Rent The Skin Game (1931)
3.0 of 5 from 57 ratings
1h 20min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A melodrama revolving around rural class conflict. The Skin Game was widely praised on release for its powerful and convincing portrayal of industrial encroachment on the rural gentry. The film is also notable for the confident mix of long-take dialogue scenes and montage. The rivalry between a gentrified family and a wealthy tradesman turns to tragedy when the former use their discovery of the dark past of the tradesman's daughter-in-law to thwart his building plans.
- Actors:
- Edmund Gwenn, Jill Esmond, C.V. France, Helen Haye, John Longden, Phyllis Konstam, Frank Lawton, Herbert Ross, Dora Gregory, Edward Chapman, R.E. Jeffrey, George Bancroft, Ronald Frankau
- Directors:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Writers:
- John Galsworthy, Alfred Hitchcock
- Studio:
- Orbit Media
- Genres:
- Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Alfred Hitchcock's British Films, Films by Genre
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Reviews (1) of The Skin Game
Stage melodrama. - The Skin Game review by Steve
This version of a John Galsworthy play is as far from what we came to think of as the signature style of Alfred Hitchcock as he ever got. But at least he does a better job of turning Edwardian theatre into entertainment than with Juno and Paycock a year earlier.
As with the Sean O'Casey adaptation, little is done to open up the events from the stage and many scenes merely assemble the cast around the camera booth. And the narrative has absolutely nothing to offer the Master of Suspense.
It's about the friction between old and new money. Both sides are equally unsympathetic and there is little warmth from the actors to sweeten the class war. The best scene is a bidding contest over a plot of land within the eyeline of the manor, full of fast camera pans and long takes.
When the director does- occasionally- draw on expressionism and his emerging style, it feels incongruous. Once again, Hitch felt hemmed in by his studio, and shooting projects of scant personal interest. It's not terrible by the standards of early British talkies, but surely of most interest to Hitchcock scholars.
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