The Pleasure Garden is Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film. (An earlier film, Number 13, probably no longer exists and is either described as unfinished or a short.) As such, it bears a remarkable number of indications of the director’s promise, including some sophisticated editing in the earlier part of the film, especially in its astonishing opening scene. The theme of doubling, so common in Hitchcock’s later work, is also fully, tantalizingly present here.
Unfortunately, the second half of the film is a succession of perfunctory melodrama conventions that result in the creation of a most unlikely romantic couple. And in “The Far East” of all places.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: VHS Dub of German Television Broadcast
14 Sep 2005 11:54 PM | Submit Comment
