User Reviews

COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR: an expressionistic and claustrophobic account of sexual obsession and jealousy, very Hitchockian in the way it deals with the resulting crescendo of suspense, especially in connection with a key throat-cutting in a barber's chair incident. Asquith was a director who grew stodgy as his career entered into the sound era, viz his terribly British adaptions of Rattigan, but the present film (1929) is rather an eye opener. One standout scene is set within a cinema, partly a comment on the imminent and creatively burdensome coming of clunky sound, and which contains an extended eye opening use of editing, cutting about within an audience as the beady-eyed boy friend watches his victims - a bravura sequence which ought to be much better known to cineastes.

First time of viewing this one: a marvellous experience, from the opening shots of a prisoner on the run over moorland from prison guards to the ending where …

The first intertitle is "Joe!" and we're immediately launched into an hour long flashback of how Joe got to be a prisoner and how he knows Sally. He's obsessively in love with her with awful consequences for the man she really loves, and himself - realistically portrayed and apart from the incident in the barbers unfortunately only too believable. The three main leads play their parts wonderfully well with incessant close ups, inventive photography, low cameras and precise mirror shots highlighting the intensity. Photogenic Norah Baring thankfully was no Hollywood Queen, her self possession and simple youthful homeliness adding an extra dimension to the time honoured tale. Favourite bits: Life in Sally's boarding house with the old biddies, ear trumpets and ancient furniture and plants; The cinema segment with everyone including the redundant pit orchestra intently watching a talkie, and of course the orgasmic psycho-jazz snappy editing; The "murder" in the barbers (it was fun watching everybody apparently just watching the dying man dying).

One of the last mainstream silent films produced, it just couldn't have worked even one year later as a slave to the voice – this shows exactly what silent films could offer as an artform, and still do to those with a little patience. Try it.

I'm extremely impressed with every aspect of 'A Cottage on Dartmoor', directed by the underrated Anthony Asquith (son of the Prime Minister). The camera-work features some superb tracking shots, kept perfectly in focus by focus-puller Arthur Woods (later a brilliant director in his own right, all too briefly before his death in World War Two). There is a clever and subtle flashback transition. The frame compositions are excellent, as are the performances by this obscure cast. At the climax of this monochrome film, there is a single flash of red: Hitchcock would later use this same device in 'Spellbound'. I wonder if Hitchcock copied it from Asquith.

Most of this story takes place in flashback, a device which I normally dislike. Flashbacks are now so hackneyed that there is an entire cinematic grammar of flashbacks: the screen goes blurry, the soundtrack swells with theremin music. Here, the transition to flashback is done subtly, with the first dialogue intertitle bridging the shift. Well done!

Some minor details distressed me. We see a prisoner who escaped from Dartmoor. His uniform displays a number, but shouldn't it also have the broad arrow? Also, since Joe (the convict) has sworn revenge against Harry Stevens -- his rival for the affection of Sally -- why ever have Harry and Sally moved to a remote cottage on Dartmoor, conveniently close to Joe's prison? This is the sort of thing which Hitchcock identified as 'icebox logic', the cinematic equivalent of "esprit d'escalier".

This film was made at an awkward moment of cinema history. The movie is silent, yet (in the dialogue titles) the characters on screen discuss going to 'a talkie'. But when they go to the cinema, a live orchestra are playing ... which indicates that the movie being shown is a silent. And an insert shot of a programme book tells us that the movie is Harold Lloyd's 'Safety Last', definitely a silent.

Not the least of this film's pleasures is its depiction of life in George V's England. I got a twinge of nostalgia from a brief shot of an infant clutching a rusk. (Do modern babies eat rusks?) In the central role, Norah Baring is excellent: portraying a simple manicurist, she is personable and pleasant to look at, without the implausible amount of glamour that a Hollywood actress would have brought to such a workaday role. I'll rate this fine character drama 8 out of 10.

Sally lives in a cottage on Dartmoor when, on a dark and quiet night, a man breaks into her home having just escaped the high-security prison across the moors. That man is none other than Joe, a former barber's assistant at the place where Sally used to be a manicurist. As they connect eyes, the audience flashback to the times where Joe and Sally once worked together and he had tried to woo her at the beginning of a series of events that now brought them to this place.

The BBC's summer of British films this year turned out to be better than I expected it to be because, instead of wheeling out Zulu, Dam Busters and all the usual British films, they actually screened lots of films that I had not seen or, in some cases, heard of. Of course this meant that some of them were not any good but at least it was an attempt to fresh up the idea of what British cinema is. A Cottage on Dartmoor is a good example of this as it is rare for silent films to be screened on television and far more rare for them to be British silent films. I had never seen this and I enjoyed it a great deal.

Narrative-wise the film opens with an element of fear and tension before jumping back to more of a comedy and romance. As this builds back to where it started again for a good finish. The film is maybe 15 minutes too long for the material to sustain but otherwise it is well delivered. The funny bits are amusing, the tense bits tense and the romance nicely melodramatic and tragic, however it is the delivery that makes the film – specifically that of Asquith and his cinematographer. Visually the film matches the tone of the film really well – opening and closing with sharp shadows on the moors, and enjoying a bright and carefree air early in the barbershop scenes. The images are sharp and really well formed with plenty of clever shots. Mirrors are used well, conversations represented by stock footage, flashbacks delivered within flashbacks and a great scene where we watch a cinema audience reacting to a film they are watching. Visually and technically it is very impressive and I enjoyed it a great deal.

Deserves to be screened a lot more than it is and be seen by more people than it is, but credit to the BBC for showing it recently.

A Cottage on Dartmoor is a late British silent of stunning clarity and poetic justice. The use of the camera to caress the homey accents in Norah's boarding house, the use of mirrors to dramatize the lives and thoughts of the characters, the elongated camera angles of the escaped convict jumping from captivity to freedom, and running from his past into redemption. All of this and more make this late silent itself almost a valentine to the end of the silent era and the dawn of sound.

One of the most poignant scenes in the movie demonstrates this by taking us to a "talkie" that nonetheless has a full orchestra that the camera hones in on and romanticizes.

While this is a tale of obsession, it is also a story of love that has many emotionally tense elements that Norah Baring and Uno Henning handle with dignity and grace. I'm very surprised that I've not heard more about either of these actors.

A Cottage on Dartmoor is a very beautifully realized film that probably wouldn't have been as effective had it been made as a sound movie.

Stylish and tense melodrama which features an opening scene where a man who has just escaped from prison is seen crossing the stark and gloomy moors, the sky darkened by black clouds, and not much more to be seen than a few wandering cows and a dark, bare tree. A woman cares for her baby at a lonely, isolated cottage, the man slithers in and confronts her and - she knows him! Now in flashback we see the background story of these two, Joe and Sally, co-workers in a barber shop where he gives men a shave and a haircut while she manicures their nails and gives the customers flirtatious smiles. This prompts more than just jealousy in this man - he pursues her, she doesn't really seem to like him that much but does agree to go out with him and they spend an evening together at her boarding-house where numerous well-meaning, slightly interfering old-timers seem to live (and he gets some pretty scary expressions on his face in what seems to be his desperation to kiss her). When she agrees to go see a "talkie" with a certain male customer, Joe turns stalker as he sneaks into the theater, secretly plants himself in the row behind them, and in an amazingly photographed scene shot using rapid-paced editing, we never see the film they are watching - instead the camera cuts between audience members plus Sally reacting as they watch the film, the orchestra playing, and Joe - who is not watching the film at all, but rather he's glaring in a steady gaze at Sally and her "date" in front of him.

This is a really excellent, well done film featuring loads of interesting cinematography - softly filtered lighting and shadowy scenes, facial close-ups, and lots of fast cutting. The guard who discovers Joe's escape is seen mainly in shadows against the cell walls, the menacing face of the convict as the camera quickly zooms in to show his face as the woman recognizes him, Joe sharpening his razor, quickly cut between two gossiping female co-workers, as he contemplates murder! The Kino DVD of this features a great looking black and white print and nicely done piano score that helps enhance the tension in the film. A great silent film, well worth seeing.

Anthony Asquith is best known for straightforward film-making in the so-called British literary tradition which served him particularly well in stage-to-screen adaptations of G. B. Shaw & Terrence Rattigan. Letting the writer function as auteur doesn't win you critical kudos, but films as fine as PYGMALION/'38 and THE BROWNING VERSION/'51 don't just 'happen.' Even so, it's fun to watch the young Asquith show off, even needlessly, on late silents like this & UNDERGROUND/'28, also out on DVD. You can all but hear him parsing the latest Russian or German import just screened at his CineClub. There's some strikingly fast montage work and psychological P.O.V. stuff (even a shock-flash of red tinting as in the original prints of Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND/'45), but the main influence is UFA studios with their posh camera moves, rich visual texture, expressionist acting, shadowy lighting & diagonal slashes The opening works best as Swedish actor Uno Henning (in his only British role, he's an intriguing mix of Buster Keaton & Conrad Veidt) breaks out of prison in search of revenge. The story flashes back to detail a rather commonplace love triangle that gives Asquith plenty of space for his set pieces (a visit to the cinema, a very close shave, et al.) which tend to run on a bit too long. But no matter, it's all ravishing to watch and if the characterizations never quite add up, the visual touches are worth the stretch.

Firstly, let me say that my little lad eats the occasional rusk and loved them when a baby (now nearly 4). I loved this movie...I saw it for the first time last night on the BBC. I too enjoyed the flashback vehicle, which by using the exclamation (via title) "Joe!" jolted us into flashback. I thought the use of mirrors imaginative and symbolic (Norah appearing at times a disembodied - if beautiful - head among possessive men in the barbershop. I was quite enthralled by the big farmer coming in for a manicure (wink-wink). The images are on reflection quite disturbing in the barbershop...a man having his hands caressed by a pretty girl whilst a cut throat razor is applied to his throat. I too found the trip to the cinema memorable and also poignant. The director at pains to reveal to us the value of the cinema orchestra at a time when their jobs would have been in extreme peril. Couple this with mention of a "talkie" earlier (this received a blank response) and these elements could be viewed as a swan song for the silents. You must see this film, it is truly wonderful. The performances are spot on and it does not always take the predictable turn. Considering the intensity of obsession the male lead character conveys, the film develops great warmth. UNIQUE!!

Uno Henning escapes from Dartmoor Prison and makes it to a small cottage where he confronts Norah Baring. We see in flashback that he worked in a barber shop and had a crush on Baring. After she (kind of) unintentionally leads him on, he discovers that she plans on marrying customer Hans Adalbert Schlettow. Bad things happen.

The last of four silent films made by Anthony Asquith, it was made so much on the cusp of talking films that the characters go see one in the film. It's a striking visual film with strong expressionist elements and odd, dynamic editing. It's also about 15 minutes too long.

Asquith cameos as a customer in the quite long movie theater scene.

As everyone's being so nice about this, I thought I should put the other side. It's a bit interesting, being so old, and some of the camera-work and acting is good on occasion. However, above all, it's melodramatic. The characters stick to one or two emotions each throughout. The plot is exceptionally hackneyed and simple and what drama there might be is largely eliminated by the fact that 90% of the film is in flashback. There are very few actual events, as the scenes are so long. Also, almost no dialogue is shown in inter titles, less than in many silent films. So, you could watch it at 4x normal speed and not miss anything. The director attempts to inject some drama through frantic cutting and atmospheric lighting but simply emphasises how little activity or plot development is taking place. Another weak attempt to add drama is some horrendous overacting. You might wish to make allowances given the age of the film, though there were many better films of the same era.

From time to time, it is very laudable for this German count to re-watch some of those silent films of his aristocratic youth. Overall, this in order to check if the passage of time has positively or negatively influenced his recollection of the remarkable aspects of such films. That's not to mention that fortunately many of those films after such long time are now cleaned and restored -- nothing in common with those rotten and blurred nitrates that are stored at this Herr Graf's gloomy cellar that necessarily need an extra pair of monocles each time that they are shown at the Schloss theatre.

This time such advisable aristocratic and nostalgic film habits had excellent artistic results. That's because after 70 years from its official release, "A Cottage On Dartmoor", a film directed by Herr Anthony Asquith, preserves intact its many and excellent virtues. The perfect word that summarizes the merits of that British film: virtuosity.

Herr Anthony Asquith skillful film direction begins as the films starts. It introduces a convict that escaped from prison running away along Dartmoor meadows. With the sole purpose of revenge, he tries to find the girl that causes him imprisonment; when finally he finds her, a fascinating flashback starts.

A superb display of film technique can be seen in the film. There are such as perfect images ( Expressionism influences are obvious in the film, in its obscure and visual conception ) concatenations or fascinating visual metaphors ( the use of the camera is astounding: remarkable and imaginative camera angles that scrutinizes the tormented soul and evil intentions of the main character of the film ). It depicts an intriguing, thrilling and original story. A barber, Joe ( Herr Uno Henning ) falls in love with a manicurist, Sally ( Dame Norah Baring ) in the same place where both work. Joe is rejected by her and doesn't accept that ultimately Sally loves a client, Harry ( Herr Hans Adalbert Schlettow ). Consumed by jealousy, tries to murder Harry.

It has a perfect "tempo" in order to explain and show such a tormented love story that will finish with a poetic, sorrowful ending. Only one thing is lacking in seeing the film and is Dame Norah Baring's performance. Probably she is so stiff, inexpressive and frigid due to the abuse of the use of tea -- that awful beverage that usually is drunk by commoners and even eccentric aristocrats in the perfidious Albion. But that's a minor flaw that doesn't damage excessively the excellent artistic merits of such remarkable film.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must go to a decadent soirée pretty well-combed.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

... from director Anthony Asquith. An intense young man (Uno Henning) escapes from prison and makes his way cross-country to a secluded farmhouse, where he finds a young woman (Norah Baring) with a small child. The film then flashes back to show the story of how these characters intersected in the past, as the man and woman worked at a barber salon, he giving shaves and she a manicurist. He was hopelessly in love with her, but she had eyes for a frequent customer (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) who has money. As the young man's jealousy grows, his mental state becomes fragile, leading to violence and tragedy.

This was made right at the end of the silent era, and it uses many of the best cinematic innovations of that era. The sound era was encroaching fast, though, and part of the film takes place in a movie theater showing a "talkie", and how the audience reacts to it as opposed to the silent Harold Lloyd short they see before the feature. Henning is phenomenal as the distraught young man, giving a performance that makes the Oscar winner from that year (Warner Baxter from In Old Arizona) look like amateur hour. Baring and Schlettow are also fine. This was a real surprise.

"A Cottage on Dartmoor" is the perfect companion piece to Anthony Asquith's other silent masterpiece, "Shooting Stars" (1928). The latter concerning the perilous production of silent cinema in Britain, especially in the face of Hollywood competition, and this one about film spectatorship against the storm clouds of talkies upon the horizon.

The story of a madman infatuated with a coworker he appears to hardly know doesn't make much sense if one thinks about it, but it's not the thing here. Well, not entirely, that is; his gaze and paroxysms are important. I suppose, too, that I can't blame one for, in looking for inspirations or precedents to Asquith's film, turning to comparisons with that other, more well-known contemporary British filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, no, this isn't Hitchcockian, at least not of the Hitchcock of the silent era--the director of the highly reflexive Hollywood pair of "Rear Window" (1954) and "Vertigo" (1958), sure, but not the Englishmen making "The Lodger" (1927) by way of, loosely defined, German expressionism. And, yes, the techniques here surely owe much to European cinema, including some Soviet-style rapid montage. To see where Asquith was most importantly coming from in this case, however, we need to cross the Atlantic and, then, go all the way around to the Pacific, as he did as an Oxford student, to meet another English filmmaker and arguably the foremost genius of the silent era, Charlie Chaplin. (Being the aristocratic son of a prime minister has its advantages, it would seem; his associations also including Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.)

It's with this understanding of the undergraduate being schooled by Chaplin in the art form that he could go on to produce this dark version of "City Lights" (1931)--even before Chaplin finished "City Lights" (although, perhaps tellingly, Asquith visited Chaplin on the set for "The Circus" (1928), made as the talkies had just emerged). Both films are essentially about the beauty of silent films against the blind barbarism (heh, get it, because the lead is a barber) of the newfangled talkies, of synchronized-sound films. Chaplin relied more purely on sight analogies to make this point, whereas Asquith lays it all out in the movie theatre scene, where in a silent film, the characters go to see a talkie.

Reportedly, "A Cottage on Dartmoor" was also released in a goat-gland format. That is, it featured sound-on-disc music and some dialogue sequences, which were done with a German system and recorded in Berlin (whereas the rest of the picture was filmed in London studios and the eponymous moorland since proclaimed a national park), but most British cinemas weren't yet equipped for the technology, so there would've been a purely silent version, from which the BFI restoration available on home video appears to be derived. While I fear these talkie sequences would've been as horrendous as those in other such goat-gland productions ("Lonesome" (1928) comes to mind), they were reportedly limited to the talkie film-within-the-film, so it may've been unusually effective. As is now, we never see the talkie feature our surrogate audience views (nor the silent comedy short preceding it). This is brilliant, because the implication is that there's nothing worth seeing there; all the interesting action based around looks is happening in the silent film in attendance to the unseen talkie.

There's a lot to love about this overtly-meta sequence. The reveal of the program information is initially delayed until after the silent short and which contains some jokes: the talkie title "My Woman" being the gender reversal of the "My Man" film-within-the-film from "Shooting Stars" and as adapted from the play by "W. Shayspeare," it's "200% ALL TALKING!!! ALL SINGING!!! ALL DANCING!! DRAMA." That's just spot on for how these monstrosities were advertised. The tagline for the pathetic excuse for a Best Picture winner "The Broadway Melody" (1929) went something like that. The brief withholding of the program details may allow for the opportunity to confuse one over the rapid montage of an energetic band playing spliced with audience reactions to be interpreted as part of the musical talkie--or, at least I was a bit unsure at first. It's only after we see the program that we know with certainty that the band was actually providing musical accompaniment to the Harold Lloyd silent that preceded the talkie. And, duh, early talkies didn't feature such dynamic camera positions and shot juxtapositions. I mean, by and large, we're talking about ugly canned theatre at this point.

Note, too, the joyful audience reactions to the Lloyd film. Then, see their behavior when the talkie begins. The band starts playing cards without any work to do. Several shriek or turn away in horror. One man falls asleep. The deaf grandmother with an ear trumpet is an especially nice touch, as here she must rely on the woman sitting next to her to describe the picture into the hearing aid, the quality of the talkie's sound not even being sufficient--creaky noise that that they were. The double in the audience for Harold Lloyd's glasses character is wonderful, too, and as played by none other than Asquith himself and who leaves when the talkie begins. The kid who points him out isn't wrong that he's the guy from the movie; it's just that the movie is "A Cottage on Dartmoor."

There are some minor drawbacks in the picture, although I maintain not with the narrative when understanding its reflexive construction. Some of the visual gimmickry may be excessive, though. Arguably too on the nose are the shots of shadows that at least a couple of times resemble prison bars. The cutting to newsreel footage of sporting events to represent the chit-chat at the salon was a novel notion, too, but it's not flawlessly pulled off. Regardless, this is more than compensated by the apparent subtlety of the narrative's self-reference, which although the movie theatre sequence announces it well enough, I have yet to read another review that explores how thoroughly this reflexivity is the raison d'être of the entire film. It's all about the end of the silent era and the emergence of sound films. The impassioned love triangle is but a mirror's reflection to this movie-going experience.

The men's barbershop, or hair and beauty salon, is an analogy for filmmaking and specifically silent filmmaking, full as it is of cutting, mirror-reflected imagery and entire scenes based around looks with nary a word spoken--and, indeed, there are relatively few intertitles in this one. This mirror motif continues into the home of the first date sequence, too, before it's rudely interrupted by the piano tune that shares its title with the talkie, "My Woman." Sally, the manicurist, appears to either be infatuated with the song or employing it to distract from the gaze of Joe, a barber. Thus, we have a silent city infiltrated by the talkie, where Joe's romance with Sally is doomed by the hairy situation of the rival suitor Harry (get it?) as a stand-in for the prospect of his cottage on the moor of sound cinema. A love triangle for the affections of the movie-goer and pictorial beauty as represented by Sally. And, by the way, the three leads are performed by an international cast of a Brit, a German and a Swede and in what was a Britain-Sweden co-production (although the Swedish re-cut sounds like it was an abomination)--a universality of silent cinema that would evaporate with the talkies. Three people from different countries can't just interact on a barbershop sound stage without some accounting for divergent accents, after all.

The climactic gaze upon Sally's photograph especially brings the point home, as we get a seaside sprint that's a bit reminiscent of a Harold Lloyd movie, "The Kid Brother" (1927)--a climactic romantic race motif that, before passion was eventually diluted by rom-com hackery, had quite a cinematic legacy, including in "The Graduate" (1967), "Manhattan" (1979) and, in what's at least a surprising coincidence, "When Harry Met Sally" (1989).

Moreover, while the talkie remains unseen, Asquith and cinematographer Stanley Rodwell repeatedly underscore how the infiltration of the talkie has blinded these movie-goers to the details, including by repeatedly using music in a thematically more sophisticated manner than would most sound films. The tickets and flower note that Joe drops are particularly indicative of the blinding effect of the talkies, but there's all the visual cues throughout from facial expressions that only the camera catches while the gaze of other characters are distracted.

One has to hand it to Asquith, too; he saw the writing on the wall. The time of silent cinema was numbered. The arrival of talkies was too violent a transformation. It's at the theatre that Joe first fantasizes about violently attacking Harry, and it's when he's at the razor's edge, so to speak, between cackling women on either side of him where he first snaps (again with the puns, this film) from the post-traumatic stress of the audio-visual assault upon him and the rest of the audience at the theatre. When he sees even the affections of Sally turning towards her talkie date, he sees red--and the film briefly becomes a striking red in an otherwise tinted black-and-white picture. The tension is built up all the more by flashback plotting seemingly anticipating film noir, psychological editing and artistic cinematography. We know Joe and the silent film will wind up as escaped prisoners and that, as with Chaplin's Tramp, this cinematic prison was only temporary. We don't require spoiler warnings here; we already know which art form tragically dies. This is a mournful picture. If Chaplin's "City Lights" is silent cinema's celebratory eulogy, this is its lamenting elegy.

There's not too many children of England's Prime Ministers that made a living as a director in cinema. In fact, there is known to be only one. Anthony Asquith, son of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, who held office between 1908 and 1916, two years into World War One, was a well-known movie director from the late 1920s through the mid-1960s. He directed such famous movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers and David Niven.

As a 26-year-old director, he tackled his last, and one of the United Kingdom's final, silent films, October 1929's "A Cottage on Dartmoor." He told a family friend he went into cinema mainly to get away from his family's political background. At the time a career in film directing wasn't the most respectable profession in England to make a living. Plus, Anthony had an artistic eye for composition, a talent most noticeable in his last silent thriller.

"A Cottage on Dartmoor" was his fourth silent film he directed. The results of the movie, set in South West England, solidified his reputation of being one of the best directors in frame composition. As a student of German Expressionism, Soviet montage editing and American silents, especially D. W. Griffith, Asquith handled this story of a love triangle adeptly. One film reviewer said his movie "has numerous directorial touches which reflect Asquith's immersion in European cinema, his interests in Expressionist film and montage cinema." "A Cottage on Dartmoor" has also been compared to another young, emerging English director, Alfred Hitchcock. Both favored the German film pioneers who discarded the normal stationary camera with flat lighting to create a paranormal atmosphere of intrigue and suspense. The producers of silent movies could hire international actors without the worry of audible language barriers. Sally, the English manicurist, is played by Norah Baring. Because of her intense performance in "Dartmoor," where she's the nexus between the two lovers, Hitchcock hired her as lead for his 1930 "Murder." Uno Henning, the barber Joe, was a Swedish actor who had a big part in G. W. Pabst's 1927's 'The Love of Jeanne Ney.' And Hans Schlettow, as the gentleman farmer, Harry, who swept Sally off her feet, was a very busy German actor.

One pivotal scene serves as a commentary between the magic of silent films versus those of talkies. Asquith shows Sally and Harry attending a double feature at the local cinema. Joe, constantly stalking Sally, follows the couple into the movie theater. The director focus is on the employed musicians as they serve the musical accompaniment to a silent comedy film. Everyone is having a good time, including the neighborhood old lady who doesn't need her large hearing aid tube stuck in her ear to understand the movie. The second feature, a mystery talkie, follows. The musicians, showing their displeasure in concluding their playing, are disgruntled by the fact they'll soon be out of a job. The audience members sit back, some falling asleep. And the elderly lady with the hearing problem whips out her tube, hits the woman sitting besides her several times with the long pipe, and is clearly struggling to hear the movie. (Asquith fails to address the fact that with the arrivals of talkies, blind people for the first time claim to have attended movies knowing they could follow the plot by hearing the actors' dialogue.)

Asquith, however, will thrive in the era of talkies. But his later films will never quite contain the visible quality he demonstrated in "A Cottage of Dartmoor."