Rich and Strange
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| Rich and Strange | |
|---|---|
 UK Special Edition DVD |
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | John Maxwell |
| Written by | Alfred Hitchcock Alma Reville Val Valentine |
| Starring | Henry Kendall Joan Barry |
| Music by | Adolph Hallis |
| Cinematography | John "Jack" Cox Charles Martin |
| Editing by | Winifred Cooper Rene Marrison |
| Distributed by | British International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 10, 1931 (UK) |
| Running time | 92 min. (UK) 83 min. (US) |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Rich and Strange is a 1931 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock during his time in the British film industry. It was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville, and Val Valentine from a novel by Dale Collins. The film is most notable for the techniques utilized by Hitchcock that would reappear later in his career. Most notable are the set pieces, including a recreation of a full-sized ship in a water tank used in the final act of the film. The director also experimented with different camera techniques and shot compositions.
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[edit] Plot
A couple, Fred and Emily Hill, living a mundane middle-class life in London, are given a small fortune by an uncle as an advance against their future inheritance so that they can enjoy it in the present. Immediately Fred takes leave from his job as a clerk and they leave on a cruise for "the Orient". Fred quickly shows his susceptibility to sea-sickness while crossing the English Channel. While in Paris both are scandalized by the Folies Bergères, demonstrating their shared lack of sophistication.
Fred's sea-sickness mainfests itself for day after day during the cruise. During this time, Emily begins a relationship with a Commander Gordon, a dapper, popular bachelor. Finally feeling well enough to appear on deck, Fred is immediately smitten with a German "princess" who encounters him while retrieving the rope ring used to play deck tennis, a combination of tennis and quoits which was at the time widely played shipboard. Both begin spending their time on board with their new paramours to the virtual exclusion of each other, and each plans to dissolve the marriage in order to pursue these newfound loves.
Events come to a head when the ship arrives in Singapore. Here, Emily leaves with Gordon for a home he has near there, only to realise while en route that she cannot go through with it and instead returns to Fred and their Singapore hotel room. Simultaneously, Fred prepares to leave for Burma with the princess, only to learn that she has embezzled £1000 from him and taken off for Burma alone. Upon further investigation, he learns that she was merely the daughter of a Berlin laundry owner and a common adventuress who often undertook to relieve wealthy men of their money. Warning Emily not to tell him, "I told you so," he advises her not to attempt to utilise her apparently morally-superior position. The loss has left the couple with only enough money to be able to clear their hotel bill and to book passage home to England on a "tramp steamer".
However, Fred and Emily's troubles have not ended, as the tramp soon is involved in an at-sea collision while they sleep, and they awake to find the ship derelict and themselves alone, the other survivors having all been rescued during the night. As it seems inevitable that the steamer will sink, the crew of a Chinese junk arrives to salvage the ship, employing tactics that suggest that they are in fact little more than pirates. However, they do take it upon themselves to rescue the Hills, who nonetheless face a harrowing several days aboard the junk before it arrives in port and they are finally allowed to proceed home. In the film's last scene the pair are seen arguing in a manner most reminiscent of the scene immediately prior to the arrival of the fateful telegram.
[edit] Reception
Released during Hitchcock's meager period between 1927's The Lodger and his breakthrough hits The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, Rich and Strange was a consummate failure at both British and American box offices. The film's lack of commercial and critical success is often attributed to the fact that dialogue is only present for a quarter of the film; many features of the silent era, including scene captions, remain, and the acting style of silents, with its exaggerated movements, is retained. Also, the exaggerated makeup typical of the silent era is readily in evidence. An early scene of Fred leaving work for home via the London Underground is very reminiscent of Chaplin and highly dissimilar to typical Hitchcock staging. Hitchcock's experiment in pre-sound emotive performances over dialogue was another contributing factor, in addition to the film's seemingly rambling plot and a general lack of Hitchcock's trademark suspense exhibited in previous and subsequent films.
In 2005, the French media company Canal+ obtained the rights to Rich and Strange and nine other early Hitchcock films. Lionsgate Home Entertainment licensed at least five of the films and released Rich and Strange in a collection of early Hitchcock films on February 6, 2007. The five films have been digitally remastered with improved sound and video. [1]
[edit] Cast
- Henry Kendall as Fred Hill
- Joan Barry as Emily Hill
- Percy Marmont as Commander Gordon
- Betty Amann as The Princess
[edit] Title origins
The film's title comes from Ariel's Song in Shakespeare's The Tempest:
- Full fathom five thy father lies,
- Of his bones are coral made,
- Those are pearls that were his eyes:
- Nothing of him that doth fade,
- But doth suffer a sea-change
- Into something rich and strange.
[edit] External links
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