Alfred-Hitchcock Movie Reviews
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Well worth seeing
Hitch called it a 'disaster': he was wrong.The film begins with one of those bravura silent Expressionist sequences Hitchcock was so fond of in his early films. On a blustery night, our first image is of a stray hat blowing into the screen, eventually followed by its owner, the film's enigmatic hero. He stops at the grounds of a large house, with an ancient 'For Sale' sign; curious, he enters. The half-comic, half-terrifying Grand Guignol that follows, intercutting shadows, candles, mysterious strangers, doors opening and shutting, slow creeps up staircases, is extraordinary. Even furing the interminable dialogue scenes that follow, Hitch overcomes boredome with brusque but witty editing and compositions. There is one more terrific set-piece indoors, when the hero and the nominal heroine are tied by villains to a landing banister at the top of the house, which suddenly collapses.
You can tell Hitch is itching to get out for some fresh air, though, and jumps at the chance to follow the crooks on their getaway train. Here begins one of the greatest chase sequences in the cinema. The hero is pushed off the train, commandeers a coach full of passengers and at lightening speed, chases the train across country. Due to some bumbling and accidents.., the train has lost its driver and is hurtling towards destruction. The crosscutting of the two interrelated movements, and the mix of cinematic formalism and 'human-interest' stories, is breathtaking. And, brilliantly, it doesn't end there...
stunning chillerA dead body in a deserted house, found with handcuffs and a gun in his pocket, suddenly disappears. Weird people meet in a deserted haunted house at midnight. Gunshots in the dark. Ghostly white clutching hands. A strange cockney. A deaf and dumb woman who speaks. A diamond necklace found in a water-closet. All these strange events happen in the timeframe of a few short hours, without any reason or warning.
Hitchcock draws on all the tricks of the trade in this beautifully-constructed thriller, featuring Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, Ann Casson, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones, Garry Marsh, Henry Caine and Herbert Langley.
Well worth seeingThe story focuses around a stolen necklace, and a series of colourful characters, including a cockney who was a scene stealer, a deaf mute woman, a rather nosy lead actor and a number of "bad guys". Well worth watching, particularly if you keep in mind that this film is over 70 years old, and still holds its own
Hitch called it a 'disaster': he was wrong.The film begins with one of those bravura silent Expressionist sequences Hitchcock was so fond of in his early films. On a blustery night, our first image is of a stray hat blowing into the screen, eventually followed by its owner, the film's enigmatic hero. He stops at the grounds of a large house, with an ancient 'For Sale' sign; curious, he enters. The half-comic, half-terrifying Grand Guignol that follows, intercutting shadows, candles, mysterious strangers, doors opening and shutting, slow creeps up staircases, is extraordinary. Even furing the interminable dialogue scenes that follow, Hitch overcomes boredome with brusque but witty editing and compositions. There is one more terrific set-piece indoors, when the hero and the nominal heroine are tied by villains to a landing banister at the top of the house, which suddenly collapses.
You can tell Hitch is itching to get out for some fresh air, though, and jumps at the chance to follow the crooks on their getaway train. Here begins one of the greatest chase sequences in the cinema. The hero is pushed off the train, commandeers a coach full of passengers and at lightening speed, chases the train across country. Due to some bumbling and accidents.., the train has lost its driver and is hurtling towards destruction. The crosscutting of the two interrelated movements, and the mix of cinematic formalism and 'human-interest' stories, is breathtaking. And, brilliantly, it doesn't end there...
stunning chillerA dead body in a deserted house, found with handcuffs and a gun in his pocket, suddenly disappears. Weird people meet in a deserted haunted house at midnight. Gunshots in the dark. Ghostly white clutching hands. A strange cockney. A deaf and dumb woman who speaks. A diamond necklace found in a water-closet. All these strange events happen in the timeframe of a few short hours, without any reason or warning.
Hitchcock draws on all the tricks of the trade in this beautifully-constructed thriller, featuring Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, Ann Casson, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones, Garry Marsh, Henry Caine and Herbert Langley.
Terrible movie, terrible transfer, terrible DVD...As if the film isn't bad enough on it's own, this terrible, terrible video transfer by Laserlite makes the miserable experience even worse! Laserlight simply copied an already existing VHS transfer of the film, which is made apparent by several VHS tracking flaws in the film. This is totally unacceptable on a DVD! To make matters worse, the cropping is the worst I've ever seen in any movie transfer! In some scenes entire heads are cut off, leaving the viewer listening to disembodied voices talking and talking and talking for long periods of time. Wether or not the bad cropping was caused by Laserlite or the VHS transfer is irrelevant. It's bad and it shouldn't be printed this way on DVD. No matter how bad a film is, it shouldn't be treated in such a manner. The Dial M for Murder trailer and Tony Curtis' uninformed banter do not improve the entertainment experience one bit. Don't let this turn you off of these Laserlite Hitchcock DVDs, though. Most of them are good and a couple, even excellent. This is not one of those.
1 star to Hitchcock for not trying very hard in 1931, and 1 star star to Laserlite for not trying very hard in 1998
Forgetable early Hitchcock movie.
great suspense build-up, abrupt endingAbout the title: A "skin game" means a swindle, trick, or scam.
The movie starts with Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn) buying property from the proud, proper English landowner Hillcrest (C.V. France), assuring him that the tenant farmers would be allowed to stay. Soon Hornblower evicts them to build factories, because he is a man of progress and industry. Hillcrest is outraged, and sets out to stop Hornblower's efforts to buy up land for more factories.
Hillcrest attempts to slow down Hornblower's land purchases by rigging an auction on some property that's up for sale. But Hornblower figures out the scheme, and outsmarts Hillcrest with his own tricks. Hillcrest escalates the feud by hiring a man to dig up dirt on Hornblower and his family.
For a longer version of this review, with spoilers (and a spoiler warning), see IMDB.
Poor Video And Audio Transfer.
Hitchcock Collectionlkc@ite.net
The story focuses around a stolen necklace, and a series of colourful characters, including a cockney who was a scene stealer, a deaf mute woman, a rather nosy lead actor and a number of "bad guys". Well worth watching, particularly if you keep in mind that this film is over 70 years old, and still holds its own