Skin Game

Year: 1931

Grade: C

Country: UK

Director: Hitchcock

Review

decent early hitchcock talkie. the story follows two well-to-do families who spite each other and everyone is hurt as a result. the most significant thing about this film is the fact that it’s a sound film. you can clearly see hitchcock experimenting with the advantages of sound in this picture, but outside of this the picture isn’t all that remarkable. in the beginning there is a lot of experimentation with sound, which must have been interesting to audiences at the time (1931), but is only interesting now as a historical document. there are conversations that take place off camera, scenes with lots of layers of sounds, and other such novelties. some of the framing of in the film, or maybe just on the dvd, is downright awful, but i can’t be sure that it was hitchcock’s fault because the dvd is distributed by laserlight.