Themes: Inheritance at Stake, Ship Cruises, Fish Out of Water
Main Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, Elsie Randolph
Release Year: 1931
Country: UK
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
This atypical Alfred Hitchcock effort is a cautionary fable which lends credence to the old saw "Love flies out the door when money flies in the window." Joan Barry and Henry Kendall play a young married couple who suddenly come into an inheritance. Bored with their working-class existence, hero and heroine embark upon a world cruise, and it isn't long before Barry gets romantically involved with a landed-gentry gentleman. Meanwhile, Kendall is swept off his feet by a phony princess, who tricks him out of all his money. Broke and miserable, Barry and Kendall head home on a shabby cargo boat, only to find themselves in the middle of a shipwreck. The couple is rescued by a Chinese junk, where the solemn crew members dine on their pet cat. By the time Barry and Kendall have returned to their humble suburban lodgings, they've both learned the sagacity of remaining in their own back yard. Partly a sophisticated sex comedy, partly a grim seafaring melodrama, Rich and Strange had the negative effect of confusing the public in general and Hitchcock's fans in particular, and as a result the film, which remains one of Hitch's best early talkies, died at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Rich and Strange is an off-beat and interesting, if not totally successful, film. Clearly, devotees of Alfred Hitchcock will take to it more than average filmgoers; the latter will probably be disappointed to discover that it is not a thriller, as they might expect from the "master." But if they can get over this disappointment, they will find much to appreciate, including a story that doesn't go exactly where one expects and an odd mixture of the comic and the melodramatic. True, Hitchcock doesn't blend these two styles seamlessly, but that helps to give the film its unique impact. The film is schizophrenic in other ways, especially in its attempt to be both a silent film and a talkie, and this can be disconcerting; but it does allow the director to take advantage of the fluidity of the silent camera. (He also has a delightful time experimenting with a few new effects, such as making the words on a dinner menu fly off the page.) And the opening commuter sequence is a gem. Henry Kendall and Joan Barry are a bit wan as the leads; she in particular has a peculiar delivery, and he has several moments that grate, but they overall they are adequate. Much better are Betty Amann as the gold digging princess and the wonderful Elsie Randolph, whose old lady is both annoying and strangely endearing. If the various components of Rich and Strange never really coalesce, the film is still intriguing and enjoyable. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Aubrey Dexter - Colonel; Hannah Jones - Mrs. Porter
Credit
C. Wilfred Arnold - Art Director, Frank Mills - Art Director, Frank Mills - First Assistant Director, Alfred Hitchcock - Director, Winifred Cooper - Editor, Rene Marrison - Editor, Hal Dolphe - Composer (Music Score), John Reynders - Musical Direction/Supervision, Jack Cox - Cinematographer, John Cox - Cinematographer, Charles Martin - Cinematographer, John Maxwell - Producer, C. Wilfred Arnold - Set Designer, Alfred Hitchcock - Screenwriter, Val Valentine - Screenwriter, Alma Reville - Screenwriter, Dale Collins - Short Story Author
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 sets, 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.
A couple, Fred (Henry Kendall) and Emily Hill (Joan Barry) , 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 manifests itself for day after day during the cruise. During this time, Emily begins a relationship with a Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont), a dapper, popular bachelor. Finally feeling well enough to appear on deck, Fred is immediately smitten with a German "princess" (Betty Amann) 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 Chinesejunk 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.
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 Americanbox 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]
