30s Hitch: Juno and the Paycock (1930) - Much more than a mere curiosity
Hitchcock’s first talkie is referred to by – among others –
Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol – as not being a true Hitchcock film. Even
Hitchcock seemed to feel that way about it, and although it was not a director-for-hire
work, many seem to approach it as though it were. The film is an adaptation
of Sean O’Casey’s play of the same name and a pretty faithful adaptation, at
that.
Nevertheless, I agree with William Bass in his PhD thesis
that Hitchcock as adapter is not so easily dismissed and demands more attention
and greater care. Admittedly, the present piece under discussion start out
feeling like merely a matter of “let’s point the camera and shoot a play”.
However, this is deceptive as we will examine the film a little more closely.
I’m hesitant to ignore or downplay “Juno and the Paycock”
for several reasons. One, it is a Hitchcock film, even considered
stylistically. As much as the action is mostly confined to one set, the long
shots, and the stillness of the camera are employed to heighten the beats and
pauses of O’Casey’s language and relations between the characters. The exteriors lend considerable movement to moving the story forward.
In contrast to “Murder!” the first real Hitchcock of the
sound era, but also an adaptation, it’s worth comparing how he approached the
source material of each film. In each circumstance, Hitchcock is already on top
of the grammar of film (I really take issue with Charles Barr’s assertion that
this was a learning experience for the “young director”; Hitchcock had been
involved in film for a decade, had created near- if not real masterpieces with
“The Lodger” and “Blackmail” and had honed his craft working in Germany – he
wasn’t a greenhorn).
The differences between the two are obvious; one is, after
all, based on a play and resulted in a literal “photoplay”, the other is based on
a novel and subject to substantive and substantial alterations by Hitchcock. As
a result of these, the one carries more of Hitchcock's distinct style, but the other demonstrates the work of auteur at the service of a great piece of theater.
One aspect of the film that called attention to me isn’t
really about the film, but about Hitchcock’s politics and wondering how he felt
about the Irish Civil War, class in Britain, and the tensions between labor and
capital. Over the coming years, we will see that while he may not have publicly
said much about politics, there were concerns that he shared via film that are
difficult to not parse out as political statements. Hitchcock’s sympathies were
with the underdog; his protagonists may hail from diverse classes, but they are
very much maligned and endangered. I don’t think Hitch was always out to torture
the innocent (though I wouldn’t say there weren’t times when it felt like he
went out of his way to do so), but I do think that he had a genuine desire to
see a kind of retribution meted out.
As we’ll see repeatedly, Hitchcock wasn’t one for cheap
sentiment or an unambiguous happy ending. There’s always more tragedy just
outside the frame waiting. Consequently, that’s why “Juno and the Paycock” can
conceivably be considered a “true” Hitchcock film; the tragedy in O’Casey’s
play is unrelenting and ultimately, the resolution isn’t a happy one. It may or
may not be final, but no one’s singing for joy by the conclusion.
The film is often written off in more recent times for its
acting, as well, which is understandable, but only just so much. The acting is
very much stage like and this isn’t unusual for the period. The shift from
theater to film was difficult enough; what we read as broad, over-expressive
gesticulation in the early days of cinema derived from “playing to the cheap
seats” in theater. The actors needed to be seen at a distance to convey emotion
and yes, much of the silent strike us as “hammy” but then what are many of the crappier
performances we see in the sound era and up to today? The term “mugging” comes
to mind, but going broad ain’t dead.
It took the first couple of decades for film acting to grow
more “naturalized” and at that, even, much comes off as stilted or stylized. With
the advent of sound, another wrinkle appeared; microphone placement to catch speech.
In lower budget films (and even in some with higher budgets), it wasn’t unusual
to see characters in blocking that seemed to indicate they were getting close
in more ways than one. If there was a single sound pick-up, watch how close actors
stand to each other or cluster in certain areas of the frame.
As microphones became more sophisticated and recording
biases more adjustable, directors and actors were freed up to move more
fluidly. Even so, Hitchcock here is able to include camera movement to trace lines
of vision (early on when Jack and Joxer sneak up to the Boyle’s apartment for a
snort, the camera tracks over to Juno who watches them out of sight and later, when
Juno is cleaning a table, the camera follows her as her eyes catch a trail of
liquid to a cabinet) and he used a couple of microphones to “mix” overlapping
dialog live. These were simple but effective solutions to issues that would plague
directors in the early days of talkies.
As for the performances, they are more measured than most
realize. It helps that much of the cast had performed the play to great acclaim
years before (though it’s puzzling to me that Hitchcock didn’t use Barry
Fitzgerald to recreate the lead role of “Captain” Jack Boyle, instead placing
him as the Orator at the beginning of the film).
Again, bearing in mind the limitations Hitchcock had to work
with - and this includes the narrative being so complete in itself that he felt
like the acclaim he received for the film was not earned – once the film gets
under way, the performances feel increasingly more fleshed out and less
broad/over-the-top. Edward Chapman’s Jack is a preening, egotistical, drunken
layabout enabled by his buddy Joxer, whom he often abuses and belittles, unless
he needs him. Joxer Daly as played by
Sidney Morgan appears as a thankless role at first, sort of a dissolute Irish
Gabby Hayes sidekick type character. As the play progresses, though, Morgan
brings shades to Joxer’s chafing at Jack’s insults and hubris; it’s worthwhile
considering Joxer as more of the mirror held up to Jack, almost more like Lear’s
Fool.
Juno is played by Sara Allgood who brings an unassailable
dignity to the role and as an oppositional type to her husband, holds her own
morally and with remarkable strength. Obviously, she loves him despite his
alcoholism and lack of direction, but it’s strained to capacity in the face of
the dire poverty the family is in at this point. John Laurie plays their son
Johnny who has lost an arm in the Irish War for Independence and turned informant
for the IRA during the Civil War with disastrous consequences; he sold out a friend
who was shortly killed thereafter and whose mother’s appearance in the film drives
home the doom awaiting not just Johnny, but the Boyles as a whole.
It seems that every ensemble picture like this has at least
one or two thankless roles and Kathleen O’Reagan as the Boyles’ daughter Mary
and John Longden as the solicitor Charles Bentham occupy those. Neither is bad,
but Mary is the responsible put-upon daughter whose lapse will draw out the
worst in all around and Bentham, through ineptitude plays a pivotal role in
both the family’s further misfortunes and dissolution, as well as Mary’s shame
(he gets her pregnant and this folds into the entire thematic structure of what
O’Casey was eyeing in his play and other works). I have less an issue with
Bentham’s portrayal than Mary’s since she’s much more of a presence in the play
as a unionist and politically engaged. She supports the walk-out at her job and
as a result is scrambling to find work to help support her family.
The more peripheral characters are fleshed better than Mary
or Bentham. Her former beau Jerry is a Theosophist whose precis of what
Theosophy is about leads to dismissal by Jack (not a fan of religion in general)
and comes back to earn him a rebuke from Mary later in the movie (the one
moment when you realize that O’Reagan should have been given more to do). Mrs. Maisie
Madigan, the Boyles’ neighbor, owner of the bar Jack and Joxer are frequently
found in, and Jaqueline-of-all-trades is fully realized by Allgood’s sister
Mary Agnes Allgood under her stage name Maire O’Neill. Both women had studied
at Maud Gonne’s Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), a school for
Irish history and the arts. Both were hugely popular and highly lauded in Irish
theater and both continued garnering acclaim through there careers on stage and
in film. There is a good reason why: both are phenomenal.
As Mrs. Madigan and Juno, the sisters play in a kind of counterpoint
in their scenes together and as I think about it, Mrs. Madigan’s role is more
pivotal than peripheral. However, if Juno’s life is about to hit the skids (and
hard), Maisie’s appears to continue on track, unfazed by the tragic winds that
have blown through this period of Ireland’s history. Not so much Mrs. Tancred,
whose son was Johnny’s executed friend whom he grew up with. The actress is uncredited
but her appearance at the Boyles with two mourners is heart-rending and disturbing.
Her descent down the stairs outside the Boyles’ apartment
prefigures subsequent descents, all of them the result of tragic consequences.
Even Jack’s visit to Bentham is descent down a stairwell after realizing there
would be no inheritance and he and his family would be plunged into further
shame and penury. At this point, the play darkens substantially, though in
context, perhaps not as much as one might think. Tragedy is foreshadowed from the
outset, from the Orator’s assassination to Jack’s bellicose bullshit in the pub
(just the start); even the arrival of Bentham seems overshadowed by Jerry’s
soon-to-be-replaced position in Mary’s life and earlier, Johnny’s destiny is
foretold with the discussion of Mrs. Tancred’s son’s demise.
O’Casey’s is an unsparing eye leavened – initially – with gallow’s
wit, but it is precisely that: the Boyle family won’t be hanging together, but
separately, if figuratively. I don’t doubt that Hitchcock responded to a number
of themes in O’Casey’s play that drew him to film it. The consequences of our
actions looms large throughout, but you sense Hitchcock’s (and O’Casey’s)
understanding of larger forces at play refracted through the Ur-Catholicism
seen throughout the form, particularly, the recurring cuts to the Virgin Mary’s
statue in the Boyle’s apartment. Juno’s soliloquy at the film’s end is a
re-enactment of Mrs. Tancred’s speech but expanded and amplified by the
subsequent tragedy she and her family has suffered. It serves as a – perhaps empty,
perhaps genuine – response to Mary’s outburst upon hearing the news of both her
father’s delinquency and her brother’s death: “It’s true. There is no God!”
Hitchcock loved the play (and for good reason; it is a great
piece of theater) but was cool toward the film for being – as he called it – “just
a photograph of a stage play”, but again, I think he should have given himself
credit for his collaboration with O’Casey. The play ends with Jack and Joxer
returning drunk to the apartment and Jack is given the last word about how
miserable the world is; but Hitchcock, very wisely, I think, ended the film
with Juno starting to exit the apartment to begin her descent. The title
is, after all, “Juno and the Paycock” and there’s an unfairness to
letting Jack have the last word after all he’s put her through, let alone his
savage verbal attack about his daughter and threat of physical violence if she
set foot in the apartment in his presence. That his son was killed doesn’t seem
to stick with him, either; he is one of the most self-absorbed characters in
theater (and film).
I also do understand Hitch’s sense that the film doesn’t
carry much of his imprimatur; visually, he brought to it what he could, but
there was no room for his use of cross-cuts, fades, deep focus, or his expert
use of montage. Aside from a handful of moments, there just isn’t much for cinematographer,
Jack E. (J.J.) Cox to do. Cox was Hitchcock’s lensman from “The Ring” (1927) and
provided some stunning moments in Hitchcock’s output during this period. “Juno
and the Paycock” doesn’t have any to speak of; this is an intimate film of
necessity and the images that do land serve O’Casey’s needs more than Hitchcock’s.
I’ve read more than a few reviews that pretty much relegate
the film to “curiosity” status. This is unfair. No, it’s not a Hitchcock
masterpiece, but it is documentation of one of the most remarkable plays of the
early twentieth century. Sadly, there are too many Hitchcock enthusiasts who
discount the work as flawed, at best, or disown it at worst, feeling it
unworthy of Hitch’s filmography. This tells me more about the reviewers than
about the film.
If anything, Hitchcock’s filmography does have some
off-notes and I think one outright failure (which I’m willing to say is less
about his part, though it’s thuddingly unexceptional) than about his obligation
toward the work (“Elstree Calling”). But I don’t think there’s anything “off” with
“Juno and the Paycock” and it is by no means a failure.
By way of demonstrating some of the more Hitchcockian approaches to the material, following are some quick scene breakdowns.
The opening sequence with Barry Fitzgerald's Orator and his assassination set the underlying tension and presage the overall tragic arc of the play. Hitchcock doesn't get to use montage as much as he'd probably liked to have, but this is the most vivid passage in the film. Remember, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. This should generate a slideshow to scroll through.
The descent
"Remember your oath"
"Haven’t I done enough for Ireland?"
"No man can ever do enough for Ireland"
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