kkonrad-29861
'Downhill' is visually inventive and astonishing, but the story is nothing more than simple flat melodrama. Script is based on the play "Down Hill" written by Constance Collier and the film's star Ivor Novello. Roddy Berwick (Ivor Novello) and Tim Wakely (Robin Irvine) are best buddies attending expensive private school. Soon after both boys spend an evening with waitress (Annette Benson), she comes forward and says she's pregnant. She accuses Roddy, who comes from the rich family, being the father, while the real one is Tim. Roddy promises to keep his mouth to protect Tim, who might lose his scholarship. Roddy gets expelled from school, and thrown out at home by his father. Roddy falls deeper and deeper after being used by different people. Hitchcock fantastically depicts Roddy's descent after each dramatic episode with showing Novello's character going down on stairs, on escalators and with elevator.Not the Hitchcock's best movie - directing is marvelous, but the story is just too simple and predictable. On the other hand, it is very easy to care about the main character and despise the cruel people who but other persons through unfair grind (even when things happen thanks to Roddy's own naivety). P.S. At that time (in August, 2018) the film's theme is still relative.
ElMaruecan82
"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".
kidboots
Originally conceived as a farce by its two authors, Ivor Novello and Constance Collier, it had a short run in the West End and longer in the provinces where Novello, who also starred, thrilled female fans by washing his bare legs after the rugby match!! The wit didn't transfer to the movie (only the title!!) the plot of which was so melodramatic it must have given Hitchcock, Novello and others of the sophisticated cast a bit of a laugh.The initial part shows Ivor as Robby Berwick, a school captain and star footballer at an exclusive English boarding school. He is lured into a threesome involving his best friend Tim, a scholarship boy and a grasping waitress Mabel (shades of "Of Human Bondage"). When Mabel finds herself pregnant she makes a fuss at the school and picks out Robby as the father (even though it is really Tim) as she sees his wealth as a bonus. He promises never to break his trust as Tim cannot afford to be expelled. The nicest scene in the movie for me is when Robby is left in charge of the little shop, a boy comes in with a halfpenny and Robby sells him a box of chocolates, next thing all his little mates are at the door waving halfpennies - very funny and a chance for Ivor to have a bit of fun.Alfred Hitchcock finds a way to add some wonderful touches - his title "the world of make believe" shows Robby, thrown out of home, is now working as a waiter. The couple move from the table and he then discreetly pockets what looks like a wallet but suddenly the camera moves back and you find Robby is a waiter - in a play, the two he was serving are the stars and elusive Julia has once again forgotten her cigarette case!! Isabel Jeans just sparkles as the money hungry Julia, she thinks Robby is a sweet boy but Archie (Ian Hunter) is the one who pays the bills - that is until Robby comes into a 30,000 pounds inheritance, then suddenly the society pages carry photos of Robby and Julia, his wife. She still hasn't given up Archie and both of them continue to bleed him dry until ..... his inheritance exhausted he becomes a gigolo!!It is when Robby can't go any lower that Hitchcock is able to experiment with unusual shots - a descending escalator to show his downward spiral, dream sequences, intensified by his delirium, that blur all the people who have bought him down sitting at a table playing cards. Perhaps the finest of all (in my opinion) a montage of super imposed images starting with the squalid lanes of the East End, then each street getting a little bit neater and nicer until Robby is back in his own gentrified surroundings.An excellent film that shows some innovative Hitchcock touches.
Andrew Nixon
My copy of this movie is truly silence with no musical score. Whenever I watch a movie that is completely silent, initially I find it a little hard. But when the film is well made, as this one is, it doesn't take long to adjust and focus on the story as you are drawn into it. I feel Hitchcock was a master of the silent film genre with his ability to tell such a deep story with very few intertitles. Relying instead on the expressions of the actors and written notes and signs in the movie, without having to cut away to an intertitle, which allows the film to flow more fluidly instead of constant cutting between the live action and the title cards. Ivor Novello in the lead role of Roddy and in his prior work with Hitchcock in The Lodger really impressed me with his talent of conveying his feelings strictly through facial expressions and acting without the use of sound. Hitch is also good at using subtle exaggeration and focus on action to help take the place of the sound in his silent films. The story is that of a young man in school who is falsely accused of theft by a lady that he had danced with and he is willing to take the blame for a friend of his and is expelled from school. This leads to the downhill spiral of his life as leaves home after his father calls him a "LIAR!". Things get worse from there as ends up working as a gigolo in Paris, getting in fights, losing a large sum of money, and eventually hitting bottom.In this film we really begin seeing a lot of Hitchcock's visual style that he is so famous for. He has some really good use of fades and graphic matches between scenes. Two of my favorite where the fading out on the pocket watch and into a large clock, and the other being the scene where he fades out on a photograph and then back in on the real person. I really enjoyed the symbolic shot of Roddy heading down the escalator, showing us that is in heading downhill in his life. And my favorite "Hitch" shot in this movie was the point-of-view shot when the lady was leaning back in her chair and it cuts to Roddy walking into the room and we see him upside down on the screen. I also thought Hitchcock did a great job of portraying Roddy's seasickness towards the end of the film. I really enjoy seeing Hitchcock's style developing in his early silent films, that will become so prominent in his later, more famous movies. I also really appreciate Hitch's working in comedic scenes into his serious movies. My favorite humorous scene in this movie is the peashooter scene early in the film.Without giving too much away, I would have liked to see a more typical Hitchcock ending to this film. *** (out of 4 stars)
