The White Shadow
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The White Shadow |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1924 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Graham Cutts |
| script | Alfred Hitchcock |
| production |
Michael Balcon and Victor Saville for Gainsborough Pictures |
| camera | Claude L. McDonnell |
| cut | Alfred Hitchcock |
| occupation | |
| |
The White Shadow (distribution in the United States : White Shadows ) is a British feature film from 1924. Based on Michael Morton's novel Children of Chance , the silent film is considered to be the oldest, at least partially preserved, film on which Alfred Hitchcock had worked. He supported the director Graham Cutts as assistant director , screenwriter , film editor and production designer .
content
The remaining 40-minute-long fragments of the film were only rediscovered in 2011 and have been restored by New Zealand archives. It tells the story of two twin sisters, one of whom is bad and the other good.
Nancy Brent returns to England by ferry after boarding school in Paris. On board, she befriends Robin Field, an American student who spent his vacation in Europe. Nancy invites Robin to visit her in Devon.
The return to their parents' house in Devon is a joyful surprise for Nancy's parents and their twin sister Georgina. It quickly becomes clear that the father in particular missed his favorite daughter. Robin is in Devon too. At a bridge he meets Georgina, mistakenly mistaken for Nancy and kisses her, but is also amazed at her reserved manner. When Nancy learns about this, she arranges a meeting between Robin and Georgina in the nearby village in the coming days, which she is secretly observing. She is very amused by the confusion she causes with her twin sister and the American student.
Meanwhile, tensions in the parental home are growing. Nancy's father found out about Robin's advances. He confronts his daughter. A bitter argument ensues, in the course of which Nancy says she would like her father to break his neck while riding. When the horse that the father wants to ride refuses to jump over a fence several times, Nancy forces her father to dismount, sits up herself, masters the jump over the fence and rides out in anger. After returning home, she decides to leave the family. She informs her sister Georgina of her decision in a letter.
The father got drunk from grief in the pub in the village that night. On his return home he almost runs into his daughter Nancy, but in his intoxication he doesn't notice her. When Georgina finds Nancy's letter the next morning, she and her mother rush to her father's room. He lies in bed - still dressed. After learning that Nancy has left the family, he is mainly angry with Georgina and blames her. With the words "I'll find Nancy" he also leaves the house and the family.
Nancy and the father are gone. Even a detective agency finds no evidence of her whereabouts and tells Georgina and her mother that Nancy and the father are probably dead. Georgina's mother dies from grief over this news. Georgina then sells the manor house in Devon and moves to London. On a weekend trip to the Thames, she meets Robin Field again, who thinks Georgina is Nancy again. Georgina lets him believe and continues to play the role as Nancy. Nevertheless, because of this "deceit" comes her scruples against her sister and Robin, whom she genuinely loves herself.
When Georgina is talking to her lawyer about finding her sister and father, friend Louis Chadwick, a fellow student of Robin, comes by to say goodbye for a trip. He's going to Paris. In the nightclub "To the laughing cat" in Paris, new guests are greeted with a peculiar ritual: When they enter the nightclub, they are greeted by the other guests with the exclamation "Disappear!" receive. If this exclamation leaves them unimpressed, they can stay. The real Nancy is now working in the nightclub. She sings there and has become a passionate player.
Shortly afterwards, a torn and apparently confused beggar enters the club. The guests let him grant without the password. The beggar is obviously looking for something: it is Nancy and Georgina's father, who is still looking for his daughter. Chadwick also comes to the "Laughing Cat", reacts correctly after the password and is enthusiastically received by a group of young people. Friends draw his attention to the "star" of the club - Nancy.
Back in London, Louis Chadwick meets with Robin Fields. Robin says that he would like to marry "Nancy", actually Georgina, whom he thinks is Nancy, as soon as she returns from the country. Louis now reveals his discovery to his fellow student and tries to talk him out of marrying the "wicked" Nancy. Georgina happened to witness this conversation. Robin decides to go to Paris with Louis and find Nancy. Meanwhile, Georgina has also traveled to Paris to look for her twin sister in the "Laughing Cat". She meets her father again.
Production and publication
The White Shadow was the second of a total of five films in which Hitchcock Cutts had assisted in various functions. The shooting followed in the summer of 1923 on the work on the film Woman against Woman , for which the producers Michael Balcon and Victor Saville had hired the American film star Betty Compson . Like Woman against Woman , The White Shadow is based on a template by Michael Morton, the British actor Clive Brook acted again at Compson's side.
After women against women had proven to be a great success with the public, The White Shadow was advertised with the promise: "The same star, producer, author, hero, cameraman, set designer, staff, same studio and the same distributor as with women against women " . However, the film failed to repeat the box office results of woman against woman , and turned out to be a financial failure. At the premiere in February 1924, contemporary film critics mainly complained about the weakness of the story, even if, in the opinion of the Times critic, the acting performances of Betty Compson and Clive Brooks were excellent and the staging was clever.
Above all, the failure of The White Shadow contributed to the termination of the production contract between the film distributor and financier C. M. Woolf and Balcon, Freedman & Saville in 1924 . Michael Balcon then founded the film production company Gainsborough Pictures , where the last two collaborations between Cutts and Hitchcock and Hitchcock's first directorial work were published.
Rediscovery of the film
Like woman against woman , The White Shadow was considered a lost film . In August 2011, the New Zealand Film Archive announced that the first three roles in the film had been discovered in the holdings of the film archive . They were one of a series of previously unidentified American nitrate films from the collection of New Zealand projectionist Jack Murtagh, who died in 1989 . Even if the film originally comprised six roles, according to the National Society of Film Critics, the rediscovered part could give a good impression of the structure and content of the film.
The reels found are being preserved and restored by Park Road Post Production in New Zealand . Copies of the new film master are to be made for the five American film institutions that are involved in the viewing and preservation of the New Zealand film archive. Another copy is to go to the British Film Institute , which launched its own program to save Hitchcock's early films. A DVD release by the National Film Preservation Foundation has been announced for the fall of 2013.
The fragments of The White Shadow are considered to be the oldest surviving film recordings on which Alfred Hitchcock was involved.
Web links
- The White Shadow in the Internet Movie Database (English)
literature
- Donald Spoto: Alfred Hitchcock - The dark side of genius . Piper, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-492-22798-8 .
- Maurice Yacowar: Hitchcock's British Films . Wayne State University Press, Detroit 2010, ISBN 978-0-8143-3494-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b BBC News : Rare Alfred Hitchcock film footage uncovered , August 3, 2011.
- ↑ François Truffaut: Mr. Hitchcock, how did you do it? . Heyne, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-453-86141-8 , p. 27.
- ^ Rachael Low: The History of the British Film Vol. IV: 1918-1929 . George Allen & Unwin, London 1971, p. 135.
- ↑ Donald Spoto: Alfred Hitchcock . P. 79.
- ^ The Film World: The White Shadow . In: The Times , February 18, 1924.
- ^ Donald Spoto: Alfred Hitchcock , pp. 79-80, 97-98.
- ↑ : Lost Hitchcock Feature Recovered in New Zealand , National Film Preservation Foundation press release, August 3, 2011.
- ↑ NFPF ANNOUNCES DVD OF LONG-LOST FILMS BY FORD, NORMAND AND HITCHCOCK , press release of the NFPF, June 3, 2013.
- ^ Spiegel Online : Archivists discover early Hitchcock film , August 3, 2011.