The Pleasure Garden (1925) - film review

Patsy Brand, a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden Theatre in London, helps another girl, Jill Cheyne, to get a part in the theatre’s next revue.  Jill’s fiancé Hugh leaves for the colonies to work on a plantation for two years, confident that Jill will remain faithful to him.  Hugh’s friend Levett takes a liking to Patsy and within a short time the two are married.  After honeymooning at Lake Como, Levett heads off to the colonies whilst Patsy resumes her career at the Pleasure Garden.  On her return, Patsy is appalled to discover that that Jill, now a star, is affianced to a prince and has forgotten about Hugh.  Little does Patsy know that she too is the victim of marital infidelity...

The Pleasure Garden is the first full-length film which Alfred Hitchcock was able to complete.  He had cut his directorial teeth on the appropriately named Number 13 (1922), a film that was abandoned partway through production, and then on the short Always Tell Your Wife (1923).  Although Hitchcock’s filmmaking career didn’t take off until The Lodger (1927), The Pleasure Garden bears his inimitable stamp and clearly presages the many great films which were to follow.  

It was Michael Balcon, arguably the most important film producer in the history of British cinema, who gave Hitchcock the opportunity to direct The Pleasure Garden.  Hitchcock had previously impressed Balcon with his work as art director, screenwriter and assistant director and Balcon, a man with a keen eye for talent, would help to ground Hitchcock in his career as a director.

The Pleasure Garden was the first of two films which Hitchcock made as a collaborative venture involving Balcon’s newly formed British company Gainsborough Pictures and the German company Emelka – the other film being The Mountain Eagle (of which no print currently exists).  Both films were shot in Munich, although The Pleasure Garden also had some location work in Italy.  Neither The Pleasure Garden nor The Mountain Eagle was at all successful, and Hitchcock was very dismissive of both films in later years, preferring to cite The Lodger, his first commercial and critical success, as his first real film.

The Pleasure Garden is typical of its era – a crowd-pleasing moralistic melodrama that combined exotic locations, glamorous characters and dog-themed humour.  What the plot lacks in depth and originality, Hitchcock makes up for with his imaginative direction and camerawork.  His penchant for suspense is apparent in the film’s dramatic editing, with frequent cuts between characters and situations serving to gradually build tension towards its eventful climax.

There are many of the themes and motifs which would recur in later Hitchcock films.  The most recognisable of these is the tendency for male characters to dominate, exploit and destroy female characters.  Duplicity and deceit, two of the main themes of The Pleasure Garden, would become essential ingredients of the Hitchcock suspense thriller, along with a wry dark humour and perverse love of the macabre, which can also be glimpsed in this film.

© James Travers 2008

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