"Downhill" is the fourth early Hitchcock movie I discovered after "Waltzes from Vienna", "Juno and the Paycock" and "Mary" (I discount the original "The Man Who Knew Too Much" as the film started Hitch' canon), so the more restored gems I discover, the more I understood how Hitchcock became one of the most prolific directors ever.
I could have said 'one of the greatest', but 'great' is a misleading word, Orson Welles was one of the greatest too, but his first strike was also his masterpiece, Tarantino also started with his best movies but it's not just about hitting a home run in your first game, but about keeping the distance after that. Hitchcock was a late bloomer, he only made a name for himself in his forties and became the world' most iconic filmmaker in his fifties. It took a long time, but this is what allowed him to make a lot of films, just like John Ford, some were good, a few of them were great, but most of them were forgettable, if not forgotten. Still, within their own debatable quality, these movies he made as a contract-director allowed him to sharpen his tools and make his bones, the slow and hard way.
In "Waltzes from Vienna", Hitch' experimented the use of music in order to make it in line with the action, a device that would be useful in "The Man Who Knew Too Much". In "Mary", it was the use of point-of-view shooting, every little movie he made planted the seeds of his emerging talent but "Downhill", Hitchcock's silent movie, released in 1927, was a totally different experience. While I expected the work of a rising director still learning the tricks, I discovered an ambitious, absorbing and compelling psychological drama, working like the ancestor of "Requiem for a Dream", even with the same straightforward title. And the storytelling was like the hurly-burly of life grabbing your heart and taking you in the path of the main protagonist played by Ivor Novello, i.e downhill.
The movie chronicles the descent into poverty and madness of Roddy, a handsome young preppy promised to a brilliant future, Captain of his school rugby team, coming from a rich family, eye-pleasing and maybe his worst quality: goodhearted. After flirting with a waitress and dating her with his friend Tim, he learns several days later from the headmaster that the girl is pregnant. The film clearly indicates that Roddy's innocent, if there ever is one culprit because nothing actually proves she's pregnant, but, her target is Roddy because she knows he's the wealthy one. And since Tim needs his father's money for a scholarship, to get to Oxford, Roddy sacrifices his career and causes himself to be expelled. Back home, his father won't believe his innocence (why should he? Who can be fool enough to jeopardize his life for an act he didn't commit?) causing his son to slam the door.
There is a very defining moment in "Downhill" when a sad-eyed Roddy takes the subway's escalator and slowly vanishes from the screen. It is not the most subtle symbolism but it is very poignant and powerful within the plot's narrative as Roddy's journey can be compared to a slow downfall. Roddy starts as a stage actor and gets involved in a relationship that would empty his pockets because of a venal actress who won't improve his trust on people of female persuasion and he finally turns into a gigolo in a sordid French nightclub where we can see, while an old lady is having a heart-to-heart talk with him, that the man is drowning in his own self-loathing bitterness, constantly wondering how he ended up in such a situation.
Besides Hitchcock's directing, Ivor Novello's performance is integral to the film's strength, of course it carries the mark of the silent era, and I concede that many close-ups or side-eyes from the characters were a bit distracting, but when I saw the film, I had to interrupt it and check the name of the actor, I realized Novello was 34 during the film, which was surprising because he really looked sweet and innocent in the beginning as the idealistic smiling preppy, I really thought he was in his twenties. Yet near the end, when the delirium phrase begun, you could almost give him the age of 40, and it's definitely not the make-up, the face of this poor man is like a sponge that absorbed so much hardship that you could only feel the pain in his eyes. And the talent of Hitchcock is to completely rely on the face of the actor to convey the tragedy of his life and use the minimum of card-boards to make his point.
And the least card-boards there were, the more efficient they were, and I felt like it was Hitchcock putting himself in his so cherished Gold-like position, with an obvious sympathy toward Roddy, because the ugly words were never directed at him but at the steps of his hellish journey, calling 'stage' the world of 'make-believes' or nightclubs 'the world of lost illusions'. The film is interesting because it give us a hint on how Hitchcock, the man whose touch could always be read in his movies, could make his presence visible in the silent era, when he hadn't much trademarks to show off. And the result is simply astonishing and carries all the promises of Hitch's talent.
A few words about the ending, I expect many viewers will be surprised by the 'happy' ending, thinking that realistically, the man should have ended up in a worse situation, but think about it, had it happened today, with the Internet and all the modern devices, he certainly wouldn't have went through the same troubles and been easier to find. The 20's were indeed a time where you could go downhill quicker than you'd think, and it's very revealing that the film's other title is "When Boys Leave Home".
I could have said 'one of the greatest', but 'great' is a misleading word, Orson Welles was one of the greatest too, but his first strike was also his masterpiece, Tarantino also started with his best movies but it's not just about hitting a home run in your first game, but about keeping the distance after that. Hitchcock was a late bloomer, he only made a name for himself in his forties and became the world' most iconic filmmaker in his fifties. It took a long time, but this is what allowed him to make a lot of films, just like John Ford, some were good, a few of them were great, but most of them were forgettable, if not forgotten. Still, within their own debatable quality, these movies he made as a contract-director allowed him to sharpen his tools and make his bones, the slow and hard way.
In "Waltzes from Vienna", Hitch' experimented the use of music in order to make it in line with the action, a device that would be useful in "The Man Who Knew Too Much". In "Mary", it was the use of point-of-view shooting, every little movie he made planted the seeds of his emerging talent but "Downhill", Hitchcock's silent movie, released in 1927, was a totally different experience. While I expected the work of a rising director still learning the tricks, I discovered an ambitious, absorbing and compelling psychological drama, working like the ancestor of "Requiem for a Dream", even with the same straightforward title. And the storytelling was like the hurly-burly of life grabbing your heart and taking you in the path of the main protagonist played by Ivor Novello, i.e downhill.
The movie chronicles the descent into poverty and madness of Roddy, a handsome young preppy promised to a brilliant future, Captain of his school rugby team, coming from a rich family, eye-pleasing and maybe his worst quality: goodhearted. After flirting with a waitress and dating her with his friend Tim, he learns several days later from the headmaster that the girl is pregnant. The film clearly indicates that Roddy's innocent, if there ever is one culprit because nothing actually proves she's pregnant, but, her target is Roddy because she knows he's the wealthy one. And since Tim needs his father's money for a scholarship, to get to Oxford, Roddy sacrifices his career and causes himself to be expelled. Back home, his father won't believe his innocence (why should he? Who can be fool enough to jeopardize his life for an act he didn't commit?) causing his son to slam the door.
There is a very defining moment in "Downhill" when a sad-eyed Roddy takes the subway's escalator and slowly vanishes from the screen. It is not the most subtle symbolism but it is very poignant and powerful within the plot's narrative as Roddy's journey can be compared to a slow downfall. Roddy starts as a stage actor and gets involved in a relationship that would empty his pockets because of a venal actress who won't improve his trust on people of female persuasion and he finally turns into a gigolo in a sordid French nightclub where we can see, while an old lady is having a heart-to-heart talk with him, that the man is drowning in his own self-loathing bitterness, constantly wondering how he ended up in such a situation.
Besides Hitchcock's directing, Ivor Novello's performance is integral to the film's strength, of course it carries the mark of the silent era, and I concede that many close-ups or side-eyes from the characters were a bit distracting, but when I saw the film, I had to interrupt it and check the name of the actor, I realized Novello was 34 during the film, which was surprising because he really looked sweet and innocent in the beginning as the idealistic smiling preppy, I really thought he was in his twenties. Yet near the end, when the delirium phrase begun, you could almost give him the age of 40, and it's definitely not the make-up, the face of this poor man is like a sponge that absorbed so much hardship that you could only feel the pain in his eyes. And the talent of Hitchcock is to completely rely on the face of the actor to convey the tragedy of his life and use the minimum of card-boards to make his point.
And the least card-boards there were, the more efficient they were, and I felt like it was Hitchcock putting himself in his so cherished Gold-like position, with an obvious sympathy toward Roddy, because the ugly words were never directed at him but at the steps of his hellish journey, calling 'stage' the world of 'make-believes' or nightclubs 'the world of lost illusions'. The film is interesting because it give us a hint on how Hitchcock, the man whose touch could always be read in his movies, could make his presence visible in the silent era, when he hadn't much trademarks to show off. And the result is simply astonishing and carries all the promises of Hitch's talent.
A few words about the ending, I expect many viewers will be surprised by the 'happy' ending, thinking that realistically, the man should have ended up in a worse situation, but think about it, had it happened today, with the Internet and all the modern devices, he certainly wouldn't have went through the same troubles and been easier to find. The 20's were indeed a time where you could go downhill quicker than you'd think, and it's very revealing that the film's other title is "When Boys Leave Home".