The Pleasure Garden (1925)
Genre: Drama / Crime
Duration: 67 minuten / 90 minuten (gerestaureerde versie)
Country:
United Kingdom / Germany
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: Virginia Valli, Carmelita Geraghty and Miles Mander
IMDb score:
5,7 (3.223)
Releasedate: 14 January 1927
The Pleasure Garden plot
Patsy Brand is a singer in a choir. She meets the unlucky Jill Cheyne, who gets her job. Jill becomes engaged to adventurer Hugh Fielding. However, when he is out of the country, she begins to lead a wild life.
Actors and actresses
Patsy Brand
Jill Cheyne
Levett
Hugh Fielding
Oscar Hamilton
Mr Sidey
Mrs Sidey
Reviews & comments
Zinema (crew films)
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- 10276 messages
- 7316 votes
The debut.
And quite an entertaining debut. Of course, everything has to be seen in the perspective of that year. So corny is the trump card. Although this isn't so bad in the end. The emphasis of the story is on love and adultery. Towards the end a murder is added. It won't be really exciting, but it will remain interesting.
It is annoying that the two female protagonists look alike, which sometimes causes confusion. The image quality is so poor in some areas that it is sometimes a matter of guessing whether it is Patsy or Jill, especially at the beginning. Fortunately, those moments are short.
All in all a nice debut, with nice camera work. Towards the end we suddenly even see the camera hanging askew. So for the very first time. Funny to see Hitchcock do this in his debut, I can't remember it in, for example, (the better) The Lodger. The score is remarkably pleasant, despite sometimes seeming barely connected to the story.
Nice to see, but it was only partially blown away. This has to do with some good manners and the fact that the director was not yet at full strength.
Reasonable.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
Hitchcock's official directorial debut is not a crime story, but a melodrama typical of the time. It's about two dancers who become each other's best friends. They fall in love with the same man and that leads to jealousy, arguments... and ultimately a melodramatic combination of drink, infidelity and manslaughter. So the story is not that special, but this is a fascinating debut, because many of the Hitchcock motifs are reflected here. See the opening shot, in which Hitch films from the perspective of an older man who puts on his monocle to look at the dancers' bare legs. Also note the emphatic presence of a dog [also a Hitchcock motif] in a scene that would be completely banal without its presence. And Nita Naldi's apparition actually looks spooky. Moreover, the acting is fairly subdued, so only the basic story is a weakness of this film. Fascinating for Hitchcock fans [of which I am one], those less familiar with his work will undoubtedly appreciate this film less. The comments about picture quality have nothing to do with the quality of the film but with the quality of the DVD. The DVD version I have has excellent picture quality.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Don Homer
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- 510 messages
- 1297 votes
Interesting debut of a major film by Hitchcock. Film was shot in Germany (Munich) and partly Italy. It's from 1925 and you can tell. There were no sound recordings yet, so you hear a not bad organ melody throughout the film. The film has a not too special story that even became a bit exciting for me at the end.
What was special were the typically Hitchcockian features such as sexual tension, voyeurism, adultery, well-known camera positions and even a touch of suspense at the end. What I had never even seen in a Hitchcock was a hallucination that served the story well and worked visually too!
Anyway, enough to enjoy for a passing grade!
Translated from Dutch · View original
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