In December, the Lincoln Library Film Society will present silent films by master director Alfred Hitchcock. Long before films like Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo hit the screen, he directed several silent films from 1925-29. Hitchcock’s silents are wrongly thought by a few to be the work of a talented amateur struggling to develop his craft with creaky equipment and poor film techniques. Who says? To see these films today is to appreciate the burgeoning signs of Hitchcock’s genius: unique camera angles and movement, multiple points of view, the audience as voyeur, with special effects of dissolves, blurriness and violent cuts. Already the familiar Hitchcock fingerprints are here: one wrongly accused, ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances, man on the run, sexual feelings strongly associated with violent behavior, all delivered with assured manipulation of emotion, management of suspense, and a macabre wit.
The Ring
Tuesday, December 9 at 7 p.m.
The Ring (1927) is a traditional prizefighting melodrama, elevated by the richness of the characterizations and the stylish use of the camera. “Round One” is a cocky young boxer who matriculates from sideshow bouts to the big time. His marriage goes sour when she throws him over for a champ. During the climactic big fight, she realizes that she’s still in love with Round One when witnessing the brutal beating he’s getting. As in Hitchcock’s later suspense films, sparks ignite between hero and heroine only when there’s an element of danger involved. Hitchcock collaborated on the script with wife Alma Reville.
Blackmail
Tuesday, December 16 at 7 p.m.
Blackmail (1929) is, remarkably, Hitchcock’s last silent and his first talkie. The plot concerns the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920s London whose boyfriend is a Scotland Yard detective more interested in police work than in her. He takes her out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night she goes up to “see his studio.” The man has other ideas and tries to rape Alice. She defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, the detective himself is assigned to the case and quickly determines that his fiancée is the killer. So has another man and threatens blackmail. The film was nearly wrapped as a silent (thus qualifying for our series) when Hitchcock took advantage of the new sound technology and remake much of the movie (especially exterior location shots). Both versions were released. A decade later, Hitchcock claimed that his biggest thrill on viewing the new rushes was not hearing actors speak but picking out the sound of the blackmailer’s knife scraping the plate while eating his breakfast of eggs and bacon.
The Lodger
Tuesday, December 23 at 7 p.m.
The Lodger (1928) may be regarded as Hitchcock’s first film to truly deserve the designation “A Hitchcock picture.” British matinee idol Ivor Novello plays a quiet, secretive young man who rents a room in a London boarding house. His arrival coincides with the reign of terror orchestrated by Jack the Ripper. As the film progresses, circumstantial evidence begins to point to the lodger as the Ripper. Hitchcock themes abound: mistaken identity, a man accused of a crime he did not commit, an ordinary person caught in a web of extraordinary events, deviant tendencies existing within presumably innocent characters. The director’s compelling portrait of an insanely jealous police detective, a man who’s supposed to represent the law, shows the inner and outer workings of a cancerous jealousy to the tipping point of revenge. Hitchcock was well ahead of Hollywood movies in depicting severely flawed cops and detectives. Beginning with The Lodger, one can say Hitchcock helped refine the shape of the modern-day thriller genre in film.
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