Downhill (1928)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Classmates and close friends at an English public school, Roddy Berwick and Tim Wakely compete for the affections of a local shop girl. When the girl falsely accuses Roddy of getting her pregnant, he is expelled. However, Roddy remains silent to protect Tim, who was the guilty party, and the friends make a pact to keep silent. Outraged at his expulsion, Roddy's father does not believe his son's claims of innocence and throws him out. Thus, Roddy strikes out on his own, and his life begins a downward spiral from stage acting to a disastrous marriage to taxi dancing to the Marseilles waterfront. "When Boys Leave," also known as "Downhill," was Alfred Hitchcock's fifth completed film, and, early on in his career, the master director explores his oft-repeated theme of the wrongfully accused.Shot in 1927, the film is silent with inter-titles, and the black-and-white cinematography is often well lit with striking visual compositions. However, Hitchcock generally holds the camera steady, and movement occurs within the frame. The film lacks the camera fluidity common among movies of the late silent era, although Hitchcock is already a master of visual story-telling, and the inter-titles are brief and sparse. As Roddy's life reels out of control, he is dwarfed by his surroundings in rooms with impossibly high ceilings and doors that are more than twice his height. Fortunately, Hitchcock elicits naturalistic performances from his cast, and none indulges in the grand style of acting that negatively stereotyped silent movies. Ivor Novello, a Welsh matinée idol best known for his musical talents, plays the suffering Roddy quite well. Isabel Jeans as Julia Fotheringale, a spendthrift actress, and Ian Hunter as Archie, Julia's shady lover, provide amusing support during one colorful episode in Roddy's descent."When Boys Leave" is from Hitchcock's apprentice period in England, when he was still learning the craft. While the story is thin, and the motivations vague, this short silent film shows flashes of the genius to come, and, for students of the master, every Hitchcock film is worthwhile viewing.

I found this on the internet archives.It was free,but,why do classic distributors and broadcast classic film channels have less respect for film history,especially if it open? selfishness.So films like this end up as public domain.You have to be really be into classic films which the mainstream side is not much into,except for what is introduced for them, by big entertainment business.They don't go deep on the internet to fine obscurities like this .They follow order from big business and big t.v.Ivor ,I though,was portraying a college student,It looked it .But it was a private boarding school,he was suppose to play a teenager.The plot? After he and his best friend Tim,played by Robin Irvine, both dance with Mabel,played by Annette Benson,in which Tim does a little necking with her. She goes to the dean and accuse both of causing her to be pregnant.Ivor takes the blame for Tim.Ivor gets kicked out of school.His father Sir Thomas Berwick,played by Norman Mckinnel,does not believe him neither.So Ivor decide to go out and be on his own.Things star looking good when he lands as an extra for the London stage,sound like Ivor is portraying some of his real life.The problem is that he falls in love with the leading actress played by a young Isabel Jeans,GiGi's Aunt,,who has a sugar daddy played by an early Ian Hunter,who looks as old he did in the talkies.It when Ivor gets a letter that one of his dads relatives has left him 30,000 pounds ,that he thinks that it's so much money .He ends up marrying Isabel.She start to drains him financially and goes back to Hunter.Now poor Ivor is a dancing gigolo for ugly wealthy broads at a day club.He gets fed up with that.He gets so delirious that in his run down armament his buddy both black and white ,decide to put him on a little ship to help over come his sickness .He gets better .He end up going back to daddy and Daddy apologizes and even though Ivor is an adult now he goes back to finish school.In spite of that it was still good .Excellent print for public domain 09/5/13

I just watched this film which I purchased on Ebay. I am a fan of Ivor Novello primarily because of his operatic musicals of the thirties and forties. I saw The Lodger recently and was impressed with his performance, read a biography or two, enjoyed Jeremy Northam's portrayal in Gosford Park, and am hunting for other performances in the cinema. This movie is very well done and adds an interesting insight into Hitchcock's early career. The quality of the acting, photography, use of symbolism are undeniable. I thought the impression that women are a bit dangerous was a major point but at least his mother cared about him although she didn't seem to resist his father's impulsive banishment. This is a film which held my interest throughout and I highly recommend it.

With their theatre play Down Hill Ivor Novello and Constance Collier produced another lampoon dealing with British boarding school life and the layers of society it depends upon. Ivor Novello attended a school like that himself (Magdalen College, Oxford) and the theme of his play seems authentic in its unlikeliness. A school boy takes the blame for 'getting a girl into trouble' although a friend is to blame. He is expelled not only from school but also from his posh family home. Without his father's backing life quickly goes down hill. After a short career as a Paris gigolo he ends up in the slums of Marseille. Hitchcock filmed Down Hill with his typical mix of 'suspense' and humour throughout the film. The camera zooms into terrified faces, goes down hill on an escalator and an elevator and picks up every shadow and shade on its way. Apparently Hitch had the final scenes tinted in a horribly yellowish green when the protagonist feels ill. Apart from the almost unneeded final act Downhill is a downright Hitch. Its climax is the Paris night club scene where the young and inexperienced taxi dancer and gigolo is awaited by a horny elderly woman who has already compensated his services yet to be rendered.