Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The sad plight of a twice-wronged woman - first by her husband, then society - gets the silent treatment from Alfred Hitchcock in this early melodrama. Many of the themes of later Hitch classics come up, and in sometimes arresting ways, but the overall impact is a thud.Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) finds herself ruined when her brutal husband catches her with a lovestruck artist. Not guilty, but too easily believed to be, she winds up divorced but well-off enough to take her broken heart to a French resort town on the Mediterranean. There she captures the fancy of a young man named Whittaker (Robin Irvine) who insists on knowing nothing of her past. Unluckily for her, his family is not as swept off their feet. Trouble ensues when he introduces her to them as his new wife, her secret unknown but festering all the same.Hitchcock's silent films are fascinating to watch even when they aren't all that good. For one thing, he had quite a stock company going by this time: Jeans, Irvine, Violet Farebrother (who plays Whittaker's disapproving mother), and Ian Hunter (who plays the attorney who handles the case against Mrs. Filton) all appear in "Downhill," a film Hitchcock directed the year before.Also, Hitch silents often reveal the unique nature of his approach to cinema in embryonic form. Here, he demonstrates a stylistic acclivity for quick cuts and arresting camera set-ups. Thematically, the sun- drenched French scenes remind you of "To Catch A Thief," while the Whittaker's stuffy estate, "Moat House," conjures up "Rebecca." Farebrother gives off the nasty vibe of every Hitchcock unfair mother to come in his oeuvre. Jeans likewise personifies every sexy-but-troubled blonde Hitchcock would find such reward in making suffer.What the film doesn't have is an engaging story. Larita is too passive a character, and her romance with Whittaker is so bloodless it's hard to understand. The acting is borderline, with both Jeans and Farebrother especially problematic. Both have good scenes, but also too many overheated moments they play too much with their eyes, which tend to roll like storm-tossed eggs. Finally, this is one time the silent medium really under-serves the story, as many scenes play out in long talky pantomimes with minimal dialogue cards.You really get the feeling Hitchcock wanted to explore his growing bag of tricks at the expense of intelligent exposition. One early example features Hunter holding a decanter as a key piece of evidence in Larita's divorce trial. This allows for a cut to the same decanter in a scene with the drunken Mr. Filton, but one is left to wonder: What's the point bringing the decanter into the courtroom? It plays no role in the actual climax with the artist. It's just there for the cut.There's perhaps a more interesting film at work in the corners of the frame. One aspect touched on in ackstasis's October 2007 review is Larita's unsympathetic character once imprisoned in Moat House. She smokes like a chimney, blowing her exhaust in the faces of Whittaker's troublesome sisters. It's perhaps a sign of her liberation, except you wonder before the roof caves in why she doesn't cool it a bit. Given a chance to explain herself to the mother-in-law, she waves her off with a snooty line: "I'm sure the names of my friends would convey nothing to you." If she isn't a Scarlet Woman, and we know she isn't, she acts more than a bit like one.This might have been better explored if the Moat House scenes were played for more subtlety. Jeans bears a strong resemblance to Helen Mirren, and brings some of Mirren's wounded charm to her role. Alas, the melodrama takes over too quickly. Irvine just seems lost in his key role. I stopped caring early, and just watched for the tricks and the echoes of things to come.You get plenty of those, anyway. Hitchcock is one of those major figures you want to see even when he's not at his best. That's the only kind of recommendation I can offer for this weak-tea soap opera.

I am a HUGE Hitchcock fan and have every DVD currently available. The version I have of Easy Virtue is very poor. It is an exceptionally poor picture with a zoomed in shot which chops off parts of the picture! The silent Hitchcocks which have been restored/well mastered onto DVD are hugely more enjoyable so I sincerely hope someone gives Easy Virtue a restored DVD release soon. The poor DVD quality detracts from my enjoyment of the film and may cause my appreciation to be less than fair but so far I would say Easy Virtue is my least favourite of his films I have seen.The film has some great shots and some fine moments but overall it has too many parts which lack interest or drama. That is mainly due to it being a silent film of a Noel Coward play. Imagine seeing a Coward play on the stage where the actors do not speak! The highlight of Coward's work is the dialogue so apart from lines like "Shoot! There's nothing left to kill!" (which may be from the play and is a good line) the sharp, witty dialogue is a real loss to the story's presentation. Even the young, great Hitchcock cannot quite keep a comedy drama of social morals interesting enough when the vital dialogue is removed. It is far from a disaster, I would rate it a very good 7/10, but for Hitchcock it is below his extremely high standards.

Easy Virtue (1928) ** (out of 4) Isabel Jeans plays Larita Filton, a woman who is abused by her drunken husband who thinks she is having an affair with a painter. When the husband confronts them the painter kills himself and soon the wife's reputation is tarnished in a divorce court. She flies off to France where she falls in love with a man (Robin Irvine) but soon his family learns of her past. This is a pretty tame and rather lame silent from Hitchcock and it's only real asset is those wanting to seek out the director's early work. The word melodrama is written all over this thing but there really isn't too many original ideas in its screenplay. The most interesting scenes are the early ones in the court where Hitchcock brings some nice style to the film when we get the various flashbacks, which then cut back to the court. The scenes involving Jeans and Irvine falling in love are all overly dramatic and the stuff with his mother come off fairly weak. Jeans is pretty good in her role but she really isn't given too much to work with. I found Irvine to be rather bland throughout the film as was the rest of the supporting cast. This type of melodrama ran ramped throughout the silent era and if it weren't for Hitchcock's name being attached, this one here would certainly be forgotten.

This sophisticated melodrama from a Noel Coward play is clearly unsuited to Hitchcock's particular talents: the initial court-room sequence is the best, allowing the director to experiment with camera technique (especially his creative use of the dissolve to jump from the present into the past and back again); the rest is a succession of clichéd situations, making it a rather tedious whole. The most notable cast member is Ian Hunter, though leading lady Isabel Jeans did go on to play prominent roles in GIGI (1958) and HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963). With this, I've only 3 more extant Hitchcock Silents left to watch - THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925), DOWNHILL (1927) and CHAMPAGNE (1928); his second film, THE MOUNTAIN EAGLE (1926), is believed lost.