A young man (Derek De Marney) is accused of murder and jailed. His lawyer is a greedy nincompoop, so De Marney escapes, dragging along the innocent daughter (Nova Pilbeam) of the chief constable (Percy Marmont). There follows the sort of comic yet thrilling Chase that Hitch's fans are familiar with from others of his film like "Saboteur" and "The 39 Steps." Nova Pilbeam -- great, imaginative name, by the way -- realizes along the way that De Marney is innocent and she falls in with him as they track down the one or two clues they have to the identity of the real murderer. The chase takes them through a flop house run by a surprisingly young Torin Thatcher. There they meet the only man, a bum, or (excuse me) a vagabond, who can identify the murderer. Not that the absurd character remembers what the killer looks like, just that he had a spastic twitch in his eyelids.
Their last clue takes the couple to a semi-elegant supper club with a band playing in the background. Fasten your seat belt because here comes one of Hitchcock's bravura shots. The innocent, puzzled pair are seated at a table, looking around the hopelessly crowded dance floor for someone with a twitch. The camera pans slowly over the mob of dancers as if they were objects stored in Citizen Kane's warehouse, then droops down, passes through the dancers, approaches the band stand, noses through the musicians in black face, to an enormous choker of a close-up of the drummer's face. The drummer spots the investigators peering around. His eyes twitch spastically.
The drummer/murderer, luckily, is not one of Hitchcock's suave and unflappable villains, not like the four-fingered guy in "The 39 Steps." This murderer is a nervous wreck. It isn't that De Marney and Pilbeam discover who he is, so much as that he gives himself away. He begins banging the drums and cymbals out of synch, helplessly falling over the instruments, collapsing while the other musicians stare at him. The police drag him away, cackling maniacally. The end.
The pursuit involves some suspenseful moments, particularly a scene in which Pilbeam's old Morris is driven into "the mine works" and begins to sink as the floor of the shaft begins to collapse under the car's weight. I was happy she was saved. She's delicately appealing. I wouldn't have been broken hearted if the dog, Towser, had gone down with the sinking car though. But Hitchcock makes certain we see the dog escape safely. He had a weakness for dogs, having once owned a Beagle named Philip of Magnesia. Dogs appear in several of his films. He seems never to have been much for cats, and he was definitely down on birds.
This is a good example of Hitchcock's British works from the 1930s, the sort of thing that eventually saw him lured away to Hollywood.
Their last clue takes the couple to a semi-elegant supper club with a band playing in the background. Fasten your seat belt because here comes one of Hitchcock's bravura shots. The innocent, puzzled pair are seated at a table, looking around the hopelessly crowded dance floor for someone with a twitch. The camera pans slowly over the mob of dancers as if they were objects stored in Citizen Kane's warehouse, then droops down, passes through the dancers, approaches the band stand, noses through the musicians in black face, to an enormous choker of a close-up of the drummer's face. The drummer spots the investigators peering around. His eyes twitch spastically.
The drummer/murderer, luckily, is not one of Hitchcock's suave and unflappable villains, not like the four-fingered guy in "The 39 Steps." This murderer is a nervous wreck. It isn't that De Marney and Pilbeam discover who he is, so much as that he gives himself away. He begins banging the drums and cymbals out of synch, helplessly falling over the instruments, collapsing while the other musicians stare at him. The police drag him away, cackling maniacally. The end.
The pursuit involves some suspenseful moments, particularly a scene in which Pilbeam's old Morris is driven into "the mine works" and begins to sink as the floor of the shaft begins to collapse under the car's weight. I was happy she was saved. She's delicately appealing. I wouldn't have been broken hearted if the dog, Towser, had gone down with the sinking car though. But Hitchcock makes certain we see the dog escape safely. He had a weakness for dogs, having once owned a Beagle named Philip of Magnesia. Dogs appear in several of his films. He seems never to have been much for cats, and he was definitely down on birds.
This is a good example of Hitchcock's British works from the 1930s, the sort of thing that eventually saw him lured away to Hollywood.