The Skin Game (1931)

Film: The Skin Game (1931)

Stars: CV France, Helen Haye, Jill Esmond, Edmund Gwenn, John Longden, Phyllis Konstam

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

I love the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but I am learning as we're going along with this Sunday Leftovers series that watching a man's full filmography, particularly when he has a robust early filmography, can be a bit demanding (which is why we are consistently running late on this series).  Hitchcock's filmography makes this demanding in a strange way for me because so many of his films take place in the early Sound Era, which is my least favorite time frame for film.  While there are great sound movies during this period (King Kong, Dinner at Eight, Duck Soup), from 1927-33 I am generally wishing that the movies had just shut up (particularly considering how the best Silent Era movies took place in the late-1920's).  This is personified with The Skin Game, a movie with an intriguing plot, but one that gets totally glossed by in the early sound technology.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about two feuding families: the Hillcrists, Jack (France) and Ivy (Haye, and it's Helen Haye-not Oscar-winner Helen Hayes, though their remarkably similar names had me thrown off as well), who are a longtime upper class family in the English countryside, and the nouveau riche Hornblowers, including their patriarch Mr. Hornblower (Gwenn), his son Charles (Longden), and his pregnant daughter-in-law Chloe (Konstam).  The Hornblowers are buying up much of the land around the Hillcrists, obstructing their view by putting up factories.  When one last parcel of land is up-for-sale, they get into a bidding war that leads to the Hornblowers winning the land, but before they can do anything with the property, Ivy has a catch-she knows that Chloe used to be a prostitute, and as a result she blackmails Hornblower into causing a scandal for his family (and incoming grandchild) if they put up factories.  They swear an oath not to say anything in exchange for the land remaining untouched, but Chloe's guilt & the gossip this stirs up is too much for her, and she kills herself.  Angered by the Hillcrists' blackmail killing his future grandchild, Hornblower goes back on the deal, destroying the last views of the Hillcrist estate.

There's something fascinating in this movie, I'm not going to lie, as it's a good plot.  I love stories about the minutia of rich people, and how you can use seemingly silly things (like a parcel of land & the view it provides) and turn it into a much more dire set of circumstances (i.e. the reputation & life of a young woman).  Hitchcock even tries to preserve the majesty this had in previous iterations by hiring Gwenn & Haye, both of whom were in the 1921 silent version of this picture.  The late scenes where Gwenn, a fine actor then as well as later (he'd eventually win an Oscar for Miracle on 34th Street) tells off the Hillcrists & promises revenge, are solid stage work.

But this isn't a play, and huge stretches of the film are exceedingly dull.  The auction scene goes on at a glacial pace, and doesn't have the excitement it would have if this film was made a decade later, and the dialogue becomes interchangeable between, say, Chloe and the Hillcrists' daughter Jill.  Combine in that Chloe's prostitution isn't actually mentioned (though it's heavily implied for anyone who can remotely read between the lines), and there feels like 30% of the film just having shocked people trying not to say Chloe's "sin."  As a result, what might have been a great film gets bogged down as Hitchcock (like nearly all directors of this era) trying to capture what sound-in-film would feel like.  As a result, The Skin Game becomes like many Hitchcock movies of this era-only necessary if you're a completionist.