Hitchcock back to the thriller well and
all-talking at crime scenes for a first time. Murder! is actually a mystery of
whodunit category, one disdained by AH, but artfully addressed here. We get
it served slow,patience rewarded by continual creative use of sound as
end in itself toward thrill-making. Hitchcock said he preferred pictures to
words, but for invention on display here, he clearly was fascinated by sound
and its potential. The business of blood and stains and such is lovingly
addressed, plus there's colorful depiction of backstage life among itinerant
stage players. Pace is stately, but Hitchcock invests every scene with
something fresh he's trying, whether it's music played live just off-set for
actors to respond to, or crying kids that almost drown out dialogue we're
supposed to be hearing. You wonder if this last was a sound snafu or deliberate
effect AH was going for. Mostly it's a beginning and finish where he gets in
visual licks, but again, this issecond to what is clearly Hitchcock's joy at
having a new medium to experiment with. Murder! has streamed on
Netflix in HD, and is available on DVD as part of a Lion's Gate collection featuring five early Hitchcocks.
Murder! in 1930 would be linchpin of a
British-International bid for US market-placing that saw Hitchcock's employer
in two year leasehold of the Broadway located George M. Cohan Theatre, its
address a primary reason for BIP interest. The outsider firm needed to boast of
White Way
opens for its product, the better to secure circuit and subsequent dates. It
didn't matter if NYC play lost money, as investment was in perception rather
than reality. Trades saw this as a boldest bid so far by Britishers to tap
American cashboxes. Resentment flowed from fact that US exporters were having
to pay twice the amount of tariff to have their wares UK-shown than were being
charged to guests on our shore. In fact, England
was getting two cents a foot for film we sent over vs. a penny being charged
them here. The inequity was noted, with hospitality accordingly down. So far as
a domestic show world felt, America was BIP's hill to climb.
The plan didn't lack for ambition, forty
"all-British" features tabbed for the Cohan, which seated 1,137 with
seventy-five cents a ticket's top. Occupation would begin in September 1930,
"with English colors draped over the (seating) boxes," observed
Variety. BIP reps admitted that UK
product, including their own, had been "very bad" up to a year
before, but now they had staff on our home ground and deals cooking with RKO
and Columbia
for wider distribution of the firm's output. BIP was determined too to keep its
films out of art houses: "Past experience has convinced the company that
once a picture goes into an arty, it is automatically stamped out for houses in
other classes," said Variety. The Cohan effort began with Young Woodley
and weak receipts, then Atlantic, which
promised better with a sea disaster theme. Estimates figured the venue for at
most $8,000 a week, and in fact, Murder! got half that for opening weekend
alone, but "failed to build and did not meet expectations of British
distrib," according to Variety. From there went the toboggan for BIP;
their next at the Cohan, Flame Of Love, taking so-far low of $2K.
Every week at the Cohan took a loss, but BIP
didn't panic, as this was expected. Benefit came with happy face they
could show in trade ads, most prominent a two-page on 12/24/30 withMurder!
emphasized as having been SHOWN on BROADWAY in OCTOBER. BIP took pride in the fact it could "make
its best films for $100,000 or less," that representing "one-third,
maybe less, of what a first-rate release costs in the states." So what if
their Broadway/Cohan experiment was now $30K in the red? The learning process
had been worth it. "BIP's venture at the Cohan was specifically to find
out once and for all if it had anything to sell over here, and BIP is going
back to British shores with three deals in its pocket," meaning the
Columbia release pact for six features, RKO for one, and ERPI to handle
short subjects. After nineweeks from September into November, BIP sublet the
Cohan for a synchronized revival of Griffith's
Birth Of A Nation, and 1931 would see a deal with Charlie Chaplin to long-run
his City Lights there.
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