'Easy Virtue' is no high point in great master's career. To say it is the worst movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock would be too much, but it is definitely one of his lamest. It could have been great social criticism towards British high class snobbery (well, it is, sort off), but it all feels little bit stale. Somehow there are almost no energy and vitality in this film. Like the great director was forced to work on the picture by the studio. Perhaps it was the case, as there is nothing much wrong in technical sense (nothing inventive either), but it all feels uninspired. The story itself is quite interesting, although it covers rather melodramatic grounds. High point throughout the film was Isabel Jeans's portrayal of Larita Filton, a woman judged by her past.How to rate this movie by numbers? 5 is too low, 6 on the other hands is too high. Well, it gets six from me on a discount.

Alfred Hitchcock was the most exciting directorial find to come out of British cinema in the 1920s but even though "The Lodger" was an atmospheric, moody thriller of things to come, the Hitchcock of the twenties and early thirties tried his hand at a number of styles. Before Hitchcock, British cinema was in the doldrums - it's most prestigious film had been "The Rat", heavily inspired by German Expressionism and with an attempt to capture some of D.W. Griffith's lyricism - even to the extent of using Ivor Novello as it's leading man (he had just appeared in Griffith's "The White Rose")."Easy Virtue" came between "The Farmer's Wife", a comedy romance and "Champagne", a "spoiled heiress" comedy tailored to show off the charms of Betty Balfour, at the time Britain's top actress. "Easy Virtue" was Hitchcock's try at Noel Coward (the play had already had a New York run (1925) of 147 performances with Jane Cowl as the scandal plagued Larita). 1927 seemed to be Coward's cinema year - "The Vortex" with it's themes of incest and drug addiction and the much more sedate "Easy Virtue". And William K. Everson points out that the direction of the two films were poles apart with Hitchcock making his film in a far more interesting and exciting way than the other one with it's much more juicier subject matter.The first part of the film was opened out from the play and from the first scene Hitchcock is trying out innovative camera shots - the judge's eye glass becomes the camera lens and singles out the plaintiff's counsel (a youthful Ian Hunter - a Hitchcock regular by the early 1930s) as he tries to blacken the name of Larita (beautiful Isabel Jeans) who, as the decanter is grasped, thinks back to the scene of the scandal. Married to a drunken brute of a husband she is caught up in a messy scandal when a young portrait painter shoots her husband before turning the gun on himself. As he has already willed Larita his fortune, the public, lapping up the lurid headlines, believe her guilty of misconduct.Trying to forget on a Mediterranean holiday and under an assumed name Larita's vivid personality and a misplaced tennis serve brings her to the attention of young John Whittaker who falls under her spell and arranges for her to visit his family home - as his wife!! There are more nice touches - when John rings her to see if she accepts his marriage proposal, all the viewer sees is the switchboard girl (that's Benita Hume) but her expression tells the whole story.The marriage gets off to a shaky start - his family is stand offish (except the dad) and his mother has quickly invited Sarah, one of John's old flames, over for the weekend. But Sarah is a good sport and the only person at the weekend do who genuinely wants them both to make a go of it. When all seems lost, Larita musters up all the charm and magnetism that attracted John in the first place and wows the stuffy gentry at the evening dance. But it is a last hurrah and in a surprise ending Larita, walking down the court house steps bravely says to the press "Shoot!! There's nothing left to kill"!! Hitchcock apparently hated the ending but I found it confronting and unsettling. For poor Larita, who is completely destroyed by yet another scandal, there was going to be no happy ending.

Easy Virtue (1928) ** (out of 4) Isabel Jeans plays Larita Filton, a woman who is abused by her drunken husband who thinks she is having an affair with a painter. When the husband confronts them the painter kills himself and soon the wife's reputation is tarnished in a divorce court. She flies off to France where she falls in love with a man (Robin Irvine) but soon his family learns of her past. This is a pretty tame and rather lame silent from Hitchcock and it's only real asset is those wanting to seek out the director's early work. The word melodrama is written all over this thing but there really isn't too many original ideas in its screenplay. The most interesting scenes are the early ones in the court where Hitchcock brings some nice style to the film when we get the various flashbacks, which then cut back to the court. The scenes involving Jeans and Irvine falling in love are all overly dramatic and the stuff with his mother come off fairly weak. Jeans is pretty good in her role but she really isn't given too much to work with. I found Irvine to be rather bland throughout the film as was the rest of the supporting cast. This type of melodrama ran ramped throughout the silent era and if it weren't for Hitchcock's name being attached, this one here would certainly be forgotten.

This sophisticated melodrama from a Noel Coward play is clearly unsuited to Hitchcock's particular talents: the initial court-room sequence is the best, allowing the director to experiment with camera technique (especially his creative use of the dissolve to jump from the present into the past and back again); the rest is a succession of clichéd situations, making it a rather tedious whole. The most notable cast member is Ian Hunter, though leading lady Isabel Jeans did go on to play prominent roles in GIGI (1958) and HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963). With this, I've only 3 more extant Hitchcock Silents left to watch - THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925), DOWNHILL (1927) and CHAMPAGNE (1928); his second film, THE MOUNTAIN EAGLE (1926), is believed lost.