Movies - Rich and Strange

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	Movies - Rich and Strange

Rich and Strange is a 1932 film direced by Alfred Hitchcock during his time in the British film industry. It was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville, and Val Valentine from a novel by Dale Collins. The film is most notable for the techniques utilized by Hitchcock that would reappear later in his career. Most notable are the set-pieces, including a recreation of a full-sized ship in a water tank used in the final act of the film. The director also experimented with different camera techniques and shot compositions.

Plot

A couple, Fred and Emily Hill, living a mundane middle-class life in London, are given a small fortune by an uncle as an advance against their future inheritance so that they can enjoy it in the present. Immediately, Fred takes leave from his job as a clerk and they leave on cruise for "the Orient". Fred immediately shows his susceptibility to sea-sickness while crossing the English Channel. While in Paris both are scandalized by the Folies Bergères, demonstrating their shared lack of sophistication.

Fred's sea-sickness mainfests itself for day after day during the cruise. During this time, Emily begins a relationship with a Commander Gordon. Finally feeling well enough to appear on deck, Fred is immediately smitten with a German "princess" who encounters him while retrieving the rope ring used to play deck tennis, a combination of tennis and quoits which was at the time widely played shipboard. Both begin spending their time on board with their new paramours to the virtual exclusion of each other, and each plans to dissolve the marriage in order to pursue these newfound loves.

Events come to a head when the ship arrives in Singapore. Here, Emily leaves with Gordon for a home he has near there, only to realise while en route there that she cannot do so and instead returns to Fred and their hotel room in Singapore. Simultaneously, Fred prepares to leave for Burma with the princess, only to learn that she has embezzeled 1000 pounds sterling from him and taken off for Burma alone. Upon further investigation, he learns that she was merely the daughter of a Berlin laundry owner and a common adventuress who often undertook to relieve wealthy men of their money. Warning Emily not to tell him, "I told you so," he advises her not to attempt to utilize her apparently morally-superior position. The loss has left the couple with only enough money to be able to clear their hotel bill and to book passage home to England on a "tramp steamer".

However, Fred and Emily's troubles have not ended, as the tramp soon is involved in an at-sea collision while they sleep, and they awake to find the ship derelict and themselves alone, the other survivors having all been rescued during the night. As it seems inevitable that the steamer will sink, the crew of a Chinese junk arrives to salvage the ship, employing tactics that suggest that they are in fact little more than pirates. However, they do take it upon themselves to rescue the Hills, who nonetheless face a harrowing several days abord the junk before it arrives in port and they are finally allowed to proceede home. In the films last scene the pair are seen arguing in a manner most reminiscient of the scene immediately prior to the arrival of the fateful telegram.

Reception

Released during Hitchcock's meager period between 1927's The Lodger
and his breakthrough hits The Man Who Knew Too Much
and The 39 Steps
, Rich and Strange was a consummate failure at both British and American box offices. The film's lack of commercial and critical success is often attributed to the fact that dialogue is only present for a quarter of the film; many features of the silent era, including scene captions, remain, and the acting style of silents, with its exaggerated movements, is retained. Also, the exaggerated makeup typical of the silent era is readily in evidence. An early scene of Fred leaving work for home via the London Underground is very reminiscient of Chaplin and highly dissimilar to typical Hitchcock staging. Hitchcock's experiment in pre-sound emotive performances over dialogue was another contributing factor, in addition to the film's seemingly rambling plot and a general lack of Hitchcock's trademark suspense exhibited in previous and subsequent films.

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