Except for the knife
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Except for the knife |
| Original title | The Skin Game |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | 77 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Hitchcock |
| script | Alfred Hitchcock Alma Reville after John Galsworthy |
| production | John Maxwell |
| camera | John J. Cox |
| cut | AR Gobbett Rene Marrison |
| occupation | |
| |
Up to the Knife (Original Title The Skin Game ) is a British film drama by director Alfred Hitchcock from 1931. It is based on a play by Nobel Prize winner John Galsworthy , which was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville .
action
Down to the knife tells of the dispute between a long-established noble family and a nouveau riche industrial family over a piece of land on which a factory is to be built. The conflict not only divides families, but leads to the exposure of dark secrets and a family tragedy.
background
The Skin is a commissioned work for Hitchcock's former production company Associated British Picture Corporation . The basis is John Galsworthy's socio- critical play The Skin Game , published in 1920 , as is the film's original title. The play is about two families fighting over a piece of land - one old landed gentry, the other newly rich entrepreneurs. The term skin game is colloquially used in English to denote fraud or fraudulent gambling.
Hitchcock's interest in the material was slight, as he realized that the dialogue-heavy piece severely limited his creative possibilities. So he got the job over with quickly. He wrote the script together with his wife Alma, sticking closely to the template. Hitchcock used the filming itself once more as a finger exercise. He recorded many scenes with four cameras at the same time. During rehearsals, he offered the actors a much more vivid role representation than they would later show on screen, as writer Rodney Ackland later recalled. Only a few scenes of the finished film are remembered as typical Hitchcock: a suicide scene in the lake and an auction in which the two families drive the price up each other.
The main actor Edmund Gwenn played in three other films Hitchcock in for these very different creative phases and with a strikingly long time lag: 1940 in The Foreign Correspondent , 1942 in Saboteure and 1956 in Always Trouble with Harry .
The film was a relatively big hit, despite Hitchcock's disinterest, possibly due to the fact that John Galsworthy, who also wrote the Forsythe saga , was very popular at the time. In 1962, Hitchcock told Truffaut: "I didn't choose the topic and I have nothing to say about it."
Reviews
"Mr. Galsworthy's story deserves our attention, but Mr. Hitchcock, who is responsible for both adaptation and direction, cannot be said to have done any of these tasks in a manner that deserves the subject. ”( "Mr. Galsworthy's narrative is bound to enlist one's attention, but Mr. Hitchcock, who is responsible for the adaptation as well as the direction, cannot be said to have accomplished either task in a fashion the subject deserves.") Mordaunt Hall , New York Times
literature
- François Truffaut : Mr. Hitchcock, how did you do it? Heyne, 2003, ISBN 3-453-86141-8 (sequence of interviews (around 50 hours) by the French director from 1962). Original edition: François Truffaut: Le cinéma selon Hitchcock. (German. The film according to Hitchcock. Simon and Schuster, 1984, ISBN 0-671-52601-4 ).
- Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky, eds. Joe Hembus : Alfred Hitchcock and his films. (OT: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. ) Goldmann, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-442-10201-4 .
- John Russel Taylor: The Hitchcock Biography. Fischer Cinema 1982, ISBN 3-596-23680-0 .
- Donald Spoto : Alfred Hitchcock - The dark side of genius. German translation by Bodo Fründt. Heyne, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-453-55146-X .
- Bodo Fründt : Alfred Hitchcock and his films. Heyne Film Library Volume 91, 1986, ISBN 3-453-86091-8 .
Web links
- The Skin in the Internet Movie Database (English)