Rent The Manxman (1929)

Silent Hitchcock. - The Manxman review by Steve

For Alfred Hitchcock's ninth and final silent film he found a female star of charm and exceptional beauty just as she was rendered obsolete by the arrival of sound. She is the blonde Anny Ondra whose strong middle European accent made her suddenly and sadly unsuitable for the talkies.

 Maybe that is an apt misfortune for a story whose theme is the paradox of fate. The key scene relates to bitter irony of a husband (Carl Brisson) celebrating his wife's pregnancy, with the man (Philip Christian) who was the real father. The tangled plot is actually quite engrossing.

 It might be a stretch to describe Anny as a classic Hitchcock blonde, as this is a romantic melodrama rather than a thriller. It's a love triangle which concludes with one of Hitch's few tragic endings. There is relatively little comic relief and it's unrepresentative of the Master's signature work.

This is a curiosity which spotlights that at the end of the silent era, Hitch was still an artist in search of a medium. But for a British silent melodrama, this is still decent enough and helped by the local atmosphere, with Cornwall standing in for the Isle of Man.