ELSTREE CALLING
UK, 1930, 86 minutes, Black and white.
Tommy Handley, Gordon being, Teddy Brown, Helen Burnell, Donald Calthorpe, the Charlot Girls, Cicely Courtneidge, Will Fyffe, Gordon Harker, Jack Hulbert, Hannah Jones, John Longden, Anna May Wong.
Directed by Adrian Brunell, Alfred Hitchcock.
This is something of an antique. Immediately, it is an opportunity to see work at Elstree Studios in the early 1930s, not just for filmmaking but also for the advent of television, the science behind television and its broadcast, the role of the MC, the various acts and their staging, comedy, music, glamour, dance, Shakespeare, farce… It does all look a bit antiquated now and there are various aspects which 21st-century standards would be critical of, the very talented dancers but there appearing in Black Face, the touch of sexual harassment and comment,
There are also some comic sequences at homes with the television set is playing up and another successful.
But, the main reason for seeing this film is that the acts were directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He had been very successful with his silent films, his cinema techniques, storyboarding, inventiveness, his exploration of themes, the transition from silent to talky, and his initial thrillers.
There is very little characteristic Hitchcock material here but, the fact is that he is credited as directing the acts and, whether he was happy to acknowledge this or not, Elstree Calling is part of his cinema career.
