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.
Steffi_P
Alfred Hitchcock, despite all his ability, was undeniably a largely mechanical filmmaker. His approach was one of planning and manipulation rather than aesthetics or feeling. Not a bad thing in itself, so long as that cold mechanical mind could be put to the purposes of intrigue and excitement, as it would at the peak of his career. The trouble then with his earliest efforts is that they have all that technical intricacy without that much needed focus on reaching the audience as entertainment.His silent films in particular seem to lurch all over the place, and are proof that the term "experimental film" generally means a bad one. After all, if you know how to do it properly you don't need to experiment, do you? Downhill, unlike the films made immediately before and after, has less of the camera trickery that characterises Hitch's early work, the exceptions being a couple of mobile point of view shots in the Headmaster's office scene, and the rather extravagant finale, which believe me is nothing compared to the obtrusive bag of tricks Hitch employs in, say, Champagne (1928).Instead, the director focuses far more on the expression and gesture of the actors and the cunning arrangement of shots to reveal what is going on. Much of this is technique that Hitch appropriated from screenwriter Eliot Stannard, who actually predates Eisenstein in theories of montage, and the various inserts of reactions and concurrent bits of business – like the crosscutting from the courting couple to Ivor Novello dealing with the young customers in the shop scene – seem to fit in with the theories Stannard set out in film articles in the 1910s. A more Hitchcockian manoeuvre on display here is the beginning of scenes with close-ups, with gradual pull-back-and-reveal shots to give context. Often the opening shot, focusing on a single character or an item like a cap with the word "honour" on it, serves almost like a chapter heading. Gradually the shots become wider, giving more context to the scene, often finishing with a hauntingly empty wide shot – one that in another director's work might introduce a sequence. In one scene Hitchcock playfully confounds our expectations several times over, by starting with Novello in a posh outfit, pulling back to reveal he is in fact a waiter, then pulling back again to reveal the restaurant is part of a stage set.This more subtle approach by Hitchcock is very welcome, but the trouble is he seems a little over-confident in his own abilities. Downhill contains very few intertitles, but the action is not quite coherent enough to make up for them. The shop scene in particular is very confusing, and synopsis writers cannot even seem to agree whether Novello is being falsely accused of stealing or getting a woman pregnant. The latter is less obvious but makes much more sense. The focus on people and their actions is a bonus at least, and we get to see a bit more character from Ivor Novello as compared to his rather leaden personality in The Lodger, but the handsome chappy still cannot really act. And it's nothing but mugging and crazy stares from the rest of the cast, I'm afraid.But perhaps I am missing the point. The incident in the shop could be regarded as an early example of the "MacGuffin" – an otherwise unimportant device which serves only to drive the plot forward – and as such its details are of no consequence. And certainly, this rather trite plot of a man disowned by his family for some social misdemeanour, who descends the slippery slope until he ends up becoming a gigolo for fat French women… is certainly one which could bear a bit of style over substance. And isn't it in some ways the essence of cinema to conjure up atmosphere or visual delight, with coherence and plot detail being of secondary concern? All this is true, and yet the purpose of a motion picture is to tell a story, whether it be the ostensible one of plot, or an emotional one at a more human, character-driven level, and this is something Downhill fails to provide.
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)
bensonj
The story, of course, is not acceptable now. It's based on a play written by two performers who were major stage figures in their time but are now principally remembered for a few film roles (Novello in Hitchcock's THE LODGER, Collier as the has-been actress teaching acting to young girls in LaCava's STAGE DOOR). The story tells of the long, melodramatic, total downfall and degeneration of a son of wealth with a seemingly bright future, the hero of the rugby field, who is disgraced when he takes the rap for his impoverished roommate at his British school. Modern audiences tend to find this sort of melodrama, no matter how well done, a bit ridiculous. The anguished query of young Novello when he's told that he's expelled, "Does this mean, sir, that I won't be able to play rugby for the Old Boys?" is justly famous for its fatuousness. But the film itself is not fatuous, or ridiculous in the slightest. It shows Hitchcock to be one of the greatest of all the masters of the silent cinema, using an array of sophisticated film techniques to build a narrative complexity that goes far beyond the melodramatic plot. The pictorial quality of the film is lush and dense and the photography is sophisticated. For one thing, he uses very few titles. Of course, he was not alone in trying to keep silent-film intertitles to a minimum. But directors like Murnau tended to tell simple "timeless" stories with very formal pictography, the story told through a series of strong, simple, iconic images, the characters hardly speaking. Hitchcock has preserved verisimilitude by having his characters talk as much as they want. If what they're saying isn't important, such as the small talk among the rugby spectators at the beginning, why show it in titles? The casual milieu is established more clearly, in fact, if one doesn't know exactly what's being said. Hitchcock's use of this technique is even more evident in THE FARMER'S WIFE (also adapted from a play), where the characters talk and talk, but rarely is there a title. We talk constantly in real life, and one of the things that makes some silents seem stilted is the refusal to have the characters say anything unless what they say is shown in a title. Even when characters reveal their inner feelings to each other, the words they speak are often not the best communicators. Hitchcock shows relationships through subtle facial expressions, body posture, and observant human movements, through editing, little close-ups or vignettes of action, and placement of camera. All sorts of naturalistic bits of business are used to make the story clear and dramatically interesting. These techniques convey subtle relationships even more strongly when titles are not there to "explain" the content in words to the viewer, undercutting the images. Amid symbolic images of his "descent," such as traveling down London's endless escalators to the underground trains, and riding down in an elevator, the story of Novello's decline is laid out in melodramatic detail. A few incidents, and Hitchcock's handling of them, are described below. The film opens on the day of a big rugby game, and the visiting families dine with the students in the school's great dining hall. At one point, the sister of Novello's poor roommate steps into a stairwell and sees two small boys fighting on the stair. Then a door opens, and she glimpses Novello toweling up after a shower. Nothing comes of either of these incidents (she doesn't see Novello again); they are just original, well staged, atmospheric moments. Having attended a British boarding school for a year in the fifties, I can attest that these are particularly telling touches. Long, aimless, vicious fights were a hallmark of that existence, and I also remember incidents of women embarrassed at being out of place in a boys' school. The roommate gets a note from the attractive waitress to meet him at the sweet shop where she works. At the same time, she flirts with Novello. The two young men visit the girl at the sweet shop, and there's a long scene where each of them dance with her in a back room. She obviously favors Novello, and Hitchcock cuts from shots of Novello dancing with the shop-girl to the gradually disapproving stare of his companion. However, as the other fellow goes out, she points to the sign "Closed Wednesday Afternoons," a typical example of visual storytelling which not only economically indicates (without titles) that she has asked him to return, but also the furtive nature of the invitation. Later, she comes to the school and accuses Novello of making her pregnant (not of theft, as the IMDB synopsis and other sources state). She accuses him, apparently, because she was mad at him for ignoring her, and because he's rich and can presumably pay off. The actress playing the shop girl (Daisy Jackson, per a photo caption in the Citadel Hitchcock book, though she isn't in any credits listing, including in that book and IMDB) is very attractive and an excellent silent film actress.
After Novello is cast out of his father's house, the scene changes, with a title, "Make Believe." We see Novello in a tuxedo, talking. The camera pulls back and we find him a waiter. After some action, the scene is revealed to be part of a musical; he's a stage actor now. "Make believe" for sure; first we think he's in high society, then a waiter, finally an actor! After falling further, we find him in France, a male taxi-dancer under the thumb of an iron-handed battle-ax. He spends an evening at the table of an older woman (Violet Farebrother) who sympathetically listens to his life story. But at the end of the evening, so late that it's now morning, a man has an attack and the windows are opened to let in fresh air. The glaring sunlight floods into the foul night-spot, and Novello looks around at the dissipated, apathetic revellers, looks at the now-much-faded "interesting" older woman, and realizes the horror of his surroundings. The scene exudes a profound sense of revulsion and loathing, a depth of feeling on a plane rarely found in Hitchcock. Finally, Novello is fever-stricken and delirious in a dockside dive, cared for by scruffy blacks. As they pile him on to a small steamer, his shaky passage to the ship, on the gang-plank and into the cabin is presented in striking hand-held point-of-view shots. The sophisticated narrative style, the profusion of telling details, the richness of the visuals, all made the film gripping and dramatic, despite the hoary plot and a slight over-length. Before Hitchcock found his "niche," he used his talents to make quite a few unexpectedly eclectic films that showed a remarkable talent, constantly inventive and original, continually using film in creative ways. His silent films are largely ignored because they, for the most part, do not conform to the Hitchcock subject matter. But he's one of the great silent directors! He understood the medium and used it more subtly and creatively than many more famous practitioners.
