User Reviews

.. based on a play by star Ivor Novello. He plays Roddy Berwick, the big man on campus at a prestigious private school. He enjoys rugby and spending time with his best chum Tim Wakely (Robin Irvine). Tim has a dalliance with a girl of "low morals", and when she becomes pregnant, she spitefully blames Roddy, who out of loyalty to his buddy Tim accepts the blame is expelled from school. This sets him on a path "downhill" away from his promising future, towards a wretched existence as a bit actor and male prostitute.

This is rather corny and overlong, although those interested in Novello, a huge star of stage and screen in the UK in first half of the 20th century, will most likely get more out of it. Hitchcock shows off a few camera tricks and artistic shots, like a lingering scene of Novello descending an escalator into the Underground rail as a symbol of his societal descent. I also thought it rare to see a male prostitute in a film of this era, even though female pros seem to figure into every other silent film.

As a huge Hitchcock fan, Downhill was an interesting film but while not among his weakest it is a long way from being among his best. The acting is not bad at all, in fact decent(likewise with the chemistry between them), Ivor Novello's performance is expressive and moving if not always subtle, Isabel Jeans is a sympathetic Julia and Annette Benson makes Mabel's scheming believable. Ian Hunter is also very naturalistic in his role. The production values and Hitchcock's direction are Downhill's best qualities, both are superb. The film is really beautifully shot, some of the best and most ahead-of-its-time photography of any of Hitchcock's silent films. The choice of locations are appropriate and well-utilised, particularly with the scenes set in the nightclub and theatre. The hand-held camera shots signifying Roddy's delirium, the slow pan shot during the dance in the Parisian hall scene and the long pulling-back shot with us thinking that Roddy is dressing for a fancy night, then us thinking that he is waiter and then we realise that he is on the stage stand out as being especially good technically. Hitchcock wasn't yet in his comfort zone, but his direction not only shows technical skill but also early in his career being able to show the psychological insight that he was often so good at. As well as enhancing the mood. From a narrative standpoint unfortunately Downhill falls far short in comparison, for all how strong his visuals and direction are Hitchcock apparently had little interest in the story and it comes through loud and clear. The story creaks that wooden floorboards in a deserted house, makes very little sense and does drag quite badly at times. The characters are not very interesting and often one-sided which, especially with the female characters, may leave a sour taste in the mouth. The script touches on the social hypocrisy and the separation of classes- morally mostly- but to me it does very little with those themes and while interesting for when and where Downhill was set it doesn't hold up well today. On the whole, a mixed view here, loved it technically, didn't care for it narratively. 5/10 Bethany Cox

My copy of this movie is truly silence with no musical score. Whenever I watch a movie that is completely silent, initially I find it a little hard. But when the film is well made, as this one is, it doesn't take long to adjust and focus on the story as you are drawn into it. I feel Hitchcock was a master of the silent film genre with his ability to tell such a deep story with very few intertitles. Relying instead on the expressions of the actors and written notes and signs in the movie, without having to cut away to an intertitle, which allows the film to flow more fluidly instead of constant cutting between the live action and the title cards. Ivor Novello in the lead role of Roddy and in his prior work with Hitchcock in The Lodger really impressed me with his talent of conveying his feelings strictly through facial expressions and acting without the use of sound. Hitch is also good at using subtle exaggeration and focus on action to help take the place of the sound in his silent films.

The story is that of a young man in school who is falsely accused of theft by a lady that he had danced with and he is willing to take the blame for a friend of his and is expelled from school. This leads to the downhill spiral of his life as leaves home after his father calls him a "LIAR!". Things get worse from there as ends up working as a gigolo in Paris, getting in fights, losing a large sum of money, and eventually hitting bottom.

In this film we really begin seeing a lot of Hitchcock's visual style that he is so famous for. He has some really good use of fades and graphic matches between scenes. Two of my favorite where the fading out on the pocket watch and into a large clock, and the other being the scene where he fades out on a photograph and then back in on the real person. I really enjoyed the symbolic shot of Roddy heading down the escalator, showing us that is in heading downhill in his life. And my favorite "Hitch" shot in this movie was the point-of-view shot when the lady was leaning back in her chair and it cuts to Roddy walking into the room and we see him upside down on the screen. I also thought Hitchcock did a great job of portraying Roddy's seasickness towards the end of the film. I really enjoy seeing Hitchcock's style developing in his early silent films, that will become so prominent in his later, more famous movies. I also really appreciate Hitch's working in comedic scenes into his serious movies. My favorite humorous scene in this movie is the peashooter scene early in the film.

Without giving too much away, I would have liked to see a more typical Hitchcock ending to this film.

*** (out of 4 stars)

The story, of course, is not acceptable now. It's based on a play written by two performers who were major stage figures in their time but are now principally remembered for a few film roles (Novello in Hitchcock's THE LODGER, Collier as the has-been actress teaching acting to young girls in LaCava's STAGE DOOR). The story tells of the long, melodramatic, total downfall and degeneration of a son of wealth with a seemingly bright future, the hero of the rugby field, who is disgraced when he takes the rap for his impoverished roommate at his British school. Modern audiences tend to find this sort of melodrama, no matter how well done, a bit ridiculous. The anguished query of young Novello when he's told that he's expelled, "Does this mean, sir, that I won't be able to play rugby for the Old Boys?" is justly famous for its fatuousness. But the film itself is not fatuous, or ridiculous in the slightest. It shows Hitchcock to be one of the greatest of all the masters of the silent cinema, using an array of sophisticated film techniques to build a narrative complexity that goes far beyond the melodramatic plot. The pictorial quality of the film is lush and dense and the photography is sophisticated.

For one thing, he uses very few titles. Of course, he was not alone in trying to keep silent-film intertitles to a minimum. But directors like Murnau tended to tell simple "timeless" stories with very formal pictography, the story told through a series of strong, simple, iconic images, the characters hardly speaking. Hitchcock has preserved verisimilitude by having his characters talk as much as they want. If what they're saying isn't important, such as the small talk among the rugby spectators at the beginning, why show it in titles? The casual milieu is established more clearly, in fact, if one doesn't know exactly what's being said. Hitchcock's use of this technique is even more evident in THE FARMER'S WIFE (also adapted from a play), where the characters talk and talk, but rarely is there a title. We talk constantly in real life, and one of the things that makes some silents seem stilted is the refusal to have the characters say anything unless what they say is shown in a title.

Even when characters reveal their inner feelings to each other, the words they speak are often not the best communicators. Hitchcock shows relationships through subtle facial expressions, body posture, and observant human movements, through editing, little close-ups or vignettes of action, and placement of camera. All sorts of naturalistic bits of business are used to make the story clear and dramatically interesting. These techniques convey subtle relationships even more strongly when titles are not there to "explain" the content in words to the viewer, undercutting the images.

Amid symbolic images of his "descent," such as traveling down London's endless escalators to the underground trains, and riding down in an elevator, the story of Novello's decline is laid out in melodramatic detail. A few incidents, and Hitchcock's handling of them, are described below.

The film opens on the day of a big rugby game, and the visiting families dine with the students in the school's great dining hall. At one point, the sister of Novello's poor roommate steps into a stairwell and sees two small boys fighting on the stair. Then a door opens, and she glimpses Novello toweling up after a shower. Nothing comes of either of these incidents (she doesn't see Novello again); they are just original, well staged, atmospheric moments. Having attended a British boarding school for a year in the fifties, I can attest that these are particularly telling touches. Long, aimless, vicious fights were a hallmark of that existence, and I also remember incidents of women embarrassed at being out of place in a boys' school.

The roommate gets a note from the attractive waitress to meet him at the sweet shop where she works. At the same time, she flirts with Novello. The two young men visit the girl at the sweet shop, and there's a long scene where each of them dance with her in a back room. She obviously favors Novello, and Hitchcock cuts from shots of Novello dancing with the shop-girl to the gradually disapproving stare of his companion. However, as the other fellow goes out, she points to the sign "Closed Wednesday Afternoons," a typical example of visual storytelling which not only economically indicates (without titles) that she has asked him to return, but also the furtive nature of the invitation. Later, she comes to the school and accuses Novello of making her pregnant (not of theft, as the IMDB synopsis and other sources state). She accuses him, apparently, because she was mad at him for ignoring her, and because he's rich and can presumably pay off. The actress playing the shop girl (Daisy Jackson, per a photo caption in the Citadel Hitchcock book, though she isn't in any credits listing, including in that book and IMDB) is very attractive and an excellent silent film actress.

After Novello is cast out of his father's house, the scene changes, with a title, "Make Believe." We see Novello in a tuxedo, talking. The camera pulls back and we find him a waiter. After some action, the scene is revealed to be part of a musical; he's a stage actor now. "Make believe" for sure; first we think he's in high society, then a waiter, finally an actor!

After falling further, we find him in France, a male taxi-dancer under the thumb of an iron-handed battle-ax. He spends an evening at the table of an older woman (Violet Farebrother) who sympathetically listens to his life story. But at the end of the evening, so late that it's now morning, a man has an attack and the windows are opened to let in fresh air. The glaring sunlight floods into the foul night-spot, and Novello looks around at the dissipated, apathetic revellers, looks at the now-much-faded "interesting" older woman, and realizes the horror of his surroundings. The scene exudes a profound sense of revulsion and loathing, a depth of feeling on a plane rarely found in Hitchcock.

Finally, Novello is fever-stricken and delirious in a dockside dive, cared for by scruffy blacks. As they pile him on to a small steamer, his shaky passage to the ship, on the gang-plank and into the cabin is presented in striking hand-held point-of-view shots.

The sophisticated narrative style, the profusion of telling details, the richness of the visuals, all made the film gripping and dramatic, despite the hoary plot and a slight over-length. Before Hitchcock found his "niche," he used his talents to make quite a few unexpectedly eclectic films that showed a remarkable talent, constantly inventive and original, continually using film in creative ways. His silent films are largely ignored because they, for the most part, do not conform to the Hitchcock subject matter. But he's one of the great silent directors! He understood the medium and used it more subtly and creatively than many more famous practitioners.

Silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock about a wealthy young man named Roddy (Ivor Novello) who takes the blame for a friend's indiscretions with a tramp and finds his whole life unraveling because of it. Not entirely successful, with a yawner of an ending, but worth a look for Novello's performance and glimpses of Hitchcock's emerging style. Tenth-billed Ian Hunter plays a small role as an actor who helps rip Roddy off. The whole thing is filmed in sepia tone except for a section in green, the reason behind which is actually fairly clever. Watch and I'm sure you'll figure it out. It's a decent picture but it goes on too long. Lost my interest well before the disappointing ending. Still, give it a go and form your own opinion. Even a lesser Hitchcock film is worth seeing.

'Downhill' is visually inventive and astonishing, but the story is nothing more than simple flat melodrama. Script is based on the play "Down Hill" written by Constance Collier and the film's star Ivor Novello. Roddy Berwick (Ivor Novello) and Tim Wakely (Robin Irvine) are best buddies attending expensive private school. Soon after both boys spend an evening with waitress (Annette Benson), she comes forward and says she's pregnant. She accuses Roddy, who comes from the rich family, being the father, while the real one is Tim. Roddy promises to keep his mouth to protect Tim, who might lose his scholarship. Roddy gets expelled from school, and thrown out at home by his father. Roddy falls deeper and deeper after being used by different people. Hitchcock fantastically depicts Roddy's descent after each dramatic episode with showing Novello's character going down on stairs, on escalators and with elevator.

Not the Hitchcock's best movie - directing is marvelous, but the story is just too simple and predictable. On the other hand, it is very easy to care about the main character and despise the cruel people who but other persons through unfair grind (even when things happen thanks to Roddy's own naivety).

P.S. At that time (in August, 2018) the film's theme is still relative.

A slapdash early effort by young director Alfred Hitchcock, "Downhill" a. k. a. "When Boys Leave Home," delivers moments of brilliance undone by an underbaked plot.

Young Roddy (Ivor Novello) is expelled from his boarding school when he is charged with a major infraction involving a woman at a local bake shop. No use appealing to his father, who stares at him with frightening disgust. Roddy makes his way alone in life, coming up against a pair of theatrical con artists before landing in a seedy music hall, providing dances for lonely women at 50 francs a whirl. It all gets to be too much for the frail boy.

Poor Roddy can't catch a break, even in cyberspace. A lot of reviewers, both here at IMDb.com and elsewhere, have at the fellow for one deathless line he delivers when his headmaster drops the hammer: "Can I - Won't I be able to play for the Old Boys, sir?" It's a line dripping with ingenuousness, but actually works better in context. Roddy is a true believer in the code of his school who runs up against a world that doesn't allow for second chances.

Based on an adaptation of a play Novello co-authored with Constance Collier under the pseudonym "David L'Estrange," "Downhill" pushes the action from one setpiece to another with little explanation or character development. Hitchcock seems far more enthusiastic about his set pieces and camera tricks than giving the viewer anything to hold onto. Even dialogue cards are kept at a minimum in this very non-verbal silent film.

The best sequence, a section called "The World Of Make-Believe," plunges Roddy into the harsh world of show biz, where conniving actress Julia (Isabel Jeans) and her significant other Archie (Ian Hunter) set up a suddenly cash-rich Roddy.

Watching Archie as Roddy pledges his love to Julia, smoking and drinking and looking frightfully bored as he awaits the chance to offer his casual blessing to their ersatz union, features terrific acting from all concerned. Hitchcock does well in this section by playing up the humor of the situation. But when it's over, there's no explanation or attempt at grounding things. What's this kid going to do about his new marriage? We just follow Roddy to his next stop on his downhill journey.

Hitchcock presents us with some arresting images. One favorite of mine shows a daytime view of Roddy's boarding school dissolving into a scene of London at night. Anyone curious at how England looked in the 1920s will enjoy these views for their travelogue value, anyway.

Novello is worthy, too, carrying the film as he must. He's too old for the part, but believably earnest even as he goes from bright student to all-around chump. A better film would give us more of a basis for this, but all we get is some eye fluttering from Novello to tell us of his deer-in-the-headlights state. It worked for Novello's female fan base at the time, but not for us.

Hitchcock too often works in this surface manner. He shrugs off any subtlety in pursuit of the big effect. The worst of these feature Roddy's father, Sir Thomas (Norman McKinnel), who bears a striking resemblance to Nosferatu and shows up late in the film in Roddy's wracked point-of-view in a slew of implausible guises.

Still, I was interested enough in Roddy's journey, if only as a matter of historical interest. Early on, we see he is the genuine article, a real believer in the world he inhabits, holding a cap emblazoned with the word "Honour." There's a scene, arrestingly similar to the deconstructive Lindsay Anderson film "if…", where Roddy and his friend meet that girl in the bake shop. No playing tiger in this one, Roddy just dances with the girl a little and tries to make a polite exit, but the damage is just as much as if he broke out the tommy guns like Mick and company in that later, anarchic classic.

"Downhill" is a coming-of-age movie that only really works as a look at Hitchcock's own coming of age – before he arrived.

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.

Alfred Hitchcock, despite all his ability, was undeniably a largely mechanical filmmaker. His approach was one of planning and manipulation rather than aesthetics or feeling. Not a bad thing in itself, so long as that cold mechanical mind could be put to the purposes of intrigue and excitement, as it would at the peak of his career. The trouble then with his earliest efforts is that they have all that technical intricacy without that much needed focus on reaching the audience as entertainment.

His silent films in particular seem to lurch all over the place, and are proof that the term "experimental film" generally means a bad one. After all, if you know how to do it properly you don't need to experiment, do you? Downhill, unlike the films made immediately before and after, has less of the camera trickery that characterises Hitch's early work, the exceptions being a couple of mobile point of view shots in the Headmaster's office scene, and the rather extravagant finale, which believe me is nothing compared to the obtrusive bag of tricks Hitch employs in, say, Champagne (1928).

Instead, the director focuses far more on the expression and gesture of the actors and the cunning arrangement of shots to reveal what is going on. Much of this is technique that Hitch appropriated from screenwriter Eliot Stannard, who actually predates Eisenstein in theories of montage, and the various inserts of reactions and concurrent bits of business – like the crosscutting from the courting couple to Ivor Novello dealing with the young customers in the shop scene – seem to fit in with the theories Stannard set out in film articles in the 1910s. A more Hitchcockian manoeuvre on display here is the beginning of scenes with close-ups, with gradual pull-back-and-reveal shots to give context. Often the opening shot, focusing on a single character or an item like a cap with the word "honour" on it, serves almost like a chapter heading. Gradually the shots become wider, giving more context to the scene, often finishing with a hauntingly empty wide shot – one that in another director's work might introduce a sequence. In one scene Hitchcock playfully confounds our expectations several times over, by starting with Novello in a posh outfit, pulling back to reveal he is in fact a waiter, then pulling back again to reveal the restaurant is part of a stage set.

This more subtle approach by Hitchcock is very welcome, but the trouble is he seems a little over-confident in his own abilities. Downhill contains very few intertitles, but the action is not quite coherent enough to make up for them. The shop scene in particular is very confusing, and synopsis writers cannot even seem to agree whether Novello is being falsely accused of stealing or getting a woman pregnant. The latter is less obvious but makes much more sense. The focus on people and their actions is a bonus at least, and we get to see a bit more character from Ivor Novello as compared to his rather leaden personality in The Lodger, but the handsome chappy still cannot really act. And it's nothing but mugging and crazy stares from the rest of the cast, I'm afraid.

But perhaps I am missing the point. The incident in the shop could be regarded as an early example of the "MacGuffin" – an otherwise unimportant device which serves only to drive the plot forward – and as such its details are of no consequence. And certainly, this rather trite plot of a man disowned by his family for some social misdemeanour, who descends the slippery slope until he ends up becoming a gigolo for fat French women… is certainly one which could bear a bit of style over substance. And isn't it in some ways the essence of cinema to conjure up atmosphere or visual delight, with coherence and plot detail being of secondary concern? All this is true, and yet the purpose of a motion picture is to tell a story, whether it be the ostensible one of plot, or an emotional one at a more human, character-driven level, and this is something Downhill fails to provide.

In "Downhill", Ivor Novello's character life goes all downhill after a false accusation made by a girl who ruins his life as a rich schoolboy. He lost his only friend (Robin Irvine), abandoned his family after being thrown out of school, and all that happened because a pretty girl falsely accused him of getting her pregnant (there's a whole debate over what was the accusation because the film doesn't explain it so clear), which was a shocking thing at the time considering the societies conventions of the period.

In a stunning dramatic exercise, way before his suspense films Alfred Hitchcock presents in "Downhill" the story of a man who lost everything trying to protect others but not himself, rejected his father because the last didn't believe in him, calling of him a liar, but this man realizes that he made a big mistake but not telling the truth to anyone, living a low-life with people of inferior classes, marrying with another troubled girl and more. And everything (methaporically and literally) spins around and around over this poor guy, so it's all downhill.

This was my first experience on watching a Hitchcock silent film and it was a great pleasure to see how everything about it was brilliant, important, the way he moves with his camera, edition, direction of actors, the whole package. Novello's performance as the main character living in a constant delirant state, showing a sorrow that doesn't need to be overacted or appear to be so emotional, no, he has an expressive face that says more than we can see, you can feel his desperation and sadness in simple gestures. There's some bit humored parts (the fight between Novello and his wife lover at the apartment) that calm down the almost depressive story.

One of my favorite parts (and to you might sound pointless) is a transition scene that fools the viewer in a magic way. Right after Novello left home we see him working as waiter in a restaurant, attending a couple that walks away from the table and start to strangely dance followed by other people. The image opens up without cutting and we see a stage, musicians and a whole crowd watching the dancers scene, Novello and other waiters start to dance too and we are fooled because he's not a waiter, he is an actor in a musical play. It's a very humorous transition scene and way ahead of its time, very brilliant and well made.

I watched the film in the Public Archive (the link is present here on IMDb) so there's a few things to complain about their version, and another one that helped me watching the film. First: the final minutes of the film are missing, very significant five minutes (gladly, I found the missing part on YouTube). Second: their version doesn't feature the musical score presented in it which leads to the thing that helped me watching it; I selected classical musics to go with the film and that was very clever of my part, because the absence of sound (in this case) made me think on other things than the film, the problems of life and things like that. But after watching "Downhill" hearing instrumental music made the experience even better, and it wasn't distractive as I thought it would be. So my suggestion is that if you watch the film in the Public Archive do that, listen to Tchaikovsky, Strauss or film composers scores, that will help you a lot.

From the very first scene at the school with the boys playing in the park until the last similar scene at the ending, "Downhill" justifies only the story as being a downhill thing, because looking at its magnificence it's a memorable and upper film. One of Hitchcock's best works even though it's not a work of suspense. 10/10

Without Alfred Hitchcock's inventive camera, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed this movie as much as I did. It's largely predictable and doesn't come to a resolution that I think properly utilizes some of the elements within the story, but it's fine. With Hitchcock's emerging talent, inspired heavily by German Expressionism, the story gains a cinematic edge that pushes it up in quality ever so slightly.

Roddy is the king of his prep school in Britain. He's from a wealthy family, scores winning points in rugby matches, and gets appointed as the captain of the school (whatever that means...Britain, amiright?). When he and his best friend Tim decide to join a low class working girl at the baking shop she works at for an afterhours jaunt of dancing and fun, Roddy falls into a lie that he won't extricate himself from because it would harm his best friend Tim. You see, the girl was trying to make love to the son of a rich man Roddy but ended up with Tim instead. She comes to the school some time later with a charge of prostitution against Roddy and the accusation that he is the father of her unborn child. Based purely on this accusation, Roddy is expelled from school, Tim refusing to take any blame because he had just gotten a scholarship that could get him into Oxford and the news of his failure would destroy his father.

Roddy's father isn't too kind on his son either, as it goes, calling him a liar to his face. Unable to take the insult, Roddy leaves to make his own life.

This first half hour is full of shadows, little camera moves (my favorite being when the girl is in the headmaster's office to accuse and she can choose between Roddy and Tim, she steps forward towards camera, the camera pulls back slightly to reveal the two young men on either side of her in frame), and strong performances that sell the story. It's also where the movie feels the least formulaic.

The second part starts with a seemingly effortlessly ingenious shot that starts with Roddy in a tux, as it pulls back and shows that he's actually a waiter, and then it pulls back again to reveal that he's actually a bit player in a theater production, all preceded by a title card that says, "The world of make-believe." It's a very good precursor to what is to happen, for Roddy is hopelessly in love with the lead actress, a fashionable and famous women with very expensive tastes and a man who feels that Roddy is no threat. When he suddenly comes into thirty thousand pounds, he instantly uses it to woo the girl, and the girl and her man instantly recognize it as an opportunity to swindle the young man. The further downfall of Roddy is predictable, which makes this section less compelling than it could be, but it's still well filmed and well-presented overall.

The third section sees Roddy having made his way to Marseille where he dances for cheap with lonely old women in a dance hall, in seeming perpetual debt to the matron of the place. It's when the shutters are opened and sunlight shows Roddy the drunkenness and ugliness around him that he realizes how far he's fallen. Disgusted, he runs to the docks where he will waste away. Some find him, think he'll be a good source of money if they take him back to certainly rich friends in England, and shove him on a boat on the southern coast of France heading to the United Kingdom. In the five days Roddy spends onboard, he has a series of delirious visions (all given a sickly green filter) of his father and the people who've abused him through his journey. It's a rather harrowing experience, and he climbs off the ship, still delirious, seeing his father's face in a policeman's, and staggers home.

This section is a step up from the second, feeling less predictable and more like actual drama, combined with some of the most visually inventive moments of the film.

It's the coda of the film, where Roddy makes it home, that I have a real issue with. Tim never appears again in the film once Roddy says goodbye to him at the prep school. Since he is as much the orchestrator of Roddy's misery as the girl, I felt like he needed to appear at the end in some capacity. If I were writing it, I would have probably had Tim, now a successful young man in business, fully admit his fault to Roddy but refuse to do anything about it again, because I am a heartless idiot who does terrible things to my characters. The fact that he doesn't appear at all feels wrong to me. Instead, Roddy just goes home where he discovers that his father has found out the truth and all will be well. It's not a terribly compelling ending.

As a showcase for Hitchcock's emerging visual style, it's a wonderful relic. As a drama, it sort of works, though it's ending needed something more. The acting is really good, especially from Ivor Novello, the actor who plays Roddy. He sells the innocent determination and slow degradation of his character really well. It's a good little example of Hitchcock learning his trade and producing quality content in the silent era.

Why does everyone take this marvelous background music for granted?

In all of the reviews, either critics or users, there is absolutely NO mention of the marvelous piano performance that gives this film emotion and depth.

It takes an enormous amount of work and thought to compose a score that adapts itself to the drama and flow of the story.

One would think that the BFI would have the decency and politeness to at least add a name in the credits.

I watched Alfred Hitchcock's DOWNHILL (1927) starring Ivor Novello. I thought this was a fascinating film although it's not very well regarded.

Novello plays a wealthy Oxford student who stupidly takes the blame after a vindictive waitress points him out (his father is rich) as her seducer. The real seducer is his friend, but he takes the blame, assuming it will all blow over. But he gets expelled and sent home where his father pitches a fit and calls him a liar. Novello storms out of the house.

Cast into the cruel world, Novello must find his own way. In a brilliant sequence, following an intertitle that announces "make believe" we see a well dressed Novello holding a cup of coffee, but as the camera pulls back we see that he is holding a tray and serving coffee to a flashy couple (Isabel Jeans, Ian Hunter). Well at least he has a job! But then as the couple heads to the dance floor the camera pulls back again and we suddenly realize that, as the couple starts dancing, they are on a stage. The audience comes into view and a line of high-kicking dancers races out onto the stage.

Jeans turns out to be a selfish woman involved with Hunter. There is never enough money. Novello becomes a hanger-on until he receives a telegram with news about an inheritance. Jeans quickly marries Novello and starts spending freely. Time passes. Jeans and Hunter are sitting in a lavish bedroom. She's endlessly sitting at dressing tables, admiring herself and her jewels. Novello comes home and find a pile of bills, an overdrawn notice from the bank, and Hunter in the closet. The apartment is in her name and he's thrown out into the cruel world.

Next we find Novello as a taxi dancer in Paris. He seems to have a "manager" who sells his dances and possibly more. While he dances we see a middle-aged age woman (Violet Farebrother) sitting at a table. She can't take her eyes off him. She arranges for an introduction. He babbles away, telling her his sad story while her eyes frankly devour him. Amazing sequence. But as morning dawns and the blinds are raised, Novello finally see this tawdry world of drunks and dissolutes and once again goes out into the cruel world to Marseilles.

Sick and broke, Novello is saved by a pair of sailors and put on a ship back to England after they find a returned letter. Do they think there will be a reward? During the voyage, Novello hallucinates and relives his past accounts with all the horrid women in his life. This is a beautifully done scene. Finally he arrives home.

I cannot think of another film from this era where the male is the societal victim and who, through nobility, suffers as he descends to the depths at the hands of women. Novello is actually playing a twist on the many Ruth Chatterton roles where she follows this sort of journey to find redemption and/or death. Along with The Lodger, this may be Ivor Novello's best film performance.

As for Hitchcock, there are many great scenes here and lots of symbolism as Novellos is seen on escalators and elevators going down, down, DOWN.

I recently watched Hitchcock's silent film The Downhill (1927) on Tubi. The storyline revolves around a privileged college student whose life takes a turn for the worse when he takes the blame for his less fortunate roommate's mistake. Soon after the incident his perfect life begins to unravel.

Directed by the iconic Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho), the film stars Ivor Novello (The Lodger), Ben Webster (Drake the Pirate), Norman McKinnel (Fanny Hawthorne), and Robin Irvine (Easy Virtue).

Given its silent nature, the cinematography effectively focuses on facial expressions and mannerisms to intensify the circumstances. The transitioning to dialogue cards are seamless, and the storyline offers enjoyable twists and turns. In classic Hitchcock style, the unpredictable ending keeps you in suspense, and the evolution of the main character is well executed and captivating.

In conclusion, while not Hitchcock's best, The Downhill is well-crafted and entertaining. I would rate this a 6.5/10 and recommend watching it once.

Hitchcock expressed one of his favorite themes in this silent film made when he was just 28, that of the wrongly accused man. In a Kafkaesque nightmare, an affluent college kid with everything going for him is accused of getting a waitress pregnant when it was really his friend, and without any form of due process from the headmaster, is expelled. Things continue to go downhill when his father doesn't believe he's innocent and calls him a liar to his face, prompting him to leave home.

There is some real darkness here, and one of the highlights of the film is in how we see this through the man's eyes. Those who judge him stare sternly at him, those he meets who take advantage of him (including an actress he marries) mock him mirthfully, and those he meets in run-down places stare at him with pathos in their eyes. Hitchcock really pulls emotion out of these scenes, without of course the benefit of audio. He also includes flashbacks, a nightmare, and a delirium scene as the man begins falling apart, and I loved the camerawork throughout the film - both the stationary wide shots which showed fantastic framing, and those trying to convey the man's state of mind.

On the downside, the film suffers a little from slow pace, at least by today's standards. It's also not especially kind to women, with the man ruined in stages by the waitress who plays around, his wife who kept the lover she had before getting married, and by a woman who takes a cut from the money he gets dancing (and possibly sleeping with) older women. It plays with tired old themes of evil women bringing a virtuous man down. I have to say, the ending felt a bit off as well, and inconsistent with the tone of everything that came before it.

With that said, each part of this story was executed well, and could stand alone as chapters in a book or acts in a play. I liked how Hitchcock played with the sexual elements of the story as well. The waitress kisses the man's friend, invites him back after hours by coyly gesturing towards a sign, and Hitchcock then shows a brief shot of the door with a 'closed' sign on it, where presumably they're inside having sex. It's subtle and yet also feels daring for the period. Ivor Novello did a fine job with the evolution of the character, and in the nice bit of role reversal we see when he becomes a gigolo, he conveys the disgust for where he has fallen to in life well. Overall this is one you have to be patient with, but it's got enough good moments to make it worth seeing.

Nothing but expulsion is expected for a high school boy that dishonours a girl: and that is the fate of wealthy Roddy Berwick. But it wasn't him: it was his schoolmate Tim Wakely (by the way, he and the girl just kissed, thats'all). Besides, the girl is raging Mabel, who accuses Roddy just because, on the contrary, he failed to kiss her. Tim doesn't admit his fault, as he is in need of the scholarship he just achieved to fulfill his study career and not disappoint his less wealthy father. And Roddy doesn'tell: he understands Tim's point of view, and he doesn't want to sneak. And Brut... Roddy is an honourable man. Roddy's father doesn't believe in his own son's asserted innocence, and calls him a liar. That's too much for the honourable Roddy, that immediately leaves his parents' home slamming the door. A period of ever growing downhill and degradation follows for poor Roddy, beginning with a marriage during which his wife sucks up all of the guy's money (as it happens sometimes), passing through an underpaid job as a gigolo, and ending, "shuddering and bleak of brain", in the filthy slums of Marseille. In the end the prodigal son, after some interesting delirious days of illness, returns happily, and well received, to the paternal house in London. One can watch it, but the Hitchcock we know is yet to come.

After playing a suspected killer for Hitchcock in The Lodger, Ivor Novello suffers once more as a particularly unconvincing schoolboy whose episodic decline into poverty after accepting the blame for impregnating one of those Olde Bunne Shoppe floozies is symbolised by his descent of stairs and escalators and by lift (this being 1927, Hitch is deprived of the opportunity of showing us his star morosely flushing a toilet after yet another setback). Not typical Hitchcock by a long stretch, but the occasional visual flourish is just about enough to hold our interest.

I spent most of Downhill trying to figure out the motivations of the characters. Certain actions made no sense to me, where others only seemed to happen to further the plot. It seems that Hitchcock hadn't mastered the art of storytelling when he made this picture.

Two teenagers, Roddy and Tim, are best friends and high-achievers at their elite school. When Roddy takes the fall for an impropriety that Tim committed Roddy is expelled. His parents disown him, leaving Roddy to fend for himself. After such a privileged life from here on his life goes downhill.

Alfred Hitchcock's third (released) movie as director. At this stage in his career Hitchcock was not the thriller-master he is renowned as being. His films were more human dramas than anything else with the occasional thriller thrown in.

This is one of those dramas. The plot is okay and has a satisfying arc and Hitchcock is starting to learn the art of cinematography and using lighting and other effects to create moods and tell stories. Some great camera work that is reminiscent of him in his prime.

However, the overall product is a bit hit and miss. The fact that the two schoolboys are played by two obviously adult men, one as old as 34, is a bit confusing and unnecessary. Why not teenagers for the boys and then different actors - men - for them as asults?

In addition to this confusion which makes you wonder what the setting is, the "crime" that Roddy is accused of is never revealed, making for more confusion. Considering that the remainder of the film hinges on this single event, the detail is quite important.

Some aspects do feel dragged out too.

Overall, it's okay and worth watching if you're curious about Hitchcock's earlier work.

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.

If I have to see another character go downstairs, I swear I'll watch the film in reverse! The plot is quite basic - nothing really new: chump plus a couple of manipulative floozies equal his downward spiral. Hitchcock wisely didn't work consciously with symbolism for most of his career and this one makes me happy he didn't! There are a few good scenes here. The characters in the cab photographed from the outside during a rain worked quite well. The super-impositions were very well done and the collage of London with its usual turmoil in the streets made its point of "business as usual" effectively. There was some rather heavy over-acting by Novello near the end that can be painful to watch. The depiction of Paris seemed as French as the English music hall. Hitchcock was learning to fly with this but as of its release, he hadn't earned his wings yet.

Curtis Stotlar