Here, the director seems to be in search of a style. What we see of this love triangle on the Isle of Mann, involving an honest fisherman, his gorgeous wife, and his principled but weak friend, is all overacting. The conventions of silents like this must have been imported from the stage though, to be sure, Hitchcock's grounding was in film from the beginning.
Still it's distracting to see the characters over-do every expression and gesture, as if making sure that no one in the rear of the theater misses the reactions of the live people on stage.
Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson) is the fisherman who loves the daughter (Anny Ondra) of the dour pub owner. Anny is flirtatious but uncertain. Pete wants to marry her but her father objects that Pete is too poor to be a husband. Off sails Pete to Africa to make his fortune, or his misfortune if it comes to that. He leaves Anny's welfare in the hands of his best friend, Phillip Christian (Malcolm Keen), which is always a mistake.
During honest Pete's absence, Anny and Phillip fall in love, and when they receive a telegram saying that Pete has met his demise, they are free to marry. But they've kept their love a secret, partly because Phillip is ashamed and partly because he is in line for a judgeship, and the outcome of that election might get a little problematic if he were mixed up with a mere barmaid. Meanwhile, nothing prevents Anny and Phillip from doing the horizontal mambo in out-of-the-way places.
But -- surprise! Pete isn't dead at all! He debarks from his ship, rich, ebullient, but dumb. Anny marries him out of a sense of obligation while Mr. Christian sulks in the background, carrying his burden of guilt. Anny gives birth to Phillip's child and Pete exults, "I'm a father!" (Still as dumb as ever.) Then things get twisted. Phillip becomes the judge his family wanted him to be, Anny tries to commit suicide, and Pete finally wises up. Phillip resigns. He, Anny, and their child, march off bravely into the sunset, scorned by the villagers but determined to start anew -- somehow.
As distracting as the overblown acting is, I forgive Anny Ondra because, let's face it, I'm a latent heterosexual. My God, she's cute. A tiny blue-eyed blond with winsome features, narrow shoulders, and gracile form. Any normal man would want to squeeze and bite her.
It's Malcolm Keen's duty, as Phillip Christian, to look glum and contrite. As Pete, Carl Brisson acts as if he needs a clinical dose of lithium. His eyes bulge with effervescence and his smile is like that of a chimpanzee with its lips pulled back in that sly way that chimps have.
And when you come right down to it, it's mostly Anny's fault. After all, as a flighty young girl, she flightily gave her word to Pete that she would remain faithful to him. And she was morally loose with Mr. Christian the moment Pete's ship was hull down on the horizon. Then she allowed good old Pete to think the baby was his. And instead of resigning herself to a career as a dutiful wife in marriage to a man she liked but didn't love, she has to leave the baby, take off, live in Phillip's closet for a week or so, and then jump in the harbor. She thinks of nobody but herself. Yet, again, I forgive her.
The two guys are no paragons either. Pete belongs in a home for the criminally naive, and Phillip should have sentenced himself to one week in the Hudson County Jail in Jersey City. That would have taken some of the starch out of him.
It's not a bad film, just rather ordinary. Hitchcock had yet to find his métier, and this isn't it.
Still it's distracting to see the characters over-do every expression and gesture, as if making sure that no one in the rear of the theater misses the reactions of the live people on stage.
Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson) is the fisherman who loves the daughter (Anny Ondra) of the dour pub owner. Anny is flirtatious but uncertain. Pete wants to marry her but her father objects that Pete is too poor to be a husband. Off sails Pete to Africa to make his fortune, or his misfortune if it comes to that. He leaves Anny's welfare in the hands of his best friend, Phillip Christian (Malcolm Keen), which is always a mistake.
During honest Pete's absence, Anny and Phillip fall in love, and when they receive a telegram saying that Pete has met his demise, they are free to marry. But they've kept their love a secret, partly because Phillip is ashamed and partly because he is in line for a judgeship, and the outcome of that election might get a little problematic if he were mixed up with a mere barmaid. Meanwhile, nothing prevents Anny and Phillip from doing the horizontal mambo in out-of-the-way places.
But -- surprise! Pete isn't dead at all! He debarks from his ship, rich, ebullient, but dumb. Anny marries him out of a sense of obligation while Mr. Christian sulks in the background, carrying his burden of guilt. Anny gives birth to Phillip's child and Pete exults, "I'm a father!" (Still as dumb as ever.) Then things get twisted. Phillip becomes the judge his family wanted him to be, Anny tries to commit suicide, and Pete finally wises up. Phillip resigns. He, Anny, and their child, march off bravely into the sunset, scorned by the villagers but determined to start anew -- somehow.
As distracting as the overblown acting is, I forgive Anny Ondra because, let's face it, I'm a latent heterosexual. My God, she's cute. A tiny blue-eyed blond with winsome features, narrow shoulders, and gracile form. Any normal man would want to squeeze and bite her.
It's Malcolm Keen's duty, as Phillip Christian, to look glum and contrite. As Pete, Carl Brisson acts as if he needs a clinical dose of lithium. His eyes bulge with effervescence and his smile is like that of a chimpanzee with its lips pulled back in that sly way that chimps have.
And when you come right down to it, it's mostly Anny's fault. After all, as a flighty young girl, she flightily gave her word to Pete that she would remain faithful to him. And she was morally loose with Mr. Christian the moment Pete's ship was hull down on the horizon. Then she allowed good old Pete to think the baby was his. And instead of resigning herself to a career as a dutiful wife in marriage to a man she liked but didn't love, she has to leave the baby, take off, live in Phillip's closet for a week or so, and then jump in the harbor. She thinks of nobody but herself. Yet, again, I forgive her.
The two guys are no paragons either. Pete belongs in a home for the criminally naive, and Phillip should have sentenced himself to one week in the Hudson County Jail in Jersey City. That would have taken some of the starch out of him.
It's not a bad film, just rather ordinary. Hitchcock had yet to find his métier, and this isn't it.