![]() “Don’t cry, it’s a luxury you can’t afford.” I don’t know how it’s possible for a man look both frustrated and bored while listening to the intimate details of a sordid murder, but Hardwicke does a sensational job convincing us that Pricey would rather be listening to the cricket. He ponders, “I could hardly live here after that, could I?” As his daughter confesses the emotional circumstances that led her to kill her lover, Princey has little time for her obvious distress. He’s a father who doesn’t want his daughter declared insane or tried for murder. Hardwicke is great in the lead, exuding that sense of disconnected British sophistication, remarkably self-absorbed. “I do not intend to have that position destroyed by the stupidity of one foolish female.” Don’t you just hate it when the kids ruin your family’s prestigious reputation? “Our family’s held a position of respect in this community for generations,” Mister Princey tells his family. It’s a rather wonderful skewering of the British class system, where social standing and the value of the family name is much more important than some trifling inconvenience like a murder. “I always find it heartwarming to see a family standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the face of adversity,” Hitchcock notes in his (as usual) tongue-in-cheek closing monologue. Princey laments, and that’s about as much thought as the poor schoolmaster gets for the entirety of the episode as the family starts scheming and plotting to cover up their involvement in the murder. “I don’t understand, why should such a terrible thing happen to us?” Mrs. It’s a wonderfully grim comedy as an upper class family lament the fact their daughter has murdered a schoolmaster. Indeed, the title card even credits Hardwicke as “Sir Cedric Hardwicke”, setting the tone for the episode to follow. Sir Cedric Hardwicke excels as the patriarch of a proud British family who has to deal with the inconvenience of a murder on the family estate. Any excuse to see Hitchcock working with John Williams is worth the price of admission, even if the veteran performer finds himself relegated to a supporting role here. ![]() It’s a bit of a strange cocktail, a comedy of manners about a sordid murder, but Hitchcock makes it work, in no small part to the work of a fantastic ensemble cast. Wet Saturday is what you’d get if you crossed a Hitchcock murder mystery with a very British farce. It’s a very worthwhile cause and you can donate here. The “For the Love of Film” blogathon this year is raising money to keep one of Hitchcock’s earlier works, The White Shadow (which he wrote, edited, designed and assistant-directed), available on-line and streaming for free. I’ll be looking at some of the episodes of the classic show that he directed. As part of the “For the Love of Film” blogathon, I’ll be taking a look at Alfred Hitchcock’s contributions to his celebrated anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |