Hitchcock’s Early Films

After the success of “The Lodger,” Hitchcock was regarded as one of Britain’s most promising young directors and he directed a spate of films that are available on DVD or through streaming that might interest you. Eliot Stannard, the screenwriter for “The Lodger,” collaborated on many of these films as well. “The Ring” (1927) follows a boxer and his girlfriend, who is attracted to another man, as they sort out their relationship. “Downhill” (1927) also stars Ivor Novello, who wrote the play on which it was based, as a schoolboy who takes up with bad influences and is expelled. Leaving his family and friends he literally goes “downhill” as he struggles to survive through odd jobs in seamy locales around Europe. Both films include notable special effects sequences; at one point in “Downhill,” the hero becomes delirious and hallucinates in color and kaleidoscopic images.

“Easy Virtue” (1928) was inspired by a play by Noel Coward and includes a courtroom scene that anticipates Hitchcock’s later film in Hollywood, “The Paradine Case” (1947). “Champagne” (1928) features a free-spirited heiress, played by comedian Betty Balfour, whose boyfriend deserts her after it appears that her father has lost all of his money. The film opens as Betty arrives on a cruise ship by seaplane, a nod to Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic the year before. It also has some notable special effects shots, such as when the man who is surveilling her for her father watches her through the bottom of a glass of champagne.

In 1928 and 1929, Hitchcock released his first sound film — in fact, Britain’s first sound feature — “Blackmail.” Like “The Lodger,” it features a young woman, also blonde, who inadvertently gets mixed up in a difficult situation that also embroils her boyfriend, a detective, and that creates an ambiguous moral situation for both of them. The film was shot in both sound and silent versions and comparing the two provides an excellent opportunity to see how Hitchcock worked with the aesthetic possibilities of each medium.

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