Run Time: 129 minutes. Studio: British International Pictures. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Writer: Eliot Stannard. Based on a play by Eden Phillpotts. Main Cast: Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker. Cinematographer: Jack E. Cox.
Good Evening. I feel it is safe to assume that at least some of the people who read my blogs are fans of Turner Classic Movies. I certainty am. In fact TCM makes up a huge portion of my TV watching time, and why not, it is a channel that shows movies with the pure respect they deserve, it gives you insight into the history of the movie, and the whole channel feels very welcoming. One thing this channel is doing this month is something I am very excited for. Every Wednesday and Friday of July TCM will be showing many Alfred Hicthcock movies and there will even be an online class accompanying it.
Like many film buffs I am a huge fan of Hitch. He has directed many movies that are highly deserving of the classic status they have received. Movies like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds and North By Northwest are certainty great examples of the cinematic art form and no one loves these movies more than I do. However I also have a huge fondness for Hitch's early British movies too. Despite these not receiving the same amount of attention many of these are fantastic movies in their own right and my silent film of the month is no exception.
The Farmer's Wife is a very different movie for Alfred Hicthcock. In fact if you were to miss the opening credits, it would be very hard to tell that Hitch had anything to do with it. This movie is a nice sweet little romantic film, and a fairly straightforward adaption of Eden Phillpotts' play. With Alfred Hitchcock directing there are some brilliant little cinematic touches but nothing specifically Hitchcockian. At this time Alfred Hicthcock was not yet known as a suspense director. Even though Hitch had already directed a fantastic suspense movie with The Lodger, he was at this time directing a huge variety of different styles of movies. However looking at many of these films, shows that Hitch was not only a brilliant suspense director, but a great director of any type of movie.
Farmer Sweetland's (played by Jameson Thomas) wife has past away leaving him very lonely. He is looking for a new wife, but his attempts don't go very well. Helping him find a new wife is his housekeeper Minta (played by Lillian Hall-Davis), who has strong feelings for Sweetland that she keeps secret
This is a delightful movie. The characters are very well defined, likeable and relatable. Before becoming much of the all out comedy this movie will become as it goes along, this film gives you time to know each of these characters. This makes the comedy all the more effective and the movie feel all the more real. Speaking of the comedy, it is really good. Many of Sweetland's failed attempts to find a wife are very funny. Also helping to make this movie delightful is the visual filmmaking. One image that continuously is shown is that of an empty chair. Sometimes when Farmer Sweetland gets lonely he looks at the chair his wife used to sit in and sees it completely empty. This image tells us more than any words ever could. It makes us fully understand what the farmer is going through and puts us in his shoes. When he is looking for a new wife he sometimes imagines one of the women he wants to marry in the chair. However that image quickly fades away and all we see is the chair. Again these simple images show us more than we could ever be told in words and truly show the power of film as an art form. In fact when interviewed by François Truffaut years later Hitch said that this movie inspired him to make what he called "purely cinematic pictures" that would mostly center around visual story telling. Though Hitch did feel this movie still had too many intertitles.
One may notice the name of Louie Pounds in the credits. This is in fact the only film she appeared in, though she was a huge star on stage and was especially popular in Gilbert and Sullivan musicals. She plays a delightful performance here as Widow Windeatt.
This movie plays on TCM on July 5th at 8:15 pm western time and 11:15pm eastern time.
Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?id=650695%7C651448
The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia by Stephen Whitty.
Truffaut-Hitchcock by François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock
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