This is s slow and boring movie. It has an awful story line. It just overrated. It not a 5.9. It is a 1. Do not waste your time. Do not waste your money. Do not see this movie. It one of the most boring movies ever.

Lots of little moments in RICH AND STRANGE (American title) assured me that Hitchcock was gradually developing the kind of touches that became his trademark later on. His opening scenes of London bustle aboard trains and buses on a rainy day is a foreshadow of things to come in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (with its sea of umbrellas on display).These opening sequences are very modern in concept, so it's a pity the rest of the film doesn't match it in true Hitchcock style.JOAN BARRY and HENRY KENDALL are a bored, restless married couple not content to stay by the fireside after he receives a letter from an uncle who is leaving him a great deal of money. They embark on a cruise to the Orient wherein both of them get involved in ill-fated love affairs. Hitchcock tries to provide comic touches, particular with an obnoxious female passenger clumsily trying to fit into shipboard events, but frankly this aspect of the film comes across as painfully unfunny.Not until the finale, do we get a real Hitchcock moment involving a seldom glimpsed black cat that becomes part of a macabre twist aboard a junk-boat of Chinese fishermen. It's a most unappetizing moment that must have been deliberately written into the script at Hitchcock's insistence on wry black humor.But all in all, this is a clunky exercise in early filmmaking combining a tedious romantic yarn with a few amusing moments about a couple whose marriage survives despite some unlikely circumstances that almost tear them apart. The special effects of a sinking boat gradually filling with water are especially well done for the time.Summing up: For serious Hitchcock completists only.

Rich and Strange (1931) ** (out of 4) Henry Kendall and Joan Barry play a happy couple who win a large inheritance and believe that all their worries are over. The two go on a cruise across the world where he ends up falling in love with a princess and she ends up in the arms of another man. This early film from Hitchcock certainly isn't amongst his best but it is a rather nice blend of drama and some black comedy thrown in. The biggest problem is that even by 1931 standards this thing here is pretty old fashioned and rather bland storywise. Throughout the silent era we saw countless films dealing with happy couples turning sour after money is brought into their lives and the story here really doesn't add anything new. What it does add is a great final fifteen-minutes where we really get to see Hitchcock explode as a director and turn into that "Master of Suspense". The final deals with their cruise ship sinking and the couple must try and find a way to survive. How all of this plays out is extremely well directed and Hitchcock perfectly builds the suspense. I was also quite pleased with the performances especially that of Barry who easily steals the film. Barry didn't have a very long career, perhaps due to her voice, but I found her to be very pleasant here and enjoyed watching her. Overall this movie is certainly flawed but fans of the director will want to check it out at least for the final fifteen-minutes or so. A lot of these early Hitchcock movies are viewed today so people can see early touches of a future legend and they'll see plenty of that here. Also check out the dark comedy in the form of a black cat late in the film.

He was only 31 when he made this, another exercise in style and experimental and innovative in its approach to a marriage that is sinking into boredom and predictability.Highly enjoyable to this die-hard Hitchcock fan, it has a little of everything: humour, escape from the mundane, unexpected windfalls changing one's life and not necessarily for the better, extra marital affairs and little peeks at life as seen through the eyes of the protagonists.No big 2X4's but many subtleties such as the appealing discreet affair between Emily and the commander and the blatant in your face affair conducted by Fred, her husband, and the princess.Some dark bits as well, signalling Hitch's lasting fascination with the macabre, exemplified by the treatment of a pet cat.One amusing bit has some characters marching around the deck, the first all female and I do believe Hitch's cameo has him in the second all male appearance being hauled around by two athletic types.Hitch never disappoints me.6 out of 10.