A Hitchcock movie I haven't recommended yet

TCM, as part of its monthlong salute to Bernard Herrmann, is showing the movies Herrmann scored for Alfred Hitchcock over the next two weeks. I've recommended most of them already, but TCM is showing another Hitchcock movie (not scored by Herrmann) that I haven't recommended before: Rich and Strange, September 16 at 7:15 AM ET.

Rich and Strange truly is a strange little movie, since it doesn't have any of the suspense or mystery that most Hitchcock movies do; not is it a straight-up movie like Juno and the Paycock (a filmed stage play) or even Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Alfred Hitchcock's attempt at a screwball comedy). It's got black humor, but it's not really a comedy; it's got a married couple doing exotic things, but it's not really a romance; it's got the married couple facing crises, but it's not really a drama; instead, it's a mishmash of everything and not really certain what it is, while still being very much a Hitchcock movie.

The movie starts with a man at his office job, leaving after the day is done. (This sequence has lots of people opening their umbrellas, with Hitchcock's use of umbrellas being reminiscent of a scene in Foreign Correspondent.) The man is bored to tears with his job, but has a wealthy uncle who is planning to leave him a trust when the uncle dies. So, the bored husband writes to the uncle, requesting an advance on the trust, which the uncle gives him, allowing the man to quit his job and take his wife with him to the British colonies in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, being rich isn't all it's cracked up to be. The husband finds that he's seasick, while both husband and wife find other people on their sea voyage who seem to have a romantic interest in them.

Fortunately, though, their marriage is saved by a shipwreck: one night their ship hits something and takes on water. They resign themselves to death when they're unable to get their cabin door open -- but the water stops rising, and the next morning, they find they're able to escape through the porthole. Perhaps the dull home life is better after all.

Rich and Strange is at best an acquired taste, with its threadbare plot and its look of an early talkie that was feeling its way around the new medium of sound. This latter flaw is surprising, since Hitchcock had already made several talkies, including the very good (and typical of Hitchcock) Murder! a year earlier. Still, in watching it, it's clear that Hitchcock had a distinctive style that he had already begun to develop. Rich and Strange has made its way to DVD, which isn't a bad thing since it doesn't show up on TV all that often.