Downhill (1927)

I'm a pretty big fan of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and have wanted to see all of his movies. Some of them, however, were a bit more difficult to find (at least without having to pay through the nose) than others. My cheap box set of Hitchock movies contains multiple silents, although one not in the set is Downhill. It aired on TCM some years back, but somehow my DVR didn't record it properly. So when it showed up a few months back on TCM's Silent Sunday Nights, I made a point to put it on the DVR in order to watch it finally.

The movie is based on a play by Ivor Novello, a fairly big star of the British stage in the 1920s who had already appeared in Hitchcok's The Lodger. Here, although he's much too old, he plays Roddy Berwick, a big man on campus at one of those British boarding schools where among other things he captains the rugby team to victory in the big game. He's also impossibly handsome by 1920s British standards, and girls apparently want him, such as shop-girl Mabel. She says she gets off at six, so perhaps Roddy could stop by afterwards.

Roddy, bored with all the formalities of the post-game, decides he's going to get out early, and goes off to Mabel's place behind the store together with his best friend Tim. There, they eat and listen to the newest sounds on Mabel's victrola and even share a few dances. But then there's a noise at the front door. A kid wants to buy something, and Roddy attends to it even though it's not his job. Hitchcock shows us Mabel and Tim continuing to dance with the possibility that Tim might be trying to steal Mabel out from under Roddy's nose.

It's much worse than that, however. Some time later, Roddy and Tim get a knock on their door, with a messenger telling them that the headmaster wants to see both of them. When they get there, Mabel is also in the room. She's been knocked up, and that's a decided problem. Now, we know that Tim is the one who did it, on that day when they went to Mabel's place. But Tim is not nearly as powerful as Roddy and, not coming from riches, needs a certain scholarship to get into Oxford. Having to marry Mabel would wreck all those chances. But Mabel puts the blame on Roddy since his family has the money to support her. So Roddy, believing in honor, offers to fall on his sword for his best friend and take the blame. Perhaps he thinks his wealthy father can fix things.

If so, he's wrong. Roddy gets expelled, and having come home a week before the end of term, Dad knows something's up. When Roddy tells Dad, Dad responds by basically throwing Roddy out of the house. Roddy becomes an actor at a time when actors still weren't quite the most honorable profession, even marrying star Julia (Isabel Jeans) after inheriting £30,000 from his godmother. Julia is only in it for the money however, keeping up an affair with another co-star Archie (Ian Hunter). This really sends Roddy on a downhill spiral, as he goes first to Paris before winding up in a dump in the port city of Marseilles reminiscent of a male version of all those Madame X movies.

Alfred Hitchcok's directorial skill was already obvious by the time Downhill came along, since it follows The Lodger. There's a lot of artistic use of the camera, something Hitchcock had learned working alongside F.W. Murnau earlier. But Downhill is one of those movies that's not so-well remembered. I think it's because Hitchcock would go on to become the Master of Suspense, and Downhill is not in that mold at all. It's more of a melodrama. That's not to say it isn't good, although some have argued that Hitchcock still hadn't quite learned how to make what would become the Hitchcockian style more subtle yet. Scenes of Roddy going down stairs to signify that fall into the depths of a dissolute life are decidedly too obvious.

Still, Downhill is absolutely worth watching, and not just by Alfred Hitchcock completists.