Old Film Review. Hitchcock Series: ‘The Downhill’ (1927)

 photo edited by Laura Lai

by Laura Lai/ Review 

Film’s Title: The Downhill

Lead Actors: Ivor Novello (Roddy Berwick), Robin Irvine (Tim Wakeley), Isabel Jeans (Julia Fotheringale), Norman McKinnel (Sir Thomas Berwick)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock 

The Downhill is a black-and-white, silent drama about honor and dignity. It is the story of two friends and schoolmates: Roddy (from a wealthy family) and Tim (a student with a scholarship). Following an incident involving a woman, Roddy is expelled from school one week before the end of the term. Although the incident was Tim’s fault, the woman intentionally accused the innocent Roddy, who preferred to keep silent so that his friend not to lose his scholarship. Roddy had to leave home, and all experiences he lived were from bad to worse, until he returned home in a deplorable condition. He was determined to keep his promise to his friend to death – his own death.

This movie is divided into several chapters: Old Boys’ Team, The World of Make-Believe, The World of Lost Illusions, and Searching, Restless, Sun-light. There are two advantages to having organized the movie structure this way. First, the screenwriter (Eliot Stannard) succeeded in providing a cyclical structure to the movie. Second, this particular unfolding of the story puts the viewer in a good mood after such a long series of misfortunes happening to Roddy in an almost 2-hour movie.

From an artistic point of view that is mainly the job of the director, I liked many things  - but I will stick to two main ones.

            First, I loved the way the director artistically reflected the ‘downhill’ that was happening to a young man in real life. When Roddy was expelled, he took the stairs down; when he had to leave home, he took the subway rolling downstairs; when he got divorced, he took the elevator down; even, when he returned home, there were two-three steps he took down. Is there anything left for the 1927 époque that a character could take to go down and Hitchcock forgot? I don’t think so! J

          Second, I loved the use of light as a symbol. At the end of the chapter The World of the Lost Illusions, the windows of a dancing saloon open. It was then that Roddy realized the degrading place he was frequenting. And, in a brilliant way, the next chapter is called Searching, Restless, Sun-light. 

From a technical point of view, Hitchcock used light for a beautiful scene in the shop, with the waitress that took him responsible for something he did not do, just because his father – Sir Thomas Berwick ‘was rolling in the money’ – in which the characters play behind a curtain of stripes, and light is coming from behind. This is my favorite scene of all. But Hitchcock played with the camera, took shots from all angles, and this helped transmit to the audience the emotions of the characters. It, actually, helped a great deal to communicate although the movie was silent.

Enjoy the movie!

P.S. See you in the next review of Hitchcock’s movies!