The Manxman (1929) - film review

Pete Quilliam and Philip Christian have been the closest of friends since childhood, growing up together on the Isle of Man.  Whilst Pete earns a modest income as a fisherman, Philip has embarked on a promising career as a lawyer and hopes to become the island’s chief magistrate.  Pete is in love with a bargirl named Kate Cregeen, but her father Caesar refuses to allow him to marry her.  Intent on making his fortune, Pete heads off to Africa, having promised to make Kate his wife on his return.   With Pete away, Philip begins to spend more time with Kate, and the two soon realise that they are in love.  When a letter arrives with the news that Pete has been killed, Kate tells Philip that they are now free to marry.  But before they can do so, Pete makes an unexpected return and, now a wealthy man, he claims Kate as his bride.  Some months later, Kate confides in Philip that she is bearing his child and cannot go on deceiving her husband.   Philip is torn between his love for Kate and his loyalty to his old friend, to say nothing of his career aspirations...

Alfred Hitchcock’s last silent film, The Manxman, is widely regarded as one of his best, and it was certainly one of his most successful films of this era, although Hitchcock himself was disappointed with the film.  Whilst the subject is atypical for the director – a predictable melodrama involving the familiar ill-fated love triangle – it bears his unmistakable imprint, most noticeably in the skill with which he tells the story with carefully constructed images rather than relying on inter-titles.

With its extensive use of real exterior locations (the film is set on the Isle of Man but, for budgetary reasons, was shot in Cornwall), The Manxman has a realism which was virtually unknown in British cinema at this time, and this adds to its immense charm and poetry.  The location shots of fishermen and their families (reminiscent of we see two decades later in Visconti’s La Terra trema) create the impression of a close-knit island community where secrets are hard to keep, something which intensifies the claustrophobic mood and heightens the tension.  As in several of Hitchcock’s films, a dark secret is at the heart of the narrative.  Here the secret is an illegitimate pregnancy which, if exposed, will ruin the lives of those involved.

The Manxman is an inspired adaptation of a well-known, albeit pretty indigestible, novel of the same name by Sir Hall Caine, which had also been made into a stage play and an earlier film of 1916, directed by George Loane Tucker.  The film’s principal players were chosen with great care and each gives a performance that is charged with truthfulness and poignancy.   The male rivals were played by Carl Brisson and Malcolm Keen, who had appeared in previous Hitchcock films – The Ring (1927) and The Lodger (1926) respectively.  Anna Ondra, one of Hitchcock’s first blonde heroines, plays the female lead, Kate, with great conviction and, despite the character’s flawed nature, succeeds in making her sympathetic.  Ondra was a favourite of Hitchcock and would star in his next film, Blackmail (1929), although her strong Polish accent meant that her spoken lines would have to be dubbed by another actress.

© James Travers 2008

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