The Village Voice (1999) - Hitched

Details

• article: Hitched
• author(s): Elliott Stein
• journal: The Village Voice (27/Apr/1999)
• issue: volume 44, issue 16, page 140
• journal ISSN: 0042-6180
• keywords: Alfred Abel, Alfred Hitchcock, Herbert Marshall, Mary (1931), Murder! (1930), Norah Baring, Rear Window (1954)

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Abstract

Stein reviews "Murder!" and its German language version, "Mary", both directed by Alfred Hitchcock and currently part of a Hitchcock retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Article

Hitched

The rarest item in MOMA's Hitchcock retro is Mary, the German-language version of his 1930 Murder!, shot simultaneously on the same sets at Elstree. The film surfaced in 1990 at an East German archive and has never been seen here before. In Murder!, an actor (Herbert Marshall) has doubts about the guilt of the woman (Nora Baring) he helped convict and tracks down the real killer. Hitch enlivens the plot with a knockout opening shot (which anticipates Rear Window), caustic humor, an expressionistic soundtrack, and a kinky gay subtext. Twelve minutes shorter than Murder!, Mary is tighter, but not better. The director, who makes one of his cameos in Murder!, is nowhere to be found in Mary. Gone also are the villain's sexual ambivalence and the theatrical scenes cross- relating art and life. Marshall's role is dryly played by Alfred Abel of Metropolis. Mary's single superiority is its heroine — where Baring is vacant, Olga Tchekowa is soulful and moving as the wrong and wronged woman.