One of Alfred Hitchcock's atypical non-murder films comes with some suspense and a nice take on the issue of class which marked the world he came from, courtesy of a John Galsworthy play. But its soapy leanings cost it the ground gained by a strong start.
Rural England is changing into something unrecognizable to the snobby highborn Hillcrist family whose own estate is threatened by the impish pottery tycoon Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn). His low tactics in securing a neighboring property for a factory bring out the Lady MacBeth in Mrs. Hillcrist (Helen Haye), who with the help of her amoral gopher Dawker (Edmund Chapman) uncovers a nasty secret regarding Hornblower's daughter-in-law Chloe (Phyllis Konstam) which could cost him all his ill-gotten gains.
"The Skin Game" starts out strong, with Gwenn striding into the Hillcrist manor like a conquering hero, a dynamo in a bowler hat, giving them whatfor in such a way as to earn us both our respect and our active dislike. He's impossibly smug, like New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick after running up the score on another overmatched opponent. Yet he's in charge all the same.
"I fancy there's not enough room for the two of us here," he tells the Hillcrists, after breaking his word by evicting an elderly couple whose property Mr. Hillcrist sold him under the condition he leave the couple alone. "You've had your own way much too long. And you're not going to any longer."
The action heats up at an auction which is the film's one sterling set piece, Hitchcock's camera rearing back and forth between Hornblower and Dawker like a spectator at a Wimbledon match. Ronald Frankau as the auctioneer is one of those one-scene performances in a Hitchcock film you remember long after forgetting most everything else, blowing his nose and guying up the price so amiably as to undercut the building tension. Mr. Hillcrist finally jumps in as the price goes ever higher, only to discover he's not only failed to foil Hornblower but earned the blaggart's redoubled enmity.
But things fall apart after, as the story of Chloe takes center stage. Konstam is way too hysterical, her trebly voice making even more shrill lines such as "What gets in the wind never gets out...Never...Just blows...And then blows home!" By the time we get to the sad resolution, the once-involving tale is drowning in melodrama and bad acting. Even Gwenn is reduced to a kind of Nosferatu, eyes shifting and hands wringing.
There's a nice through-line regarding how the game of social advancement was played in early 20th century England. The Hillcrists start out fairly decently, but wind up rather dastardly. Yet however awfully Mrs. Hillcrist plays her whiphand in this affair (and Haye, like Gwenn reprising her role from a 1921 silent, is the class of the cast), you realize she had to be ruthless in order to win, and there's some ambiguity at the end as to whether it was worth it.
But that's Galsworthy's contribution. Hitchcock was not in his element here, and it shows. "The Skin Game" is another of those early curiosities of the Master seeking his voice but not quite finding it.
Rural England is changing into something unrecognizable to the snobby highborn Hillcrist family whose own estate is threatened by the impish pottery tycoon Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn). His low tactics in securing a neighboring property for a factory bring out the Lady MacBeth in Mrs. Hillcrist (Helen Haye), who with the help of her amoral gopher Dawker (Edmund Chapman) uncovers a nasty secret regarding Hornblower's daughter-in-law Chloe (Phyllis Konstam) which could cost him all his ill-gotten gains.
"The Skin Game" starts out strong, with Gwenn striding into the Hillcrist manor like a conquering hero, a dynamo in a bowler hat, giving them whatfor in such a way as to earn us both our respect and our active dislike. He's impossibly smug, like New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick after running up the score on another overmatched opponent. Yet he's in charge all the same.
"I fancy there's not enough room for the two of us here," he tells the Hillcrists, after breaking his word by evicting an elderly couple whose property Mr. Hillcrist sold him under the condition he leave the couple alone. "You've had your own way much too long. And you're not going to any longer."
The action heats up at an auction which is the film's one sterling set piece, Hitchcock's camera rearing back and forth between Hornblower and Dawker like a spectator at a Wimbledon match. Ronald Frankau as the auctioneer is one of those one-scene performances in a Hitchcock film you remember long after forgetting most everything else, blowing his nose and guying up the price so amiably as to undercut the building tension. Mr. Hillcrist finally jumps in as the price goes ever higher, only to discover he's not only failed to foil Hornblower but earned the blaggart's redoubled enmity.
But things fall apart after, as the story of Chloe takes center stage. Konstam is way too hysterical, her trebly voice making even more shrill lines such as "What gets in the wind never gets out...Never...Just blows...And then blows home!" By the time we get to the sad resolution, the once-involving tale is drowning in melodrama and bad acting. Even Gwenn is reduced to a kind of Nosferatu, eyes shifting and hands wringing.
There's a nice through-line regarding how the game of social advancement was played in early 20th century England. The Hillcrists start out fairly decently, but wind up rather dastardly. Yet however awfully Mrs. Hillcrist plays her whiphand in this affair (and Haye, like Gwenn reprising her role from a 1921 silent, is the class of the cast), you realize she had to be ruthless in order to win, and there's some ambiguity at the end as to whether it was worth it.
But that's Galsworthy's contribution. Hitchcock was not in his element here, and it shows. "The Skin Game" is another of those early curiosities of the Master seeking his voice but not quite finding it.