jacobjohntaylor1
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.
utgard14
Alfred Hitchcock-directed early talkie about a middle-class married couple (Henry Kendall, Joan Barry) who inherit a fortune and travel the world, meeting other people and having affairs. Started off like a comedy then got serious. Should've went with comedy. Some nice visuals and Hitch plays around with different techniques, which is always interesting to watch in his early films. But the story is unpleasant and the switch from light to dark left me feeling unsatisfied. On the plus side, Joan Barry is lovely and pretty much walks away with the picture unchallenged. The rest of the cast, including Henry Kendall, is kind of ho-hum. Worth a look for Hitchcock completists but really no great shakes.
Tim Kidner
Rich & Strange, part of my 5 disc The Hitchcock Collection box-set is essentially a World whistle-stop Tour, taken by 1930's 'Society' and which could only be beyond the wildest dreams of your average, everyday working couple.So, when the Hill's - Fred & Emily (I think he's a clerk) get a letter conveniently announcing that their inheritance is being unlocked early, so they can enjoy life now, and the next moment they're soon eyeing up the Eiffel Tower. This would have been wondrous escapism and extremely fashionable fodder for cinema audiences of the day and Hitch gets to some quite exotic locations and generally makes good use of them. Some of ship scenes aboard look very set-like, though.He adds some stylistic touches that echo his playfulness - seasickness is superbly portrayed, with items on the rich food menu floating off the printed sheet in wavy lines, echoing the nausea that poor Fred is suffering.Things get more heated and exotic once the Far East is reached, as friendships are made and dalliances with fellow cruise members start putting a strain on their relationship. It doesn't really matter who these others are and all that, it's all far too fluffy and forgettable to matter but it's a quiet joy, as long as it's taken for what it is - and no more.The look and style is very early 30's but strangely, the transfer quality is good to very good, with the odd flicker and blemish and is much better than the later 'Secret Agent' in that box-set of mine. It's of the quality where you only see the blemishes once you've been watching for a while, rather than the other way round.
Neil Doyle
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.
AD
