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Dutch Release - Audio : English - Subtitles : Dutch (removeable )
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
1927's Ivor Novello vehicle Downhill is a long way from the quality of his most famous colaboration with Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger. It's a mostly uninspired and clichéd example of a director paying his dues and working his way up as Ivor Novello's school hero Roddy finds himself on the road to ruin when Mabel at Ye Olde Bunne Shoppe makes a `serious charge' that she's got a bun of her own in the oven. Naturally it was Roddy's pal Tim, the vicar's son, who done the deed (you only have to look at Novello to know that he's so obviously batting for the other team that even Liza Minnelli wouldn't marry him), but he's the one whose family has the money and rather than risk his pal's scholarship takes the blame and finds himself on a downward spiral that involves working as a chorus boy in a West End show and a gigolo dancing with manly women in a Paris nightclub for 50 francs a dance before finding himself delirious among the wharf rats and white actresses in unconvincing blackface in Marseilles before a reconciliation.
If that sounds suspiciously like an episode of Michael Palin and Terry Jones' Ripping Yarns, it's tempting to believe that it's because this was one of their influences - when he is expelled, Roddy even forlornly asks the headmaster "Won't I be able to play for the Old Boys?" (at 34, Novello might even be too old for the Old Boys even if he weren't disgraced). At times you suspect that Hitchcock is trying to subvert both the material and his star's matinee idol status (one sequence has him getting into the closet to find his wife's lover), with much of the film's exposition workmanlike. There are a couple of minor coups in the last act - a scene where unforgiving daylight is suddenly cast on the Paris club as a man has a heart attack and a delirious dream where he is taunted by the face of his unforgiving father, shot like the template for Frankenstein's monster, in almost everyone he sees - but this may well have felt horribly dated even when it came out.
Sadly, this Dutch DVD leaves a lot to be desired, not even having a music soundtrack. A better bet is the French DVD that offers Downhill (complete with score) as a supporting feature to Hitchcock's musical comedy Waltzes From Vienna, which you can find at Amazon.fr listed as 'Le Chanson du Danube.'
If that sounds suspiciously like an episode of Michael Palin and Terry Jones' Ripping Yarns, it's tempting to believe that it's because this was one of their influences - when he is expelled, Roddy even forlornly asks the headmaster "Won't I be able to play for the Old Boys?" (at 34, Novello might even be too old for the Old Boys even if he weren't disgraced). At times you suspect that Hitchcock is trying to subvert both the material and his star's matinee idol status (one sequence has him getting into the closet to find his wife's lover), with much of the film's exposition workmanlike. There are a couple of minor coups in the last act - a scene where unforgiving daylight is suddenly cast on the Paris club as a man has a heart attack and a delirious dream where he is taunted by the face of his unforgiving father, shot like the template for Frankenstein's monster, in almost everyone he sees - but this may well have felt horribly dated even when it came out.
Sadly, this Dutch DVD leaves a lot to be desired, not even having a music soundtrack. A better bet is the French DVD that offers Downhill (complete with score) as a supporting feature to Hitchcock's musical comedy Waltzes From Vienna, which you can find at Amazon.fr listed as 'Le Chanson du Danube.'
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
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This Dutch release is a very decent transfer of an 80-year-old film. But it has no accompanying music whatsoever, which certainly should have been mentioned in the description. It is decidedly odd to watch a film in utter silence -- and these films were not meant to be.
I don't know why this rare film, starring the extraordinarily beautiful Ivor Novello (and his only film in which he takes off his shirt), has not been restored and remastered as so many other Hitchcock films have been.
I kept it because it is such a rare document, and I may not be able to get anything better. But buy with caution.
I don't know why this rare film, starring the extraordinarily beautiful Ivor Novello (and his only film in which he takes off his shirt), has not been restored and remastered as so many other Hitchcock films have been.
I kept it because it is such a rare document, and I may not be able to get anything better. But buy with caution.
I bought Le Chanson du Danube from an Austrian site because I'd learned Downhill was on the disk. I'm pleased to see from the review of this Dutch DVD that my purchase of the earlier Chanson DVD was wise! I also found this story of Downhill rather strange - it is a little too over the top for my taste. However, anything containing Novello is riveting viewing from one point of view, ie the man himself. What a star! Eye candy of the highest order. But it must be strange in this Dutch version to have no music background.
I too recommend the Lodger. A simply brilliant movie. An amazing find, I decided, when I first saw it. Good book too.
I too recommend the Lodger. A simply brilliant movie. An amazing find, I decided, when I first saw it. Good book too.
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