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

Well, well, well! Very surprising. I suppose it is the first movie about Titanic. And indeed, rich and strange. Rich in enthusiasm, youth, dreaminess, naivety. Strange in realization.I skip the love tension and stop on the place. It shows the parallel between titanic power of the industry and the constant tempo of the family tradition and organized individuality, metal boat and wooden schooner, fast food and Chinese food. Curved space in which the parallel straight lines can cross each other and over Atlantic dream is not authentic and possible enough without eastern diligence.When I compare this movie with its newer variant which is so famous and watched I see that the plot is being changed. Sober from the distance of time some have decided to delete the honesty and their foresight and replace them with egocentric lordliness and mass commerce accompanied with a very good soundtrack.So, this movie is rich and strange, different. My rating is little increased but notice the year of the production!http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

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.