Customer Reviews

The Skin Game

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Hitchcock may be the master of suspense, but this movie doesn't show that mastery fully-developed. The movie starts out strong, and builds to a great climax, but then wraps up abruptly. The movie shows much of Hitchcock's skill at building suspense, but doesn't deliver an ending to match the rising tension. It's too bad, because the build-up is very strong. Pay attention to the epilogue scene for great use of irony.

About the title: A "skin game" means a swindle, trick, or scam.

The movie starts with Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn) buying property from the proud, proper English landowner Hillcrest (C.V. France), assuring him that the tenant farmers would be allowed to stay. Soon Hornblower evicts them to build factories, because he is a man of progress and industry. Hillcrest is outraged, and sets out to stop Hornblower's efforts to buy up land for more factories.

Hillcrest attempts to slow down Hornblower's land purchases by rigging an auction on some property that's up for sale. But Hornblower figures out the scheme, and outsmarts Hillcrest with his own tricks. Hillcrest escalates the feud by hiring a man to dig up dirt on Hornblower and his family.

For a longer version of this review, with spoilers (and a spoiler warning), see IMDB.

Rumour has it, Hitchcock was forced by British International Pictures to direct this film against his will and one would be tempted to believe it after only a few minutes into the film. The movie is a boring, plodding feature about 2 rival land owners who like to talk talk talk!! Little to no action, little to no character motivation, little to no interest. Hitchcock appeared to be more interested in applying his talents elsewhere.

...As if the film isn't bad enough on it's own, this terrible, terrible video transfer by Laserlite makes the miserable experience even worse! Laserlight simply copied an already existing VHS transfer of the film, which is made apparent by several VHS tracking flaws in the film. This is totally unacceptable on a DVD! To make matters worse, the cropping is the worst I've ever seen in any movie transfer! In some scenes entire heads are cut off, leaving the viewer listening to disembodied voices talking and talking and talking for long periods of time. Wether or not the bad cropping was caused by Laserlite or the VHS transfer is irrelevant. It's bad and it shouldn't be printed this way on DVD. No matter how bad a film is, it shouldn't be treated in such a manner. The Dial M for Murder trailer and Tony Curtis' uninformed banter do not improve the entertainment experience one bit. Don't let this turn you off of these Laserlite Hitchcock DVDs, though. Most of them are good and a couple, even excellent. This is not one of those.

1 star to Hitchcock for not trying very hard in 1931, and 1 star star to Laserlite for not trying very hard in 1998

This is a review of the Laserlight DVD release of 'The Skin Game'. This is one of several early Hitchcock films that I'm sure would have been lost without trace had Hitchcock's name not appeared on the credits. In fact, Hitckcock probably wished it had disappeared without trace; there really is very little to commend this dull, boring movie. As for the DVD itself, the picture and sound quality are of an acceptable standard and Laserlight has also included a trailer for 'Dial M For Murder'. But there's no getting away from the fact that this is a cheapie DVD for Hitchcock completists only.

Gwenn is the familiar standout, pushy and obnoxious......sort of an unclassy guy who got rich and now wants to push the aristocracy around. He exudes vitality and cunning and the game is on. But the blows get lower and lower. The moral standards of both rivals are slowly compromised as they get more desperate to defeat eachother. It might help to be English and understand how entrenched "class" is. I had an English husband so I got some indoctrination into things and attitudes British. Gwenn sees nothing wrong with breaking a business promise (that causes the situation) yet he expects promises he extracts to be honored. The game is between him and the lady aristocrat, as her husband was disgusted with her tactics, but too weak to stop her.

It is not a fast paced movie. But the plot and tension slowly build and you end up with characters that have morally destroyed themselves in trying to destroy each other.. Very fascinating how the original motives slowly change......What was an excuse for the fight, becomes barely an afterthought.

I found it very intriguing.

Format: Movie
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Distributor: Wardour Films Ltd.
Release Date: February 26, 1931

When people first hear the title of this film they often think that it is either pornographic or a very violent film involving mutilation of some sort. Let me clear the air by first saying that it is as far as you can get from either of those things. The movie is really about two warring families: the Hillcrists and the Hornblowers. The Hornblowers are attempting to urbanize a particular area and to do such they are purchasing every piece of land in the area but the Hillcrists who has lived in the area for generations do not want the last area of land to be bought up. So a bidding battle begins at the auction house and the battle between the families becomes fiercer than ever. The story is actually pretty interesting and worthwhile with neither family being shown as being right or wrong. It's really up to the audience to decide which family is correct which is good storytelling. So overall a pretty interesting and entertaining story even if the film does end really abruptly.

The acting in the film is underrated but still not anything amazing. C.V. France plays Mr. Hillcrist and Helen Haye plays Mrs. Hillcrist. France does a standup job in his role and really seems like a fierce old man with a firm belief in protecting the land. Helen Haye on the other hand is a weak actress who really doesn't bring anything to the role and really doesn't make the character seem like she cares about what is even going on. Edmund Gwenn plays Mr. Hornblower and he is probably the best actor in this picture. He seems like a real businessman who knows his goal and how to get there. And as for the other actors and actresses in the film, they are all mediocre with no real standouts. So a mixed bag of sorts but not as bad as most people seem to think.

As for the special effects here, you have some pretty decent ones for 1931. All of the sets look really good and the drowned corpse at the end looks really realistic for the time. Now the sound doesn't have nearly the same level of perfection. It cuts out constantly and some parts seem nearly muted which is really bad for any movie of any time period! So great special effects but mediocre music and terrible sound.

To sum up my thoughts on The Skin Game I'll say that it adapts the original play very well especially since plays rarely work in movie format. The story is incredibly entertaining and well done although it has a very abrupt ending which makes me wish that the movie had gone on a little bit longer. One major problem here is the camera which will often chop off people's heads at the top of the screen or keep jittering around which feels really unprofessional. And as for everything else the acting is a mixed bag, the special effects are great, and the sound is abysmal. So a lot of positive and negative qualities in this movie really make it a mixed bag of a film. Check it out if you are a fan of the original play or Alfred Hitchcock's work but don't go out of your way to see it.
Score: 5/10

This early Alfred Hitchcock talkie has whiskers on it, its style is so dated. The Hillcrists, an old-moneyed, conservative landowning family in rural England, run up against the Hornblowers, an up-and-coming, up-to-date family of nouveau riche strivers who want to buy and develop land encircling the Hillcrists', evicting some old-family-retainer type tenants in the process.
The dispute escalates, leading to the tragic death of one family member just before the final fadeout. This is an early "talkie," all right; the mostly stiff and very British cast does a lot of talking, without much action. However, the movie is saved from mediocrity, at least in part, by the performance of Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Hornblower, the patriarch of the go-getter family. Yes, he's the same actor who played Kris Kringle in the 1947 Christmas classic "Miracle On 34th Street." Here in this 1931 film he is, obviously, 16 years younger, much more vigorous, and gives a fine performance full of energy and a Scottish (or possibly Welsh) accent that provides some welcome relief from the "posh" upper-class talk of the Hillcrists.
A couple of other interesting tidbits about the cast: Mrs. Hillcrist is played by Helen Haye (no, not Helen HAYES; this is a British actress with a similar name). Jill Hillcrist, the couple's daughter, is enacted by Jill Esmond, who just prior to filming had married a rising young British actor named Laurence Olivier.
And Hitchcock's cinematography is outstanding in the early part of the picture, with several shots of beautiful English forest and countryside, including one which is dissolved perfectly into a painting of the exact same scene in a drawing room. Scenes shot purportedly on the streets in a provincial town are very convincing also, and may well have been done on location.
This is not a film that Hitchcock will be long remembered for, but it's worth seeing as a curiosity, and also so you can be assured that, yes, Edmund Gwenn did play some parts besides Kris Kringle.

Generally I find the early Hitchcock films unique in different ways but this one could have ANY directors name on it and it would still be a bad film. It doesn't have that 'Hitch' feel to it and if the first reviewer was correct in saying he was forced to do it -- I believe it.

I couldn't even understand the actors so I went looking for subtitles hoping there would be an English set but no such luck, I just had to wait for half an hour for my ears to adjust to the dialects, then I could understand why I was I was bored.

The auction scene is the only one that bears any resemblence to a Hitchcock movie. Small wonder I paid more for the shipping and handling than I did for the film.

This Laserlight version is decent quality, given that the movie is almost 70 years old. The movie itself, however, put me to sleep. Very little humor or suspense, and I expected one or the other from Hitchcock.