30s Hitch: MURDER! (That doesn’t need to be spelled out, does it?)
We have cross-dressing and gender-bending,
altogether-too-close-up shots of feet, the desperate acts that a racist society
can drive someone to, the brutal irony of that act, discussions of the
barbarity of capital punishment, and a metatextual finale that calls into
question the nature of the narrative just watched. In other words, Hitchcock is
becoming HITCHCOCK.
While it’s true that “The Lodger” is truly the first
“Hitchcock film” after years of working on pretty middle of the road fare, and
“Blackmail” is certainly a treat in its own way (but not released in the
thirties, so I can’t include them in this series), it’s here that Hitch enters
the thirties with a distinct distillation of all he’s learned since spending
time in the mid-twenties in Germany and developing his unique approach to
suspense, moral ambiguity, and in general, messing with people’s heads.
The movie opens on a small village in rural England
and the camera tracks along an ascending road passing facades of houses in a
row of the same design. The opening smacks of what would be reminiscent of a
Universal horror movie, if it didn’t precede those by a year. A cats hisses and
yowls, a ruckus dusts up, and various and sundry village folk stick their heads
out of their windows to see what the problem is.
We end the procession inside a bedroom occupied by Ted
and Doucie Markham, played by Edward Chapman and Phyllis Konstam, respectively.
Doucie mentions she sees a policeman and begins fumbling with her nightgown to
try to get herself together to follow her husband to the scene. On the one
hand, it’s an awkward bit of comic relief; on the other, Hitch’s camera lingers
on her feet not so different from Tarantino lingering on Thurman’s in “Kill
Bill, Vol. 1” or maybe that’s just me.
And what a scene it is. A couple of doors down, the
camera moves through the crowd gathered at the door of 13 whatever the street
name is and begins a slow pan from a dazed, catatonic woman down to a poker,
some splotches of blood to a hand, to a woman’s body, her feet, and her head.
Faces are frozen in mute profiles and three-quarter views, and the gravity of
the situation is palpable.
The catatonic woman is an actress – Diana Baring
(played by Norah Baring) – and she remains silent as the swirl of overlapping
dialog plays background to the policeman’s questioning. There’s an empty flask,
so the assumption is that she drank it all, the landlady removes herself to
make tea with a neighbour for Diana and they gossip about both women and the
ruckus and argument that preceded discovery of the body.
When Diana does speak, she says she doesn’t remember
anything and is led away before she can sip the tea. She’ll get some at the
station. In short order, she’s booked and charged with murder and in under ten
minutes, we’ve already arrived at trial. Indeed, a title card reads “Rex vs.
Diana Baring” and while the trial itself proceeds apace, it’s the jury
deliberation that sets events in motion that will eventually lead to Diana’s freedom.
“Time is money, you know.” – Jury Foreman
“Time, in this case, may I remind you, is life.” – Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall)
Each of the jurors with lines are well-defined
characters and while one would think that this would be a unanimous jury, there
are three verdicts of “not guilty.”
The first is an intelligent woman who sets forth a
psychological defense; that Diana was in a fugue state and couldn’t be held
accountable for her actions. This was countered by another woman who pointed
out that, in that case, it wouldn’t be right to release the accused because of
the possibility that she might murder again.
The verdict is changed to “guilty.”
Next is Mr. Daniels, a rather large, gruff fellow, who
essentially feels that a woman that attractive couldn’t have done it. He admits
he’s stricken, and after a little pressure, capitulates.
The last “not guilty” juror is Sir John Menier,
playwright, actor, and leading thespian who holds out based on the fact that
Diana didn’t drink the brandy. He mentions that it doesn’t feel right but can’t
mount a convincing argument for Diana’s innocence in the face of the other
jurors’ objections that grow into a veritable chant. It’s a startling and
frightening scene – not because we fear physical harm is imminent – but because
we see how difficult it is to articulate what we feel is right, particularly
when faced with a mob or a chorus of pressure. Sir John changes his verdict.
There were also two who wavered from casting any
verdict until pressed. The first dissenting voice was a fellow named Shackleton
who was conflicted by the barbarity of sentencing Diana to death but faced with
the unfairness of letting her go free if she had indeed committed murder.
The other was a mousy fellow who seemed to be confused
by the psychological argument that the women had discussed. This was either
lousy comic relief or a satirical indictment of a process in which those who
serve on juries may not be the brightest of bulbs.
Both submit “guilty” verdicts and Diana is sentenced to
death by hanging.
Next is a sequence of cross fades from doors to
drawing room to bathroom where Sir John is shaving and his butler brings in a
radio to listen to the news covering the Baring trial. During this, we hear
that voiceover as he turns over in his mind his doubts and confronts his
inadequacy in mounting a sustainable defence. “It was that manner of hers….very
attractive, I thought…but what about the brand?....” As the volume of his
internal monolog grows louder, so too does the orchestra playing on the
soundtrack and here are a couple of technical notes.
There was no dubbing in post. There was no
post-production to speak of (aside from lab work on the visuals.) Herbert
Marshall pre-recorded his monolog and this was played live during the filming,
as well as the orchestra playing the score! A thirty piece orchestra, at that,
and my assumption is that the orchestra played live throughout the film. This
would account for spikes in volume and why, in other parts of the film, dialog
was sometimes drowned out.
We cut to the Markhams responding to an invitation
from Sir John in a montage of getting dressed to appear before him. Shoes are
zoomed in and the whole sequence is actually striking. Too striking to be
another stab at comic relief (though Doucie does seem to be a Gracie Allen type
character.)
Sir John has called on the Markhams because they’re
part of the drama troupe and knew everyone well. He had decided to investigate
this case himself out of a sense of responsibility to Diana; she had met with
him and it was he who said that she needed to get more experience and this
would be a good way to go about that.
He needed people with inside information and the Ted
Markham was the manager of the troupe, after all. Sir John works his charm on
the couple and notes that while often, in acting, the play calls for the
actors’ art to make real the suspense mystery on stage, this time, the art
would be used to work at a solution to a crime on the stage of reality.
Sir John lays out his concerns: when Diana complained
of her head hurting, no doctor examined her; there was no private investigation;
for that matter, there was no inquiry whatsoever. She was already judged and
sentenced before the trial, and he himself was “caught up in the machine” that
makes these decisions even in the absence of due process.
The trio repairs to dining and they settle on Sir
John’s theory that it was an outside party that had perpetrated the crime. In
going over the happenings of the night of the murder, Doucie reveals that when
she looked out in the street, she saw a policeman but when Ted looked out, he
was gone. Doucie noted that the policeman at the crime scene was not the same
one she’d seen earlier.
From drawing room discussion to crime scene
investigation
With their theories in place, the intrepid trio head
to the scene of the crime. As in “The Lodger”, the number thirteen is prominent
as the address. I’m not sure if Hitchcock is capitalizing on the “unlucky”
number for that reason or if there’s something more to it (or absent any
reference at hand, nothing?) There the landlady mentions that she heard a
squeaky female voice and it occurred to them that a member of the troupe was
adept at imitating female voices. However, she demurs: “You can’t mistake a
woman’s voice.”
Sir John moves out of the room and proves otherwise. It’s
here that we see Hitchcock’s use of long takes to convey a character’s reflection.
We’ve seen it before when Sir John Menier was shaving and we know he’s thoughtful
from his deliberation during the verdict debate; but this is different. There’s
no sound. Hitchcock applied the lessons from Dreyer in using a steady, almost
portrait-like shot to draw out and/or look into the thoughts of a character. The
silencing of a soundtrack, a score, or any ambient sound automatically invokes
a heightened sense of anticipation with its stillness. This early into the
sound era, it’s telling how deft Hitchcock was at utilizing that heightened
sense and in what better genre than suspense?
From here, the group move to the theatre where the
troupe performed and Sir John and company mull over the dressing room shared by
Handel Fane and Ion Stewart, both still considered suspects to the group. There’s
a basin broken where a corner has been shorn off just under a window that leads
to the street. One immediately figures it for boost to escape out the window or
a step upon entry coming through it.
Markham’s landlady had also mentioned Fane wearing a policeman’s
uniform. Another piece of evidence was a cigarette found with blood on it.
Stewart also performed as a policeman in the play the ensemble performed, but
there was one more piece to the puzzle: what was the name of the man Diana
Baring withheld?
The next day, Sir John calls on Miss Baring in prison
and while not a reconstruction of the court scene in Dreyer’s “Joan of Arc”, it
was a similarly stark, minimal set. Hitchcock shoots the conversation as a two-hander,
cutting back and forth between Norah Baring (the actress portraying Diana
Baring – no, I don’t know if the character’s last name and the actress’s being the
same is just coincidence) and Herbert Marshall.
Diana wants to do anything but discuss the events of
the night of the murder, and doesn’t want to discuss the trial or her situation.
Sir John comes to her offering a confession, as well as attempting to find out
who she’s protecting. She doesn’t seemed fazed that he feels responsible for
her situation because he had impressed on her when she came to him a year ago
that she get on with a traveling
ensemble and gain experience before taking up a career on the London stages.
Diana seems more of a cypher than an actual person, and I hate to say it, but
genuinely a not very bright cypher, at that.
Nevertheless, in between trying to get Sir John to
talk about anything else, she does admit that she and Edna quarrelled and that at
one point, she put her fingers in her ears to drown out Edna telling her about
the man she refused to mention to the jury, the man she was in love with. And
no, it was not Ion Stewart, it was Handel Fane. This comes out of her when Sir
John slides the cigarette case – Fane’s – down to her (and draws the guard’s
ire and closes the visitation.)
Essentially, the gist of the blogger’s argument is that
the way Fane was portrayed (by the great Esme Percy in a remarkable performance)
was as effeminate but not swishy; although, the subtext seems to be there that
he enjoyed his cross-dressing roles. This is more persuasive to me as a reason
why Fane would silence Edna; homosexuality was a crime in England, well into
the fifties. My sympathy for both Fane and Diana is rooted more in that take on
it than the “half-caste” element, which we can assume was chosen as code for
something that Hitchcock, a notorious (yes, I wrote that) homophobe, found
abhorrent.
After Sir John leaves, there’s a monologue between him
and Markham about Fane’s whereabouts played out over a montage of Diana pacing
the cell, a weathervane, and the shadow of the gallows growing with each
circuit she paces. It’s another solid composition in a career full of them.
Sir John and Markham find Fane back at his earlier job
as a solo trapeze artist in drag and Sir John lures Fane out with the promise
of a part in a play he had written for Fane. On arrival, Sir John tells Fane
that he’s been working on a play based on Edna’s murder and as Fane quickly
realizes, he’s reading for the part of the murderer. What’s odd and doesn’t
quite work, is that the play is left unfinished, the last page being an
open-ended “lure” that Fane was apparently to fill in, a confession by proxy?
In any case, he excuses himself and asks Sir John to let him know when the play
is finished.
Sir John and Markham decide to pay Fane another visit
at the circus. They chat uncomfortably with Fane in his dressing room as he finishes
writing a note and putting it in an envelope. He’s given curtain call and heads
out.
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| Nice headress |
Fane returns to the landing, fashions a quick noose with
a slip knot and takes his last high dive. As Hitchcock proved repeatedly
throughout his career, what you don’t see is far more effective and gruesome
than what you would have. The crowd’s reaction gets across a wave of revulsion
and tragedy and the simplicity of the camera panning across faces as the
ringmaster telling the orchestra to keep playing (he would have been a natural
on the Titanic) are all it take to amplify that.
Sir John is given the note Fane had set aside and it
is the finished act of the play, Fane’s confession in narrative form. I wonder
how that played out with a judge, but never mind; the next scene is Diana
Baring elegantly dressed in a posh, well-appointed boudoir. Sir John comes
forward, they say a few words, and embrace as the camera pans out to the applause
of an audience.
For a moment, that play within a movie focussing on a theatre
troupe recontextualized the narrative for me and I rather like the idea that
Hitchcock is interrogating the very text of the movie, the process of dramatic
composition, and tacitly asking us why do we fall for this? Why do we lose
ourselves to the tales in the repertories of the performing arts?
“Murder!” hints strongly at things to come. If “The
Lodger” is the first “true” Hitchcock film, the one where his themes come are
beginning to see daylight, “Blackmail” (as much of it as I can recall) is more
of a paean to his expressionist roots and advances somewhat more on those themes,
then “Murder!” is the first sense we have of Hitch from all angles. The themes
and obsessions are more deeply layered, the idea that the ending is never quite
as happy as you’d like to think, and at the same time, it’s not quite there
yet.
Hitchcock’s issues with his heroines are well-known.
His ambivalence to women smacks of the Madonna-whore dichotomy but we don’t
really encounter it here. The “wrong man” theme is subverted by a woman and she’s
given relatively short shrift. In fact, she may be the MacGuffin as ill-defined
as she is. People in general in a Hitchcock film are often taken as mere
phenomena, if not just simply objects and symbols. A semiotics of any one of
his films would be fertile soil for a thesis.
But there’s often more going on even in these early
years. I really do think that the theory advanced on that blog isn’t so far off
the mark. I’ve run with it a little, but I’d like to do or find out if someone
has already done a study on Hitchcock and his homophobia, particularly in relation
to what often reads as outright misogyny with regards to many of his female
characters.
Thirties’ Hitchcock is a prime example of a filmmaker
finding his voice and not just honing his craft but emerging toward the latter
half of the decade as a genuine master. It’s been said that he was reviled by
the British film industry and to some degree, the public, for abandoning the
U.K. for Hollywood, at a time when his voice as a film director – perhaps the
film director for Britain – was sorely needed as England entered World War
Two. I suspect he knew that if he was to grow, the United States was the only
place where he would be able to do so. The money and the producers were there
and if there were two ingredients any director needs to see a vision realized,
those are them.
There are other directors whose trajectories would be
worthy of such a decade by decade chronology, but Hitchcock’s transition from
journeyman to master in the country of his birth to a leading director on the
world stage is so clearly and cleanly delineated, that it makes it easy to
write about. I plan on going through Welles and Buñuel in due course, but I’m not in quite the same hurry
with them. In many ways, both Welles and Buñuel are closer to me in what draws me to cinema, but
Hitchcock is one of the few whose popular works are as challenging as theirs.
When I look at the works of the Italian neo-realists
and the French New Wave, I see Hitchcock’s influence as much as, say Luis Buñuel’s (more on the former than the latter) and how, in
many ways, echoes of his career can be found in Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson,
Bong Joon-Ho, and others. His most obvious descendant is Brian De Palma, but
there’s also Michael Haneke and Rian Johnson. We could keep digging and we’d be
hard-pressed to find someone not influenced by Alfred Hitchcock to some
degree.
1930 also has “Elstree Calling” and “Juno and thePaycock.” There’s more to come, in any case. If his work in the
thirties was uneven, it’s all rather fascinating in relation to his almost
perfect body of work in the forties and fifties. Watching artists find their
voices is part of what makes engaging with the arts so important and rewarding.
Following the masters of their arts and the arcs and ebbs and flows of their
development reminds us of our own. Let’s see what else Alfie has in store.
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