Simply A Masterpiece

Fantastic!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This film is known as "The Rich and Strange" (UK) and "East of Shanghai" (US). It's one of Hitchcock's romantic comedies that is often wrongly tagged as a thriller film and I would imagine this is because Hitchcock is famous for making thriller films. This film is NOT a thriller.This film is more like other earlier Hitchcock works: Young and Innocent (1937) or The Farmer's Wife (1928) due to the romantic comedy nature of the films. Do not expect this film to be anything like Vertigo (1958) or even Psycho (1960) because it is not."The Rich and Strange" is not a bad film it's pretty good but not what most of would think of when we think of Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock's real calling was for suspenseful thrillers and not romantic comedies but he really doesn't disappoint with films like this one.This film is a moral piece: A man and woman is poor, they inherit lots of money and go sailing around the world. While on a ship their relationship falls apart as they realize they were happier when they were poor instead of being filthy rich - and in the end they lose everything becoming poor and happy again. The end.6.5/10

An expectation cast by the later half of Hitchcock's oeuvre may not do justice to "Rich and Strange" (1931), but when seen in the context of Hitchcock's early sound films it really sticks out for the better. In fact, I would say it is the best of them. In addition to critical treatises on marriage, gender and sexuality, Hitchcock studies one of his favorite themes of a man who yearns for something different and thus practically invites chaos to his life which otherwise would be in perfect order. This perfect order of harmonious dimensions is portrayed in the opening dolly shot of the protagonist's dull office life. Then, however, we see that he doesn't quite fit this seeming order, revealing distress beneath, as he cannot open up his umbrella with the others. The story begins when he and his wife, bored with their mundane life, hear of an early inheritance which leads them to a trip round the world. Unlike in "The 39 Steps" (1935) or "Saboteur" (1942), here the abundance of settings doesn't equal exciting adventure, although quite a fast pace, but a fragmentary episode-like structure and a ground for the theme of alienation. These may be among the reasons why "Rich and Strange" was back in the day so poorly received, but, nonetheless, has later been commended by several critics (Truffaut, Spoto) as well as favored by the master himself. In the essence of the film's moral (which may be a word too puny for Hitchcock's level of mastery) is that the main couple yearn for excitement and adventure, but instead of enriching, life-enhancing experiences, go through severe disillusionment. This disillusionment, however, doesn't affect their life for better or worse. It remains the same. Donald Spoto has written that it is in these moments of disillusionment where lies the main point of the film: the acceptance for the extremes of life and death as they are. In comparison to "The Skin Game" (1931), which Hitchcock made just before this, "Rich and Strange" is much more original and cinematic. The same happened with "Murder!" (1930) which is far more superior than its theatrical predecessor "Juno and the Paycock" (1929). But what really makes "Rich and Strange" so special, and a fascinating part of Hitchcock's oeuvre, is its absurdity. This absurdity is not only gained from story nor humor but, above all, from their odd execution. The absurdity emerges from the film's unique, strange atmosphere. This atmosphere must be experienced to be understood and it is eternally guarded by the magical aura of the film given to it by early sound cinema.

This is a very interesting movie to watch. Almost a mix between a silent film and a talkie, there is very little talking in it with a lot of usage of titles to let us know what is going on. The first few minutes features no talking at all. A fascinating glimpse into the 30s though and an earlier film age/time. The "young" couple - married 8 years and apparently he is bored - have the opportunity to enjoy life/spend some money/go on a cruise when a wealthy uncle gives them so money to enjoy now instead of waiting till he is dead. Nice uncle! They go on a trip and eventually a cruise. Loved the cruising scenes including the pool. I have been cruising and the pools are much more crowded now it appears! She seems to meet her soul mate and have a largely platonic affair while he is quickly seduced by a "Princess" who turns out to be something less. Fun to see the scenes with the street vending. The makeup on the lead character is off putting, but it was a fun movie to watch.

One of the problems with Hitchcock's reputation as "master of suspense" is that any films whose faces don't fit tend to get overlooked. Rich and Strange is just such a picture, although it was apparently a project close to Hitch's heart, and incidentally is very good indeed.One of the best aspects of Hitchcock's early British work is that it has a grace and beauty to it that was missing in the emotionally cold (albeit technically brilliant) features of his Hollywood career. Rich and Strange is arguably the most graceful and beautiful of them all. We open with a tight rhythmic sequence that reminds me of the early musicals of Rene Clair, or Rouben Mamoulian in Love Me Tonight, with the characters' activities – in this case the lead man navigating the rush hour – choreographed to a musical score. Later we are treated to a comical montage of a whistle-stop tour of Paris, and on the cruise a series of flowing, dreamlike images.Like all of Hitchcock's earliest pictures, Rich and Strange features a lot of visual attention-grabbing, such as obtrusive camera moves or similar images dissolving into each other. Sometimes – particularly in his silent films – this could be a bit unnecessary and distracting, but in Rich and Strange it works for two reasons. First, it is always woven into that musical flow of images. Secondly he never allows it to interfere with the dramatic moments. In the second half of the picture, when the drama becomes more intense, his visual style settles down and the scenes are shot in a fairly straight ahead manner. This balanced structure, switching smoothly from heavy stylisation to stark simplicity as and when the story demands it, makes Rich and Strange all the more affecting and compelling.The plot has similarities to the forbidden-love dramas that Cecil B. DeMille made in the late teens and early 20s. Like DeMille, Hitchcock uses positioning of characters to show the affairs developing – increasingly pairing the lovers together in one shot, amidst pretty framing devices. What is particularly neat is how, as Henry Kendall and Joan Barry's marriage starts to fall apart, Hitch several times frames them side by side appearing as mirror images of each other. These shots look quite funny, but also seem to summarise the state of mind of an increasingly bored couple. The dialogue is more or less superfluous – which is just as well with the appalling sound quality.Contrary to what some have said, Rich and Strange is not "one for Hitchcock completists only". Of course it will come as a disappointment for anyone expecting a thriller, but taken as the romantic drama that it is, this as tightly structured and expertly envisaged as the greatest of his suspense pictures. Rich and Strange is easily the best film from the first ten years of Hitch's career, and I would even go as far as to place it among the top four or five Hitchcocks of all time.