where everything happens, but the absence of frenetic montage, the darkness of the frames, so many occasions recurrent in his most famous and successful films, converts this feature in something different from the initial second. Abundant musical elements, and a generally static camera, according to the overall tone of the feature (only timidly we appreciate a little mobility in the camera in the first few minutes), finish configuring that beginning of film in which we immediatelly nottice that this is a different movie, even considering the context, when not even a lustrum was fulfilled of the sound cinema, and when Hitchcock produced many atypical features for his style. The treatment that is dispensed to the movie, a treatment that is light, innocent, delicate and almost playful continues to shape this film, continues to make it scarce and almost force us to evoke some of the Hitchcock's works that are closest to this exercise; even the director's often infallible cameo seems to be missing. Only a few symmetrical and harmonic frames recall the film-director's cinematic expertise, the precision of the camera, as well, finally acquires mobility and correct expositive language when it portrays the young Strauss with von Stahl Countess. The camera wanders serenely with a delicate travelling through the room where the composer and countess share the time artistically, one playing, the other singing, also parallels the beautiful Rasi, who is singing as well. Those very few moments of freedom for the camera, added to the frames portrayed, frankly, convey more beauty without words -conventional words, conversations, because there is singing- than most of the footage.












It is a film in general lines, light and cheerful, strikingly innocuous, with the central story, the creative process of Strauss son for his Blue Danube, framed in a juvenile love story, innocent, playful, making it almost impossible not to surprise the character of the film, so different from what is conventionally considered the best of hiotchcockian cinema. The historical veracity, that is, the veracity of the facts portrayed, is something that I will leave strictly to the historians or connoisseurs of the life of the master, Strauss son, this article focuses on the appreciated film work, its strengths and shortcomings, and the way it distances itself from the highest summits of Hitchcock. We can recall some of Hitch's oddities of that period, The Farmer's Wife or Champagne, both of 1928, both silent comedies away from the suspense, likewise The Skin Game or Rich and Strange, both released in 1931; the three last mentioned works maintains the common edge of the aristocracy, and its defects embodied in the films. Those are some of the works that I could list as the oddities of Hitch, but naturally some could also name The Ring (1927), or some other atypical work, with different criteria of appreciation. Of course, we can appreciate a feminine treatment very different from Hitch, avoiding the traditional misogyny that the filmmaker faces, and the female duel is appreciable, although not intense, it is decent, with young and beautiful Jessie Matthews facing to Fay Compton, the countess; both satisfy viewer, not stand out, but without dissonancing either. Interesting and different appreciations to female characters, as, just to cite an example, we saw in Juno and the peacock (1929), and then we would see in the huge Psycho.












Hitchcock said in an interview that this was the feature he felt less proud of, he called it a musical without music, and certainly the picture feels as if it did not finish taking shape, it feels that it loses the effectiveness of the best Hitchcock, the interest is diluted and everything is lost in the history of juvenile love, which steals the attention, in these young fantasies the main guidelines of the English director are lost. As more than one can intuit, the picture, to a large extent, aside of an acceptable staging and sobriety to represent the Vienna of these years, perhaps more than finding its goodness or virtues, can serve to look for certain affinities with other films, as other critics have tried to do. In this sense, some of them tried to find similarities in some detail, such as the waltz dance image that almost like a leitmotiv repeatedly appears in a posterior feature, or the preponderance of the musical presence in the Albert Hall appreciated that same year, 1934, in The man that knew too much; even some closeness was wanted to appreciate with Torn Curtain (1966). Anyway, what does seem consensual is that this is not a masterpiece, not one of the cinematographic summits of the enormous Hitchcock, but is interesting and necessary for the so-called completists of Hitch's work. Lacking almost all of Hitch's main guidelines, warmly recovering all the watchwords with the camera work deployed in the musical interpretation sequences, and with a montage that frequently appears in the same sequences, the film arouses different emotions, but does not excels. Some fun and curious wink at voyeurism we will find, though, with the beautiful Rasi being forcibly lowered through a ladder, and displaying, a little too much for the time, her charms. In addition is united the correct and distinguished Edmund Gwenn like Strauss father; overall it stands an atypical film of Hitchcock, but for the right palate, will have elements of interest.

Skin Game (1931) - Alfred Hitchcock

Another of the early sound film exercises of the giant British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, the immortal master of suspense, who in those years, beginning the third decade of the last century, was naturally still delineating his definitive cinematic style. Picture that is very coherent with the other works that together give shape to the director's film production, in which we miss almost all the main artistic vertices of the filmmaker, but in turn, for the prepared eye, it will be possible to recognize some common points with the mentioned features, the other films that make up this formative stage of the great Hitch. Keeping some of these common points, the director adapts to the big screen again a work primarily literary, in this case a play of a certain success by John Galsworthy, which portrays the history of the rural drama of two families, one of rooted country ancestry, which will have a rough shock when its tranquility and routine break when the other, a wealthy family, whose wealth is product of great businesses, arrives; that friction will bring lamentable and even fatal consequences. We will recognize some relatively assertive faces of Hitchcock's filmography, as well as new additions to his acting team as is natural; a movie branded as minor, but never despicable.

              

   

The actions begin in a farm, a rural environment where the daily activities of these locations are carried out, is the estate where the Hillcrist marriage lives, the husband (CV France) and Mrs. Hillcrist (Helen Haye), among to his Daughter Jill (Jill Esmond). Their existence is quiet, however, some economic hardships begin to torment the peasant clan, and at that moment appears Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), wealthy city aristocrat, that arrives at the field with intentions to buy lands and modernize the area. In an initial interview with Mr. Hillcrist, Hornblower makes known his intentions to buy their land, obtaining negative resistance; the war is declared, even says Hillcrist. The economic difficulties do not cease, an auction is carried out by the lands of the Hillcrist, buying it Hornblower for a large monetary sum. Thus comes the aristocratic patriarch and his sons, Rolf (Frank Lawton) and Charles (John Longden), in addition to his daughter-in-law Chloe (Phyllis Konstam), but the way they arrive does more than irritate former owners, particularly Mrs. Hillcrist. The country matriarch does not doubt in, aided by Dawker (Edward Chapman), blackmailing Mr. Hornblower with shameful secret information that has on Chloe. The very tense situation will finally have a regrettable ending for both families in litigation.












The feature depicts a strong human conflict, a social conflict, a social-classes-clash, and this marked contraposition and contrast is readily printed, when we see a representative of each clan together in one of the first sequences, the beautiful Jill and the young Rolf Hornblower, and the opposition becomes clear and obvious: he in a car, she on a horse; he wearing black, she in white. Whether or not random these details, let us glimpse the strong antagonism of families we will appreciate, including some shots overlaying to reinforce this intention of Hitch. Curiously (and strangely as well, by the way) Hitch does not dare to make many of his usual visual contraptions like the one just mentioned, and in the other few that he wields, a nice and warm Expressionist heritage is noticed. Nevertheless, in certain cinematographic edges, it does keep closeness and similarity the picture with other contemporaries, like the immediately previous Murder!. Thus, we can see a very characteristic beginning of the film, when we see a fast parade of images chained, typical images of the area where everything happens, detailed images of animals, domestic dogs, people, a horn, etc. These images are characteristic of the pictures of this stage of Hitch, and are, among other elements, what make a task relatively easy, for the connoisseur, to recognize this hitchcokian movie as a work of its author. Like so many other Hitchcockian features of those years, the present video, inspired as many times in theater dramas, is impregnated with a strong scenic conception of that artistic branch. Thus, slow plane sequences in turn give form to a theatrical halo; that curtain, which, like a sheet, repeated and significant times appears on the screen (when Chloe approaches a collapse over her reputation), sometimes transforming into a door, which separates the viewer from the action, who almost feels it.












Also, most of the actions happen indoors, and this, added to the few main characters, with secondary ones as well, contributes to generate that subtle theatrical but almost always present in the movie aura, and inevitably also gives it a certain slowness development to the film, which ends at certain moments feeling innocuous. We will appreciate some details of plastic beauty at the beginning of the film, Miss Hillcrist walks away riding a horse, and a beautiful frame presents her to us, surrounded by the natural environment, and despite the absence of vital color in the black and white, beauty is appreciated in that brief picture. In an almost immediate sequence, we appreciate the car of a member of the Hornblowers approaching a house, with an equal of laudable frame, but unfortunately, the images of these characteristics practically do not repeat during the film, because as it was said, incomprehensibly the director almost completely resigns to his accustomed and appreciable visual tricks; something lamentable, is a film of the most linear that has been seen from him. But among the positive elements in the film, which of course there are, we have the sequence of the auction, which is one of the highlights of the film in terms of staging, starting with a slow pace, barely interrupted by certain Jill's hallucinations, to then reach a frenetic pace when bidders begin to make their offerings. To this fast pace collaborates an energic and vigourous camera work, trembling putting us in the auctioner's point of view, the situation grows in intensity at a geometric rhythm, and reaches the greatest tension when Hornblower's final offer is accepted. The change of rhythm in this sequence is sensible, and it is necessary considering how crucial the circumstance is, introducing us to the drama of both the peasant and the aristocrat, introducing us to the closest thing to the suspense that is in the picture.

Interesting in a not very attractive work is Hitch's portrayal of the society of his time, of the rancid aristocracy -as in the very film sometime is said-, of its concern to maintain a false and artificial image before the society, the fear of social humiliation. But also hypocrisy, machiavellianism, things that are not alien to the supposedly lower stratum, the rural stratum of the Hillcrist, particularly in the surprising and cold figure of the mother. In the film we explore dangerous human relations, what the passions can unleash on the people, putting at risk their own existences, an aggressiveness that became psychological torture for poor Chloe, who ends up crumbling in the middle of that despicable world. In the midst of these outrages, in the midst of that hardness, of that machiavellianism and coldness, only Chloe cracks, she is the fragility in the middle of all that hardness. The director portrays many of the human passions, negative passions, flaws, complex human relationships seen through the lens of social conflict. The final figure of the tree going down is the obvious symbolism of a human group that has decomposed, has broken, has been corrupted to its root. It is said that Hitch made this film more commissioned by British studies than anything else, and perhaps it is true, a conflict, a clash of two social masses is not a recurring theme in Hitch, aside from being left out a little the political cinema or class struggle, focusing more on human confrontation. Another work not very similar to filmmaker's usuals, something common in this period as it was said, his main topics are missing, there is no death, no suspense, no police investigation, and the few cornerstones that appear, do it in dribs and drabs. It is very noticeable that it is a feature of the initial period of Hitch, his English period, is still warm the filmmaker, still young, still without completely entering fully in his thing, the suspense. Depending on the audience, it is a non-spectacular feature, but necessary for fans of the great Hitch.