Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 22, 2007 21:24:00 GMT
The Skin Game Alfred Hitchcock 1931 UK Two families quarrel over land - one wishes to keep the natural beauty of it, the other wishes to urbanise it. Hitchcock turns away from murder suspense and into family drama stroke rather strange landowning hokum; it lacks both the experimental tendencies of previous films (it's two years after Blackmail) and the astonishing form he hit mid-thirties, but there are notable marks of interest even so, mostly in the wip-pans during otherwise theatrically-filmed conversation scenes, and the one standout sequence, the auction scene, the dialogue in which hardly flows, but the camera cranks up some sort of thrilling "who's going to get it" game of cat-and-mouse. Subject matter seems dull and almost laughable regarding the usual requirements of a dramatic feature-length narrative, but it shifts into a fascinating and ironic tragedy towards the end when the villain of the piece (brilliant performance from Edmund Gwenn) and his family are turned upon, and our sympathies move from wishing for his downfall to feeling some sort of deep sorrow for him; it doesn't end happily.
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