STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH

THE MANXMAN

(1929)
With Carl Brisson, Malcom Keene, Anny Ondra, Clare Greet, Randle Aryton
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Silent, Black and White
Reviewed by JL

Most of the studio-enforced films that Alfred Hitchcock directed in the late '20s and early '30s were forgettable low-budget program-fillers. Occasionally, however, the results could be a halfway decent film such as THE MANXMAN, Hitchcock's last silent picture. It's no classic, it's not a suspense film, it's a depressing little thing, but it's an interesting story well-told. Something of a soapy and dramatic version of the Cary Grant-Irene Dunne farce MY FAVORITE WIFE, it concerns a young couple that plan to get married when the young woman's former fiance is presumed dead at sea, when all of a sudden...well, you know what happens next. One of the film's assets is the beautiful scenic photography on the Isle of Man. - JL