Easy Virtue (1928)

director	Alfred Hitchcock
producers	Michael Balcon C.M. Woolf
writer	Eliot Stannard
story by	Noël Coward (stage play)
starring	Isabel Jeans Franklin Dyall Robin Irvine Ian Hunter
cinematographer	Claude L. McDonnell
editor	Ivor Montagu
running time	82 minutes (BBFC)
	70 minutes (2012 restoration)
colour	black & white
sound mix	silent with English intertitles
aspect ratio	1.33:1
studio	Gainsborough Pictures
distributor	W. & F. Film Service (UK)
availability	DVD (bootlegs only)
film-1430 (add your rating)

Synopsis

Larita Filton is named as correspondent in a scandalous divorce case. She escapes to France to rebuild her life where she meets John Whittaker. They are later married, but John's well-to-do family finds out Larita's secret. (© IMDB)

Production

Noël Coward's play was first staged in London on July 9th, 1926 and ran at the Duke of York's theatre for 132 performances. Initially, the trade press reported that Graham Cutts would be filming the adaptation.

Pre-Production

Screenplay

Eliot Stannard began work on the scenario for Easy Virtue immediately after he completed his work on Downhill, with editorial input from Angus MacPhail and Ivor Montagu.

Casting

Perhaps due to the speed at which the film went into production, many of the cast of Downhill stayed on to appear in Easy Virtue — Isabel Jeans, Robin Irvine, Ian Hunter and Violet Farebrother.

Principal Photography

Filming began at the Islington Studios on Easy Virtue before the final scenes of Downhill had been shot, as Gainsborough were keen to rush the film into cinemas to capitalise on the popularity of Coward's play.

location filming in France

In late March, cast and crew travelled to film footage in the French Riviera and in Nice. Ivor Novello came along as well, in order to complete his Downhill scenes, which were filmed on the rooftop of a French hotel.

For the initial courtroom scene, Hitchcock pulled off another one of his trademark in-camera special effects when the judge peers through his monocle at the plaintiff's counsel:

I had to make the monocle oversized so it would be in focus at close range. Then I put a mirror in it instead of clear glass, and put the attorney character behind the camera, with a double for him in the long shot. And so, when the monocle came up the camera, you saw the man in close-up, without a cut.

Although it has been widely accepted that Hitchcock made a cameo appearance in the film — walking past a tennis court — the British Film Institute has cast doubt on it, stating "on close inspection it does not appear to be him".

Post-Production

The film was completed in June 1927 and Hitchcock left Gainsborough to start his new three-year contract at British International Pictures (formerly British National).

Release & Reception

[[Benita Hume]] as the telephone operator

Writing in the Manchester Guardian, C.A. Lejeune wrote "for all its cleverness, [it] is not a good film" and The Bioscope review was critical of the source material:

Hitchcock has done the best possible for a subject which does not lend itself readily to the medium of the screen, and he is to be congratulated on having maintained interest throughout with what proves to be very slight material ... In spite of an excellent performance by Isabel Jeans, and Hitchcock's always-apparent resourcefulness and occasional brilliance, this was not one of his more effective films.

When Hitchcock discussed the film with François Truffaut, he talked about two scenes in particular. Firstly, he expressed pride in the scene where the audience learns of the outcome of John Whittaker's proposal of marriage to Larita Filton via the facial expressions of a telephone operator (played by Benita Hume). Secondly, he expressed his dislike of the film's final witty intertitle card — "Shoot! There's nothing left to kill." — by calling it "the worst title I've ever written."

Influence

In "English Hitchcock", Charles Barr notes the similarities between Easy Virtue and Downhill — both feature a person taking a "nightmarish journey from England to France and back again" — and also with Hitchcock's 1946 film Notorious:

[Isabel Jeans] is twice referred to, in dialogue titles, as 'the notorious Mrs Filton'; she is oppressed by journalistic cameras, as Bergman is at the opening of "Notorious", and she is hounded in the same way by a mother-in-law who is intent on discovering her disreputable secrets. In the power struggle between the two women, key scenes in both films are played out on the main staircase.

The play was adapted again for the screen in 2008 by director Stephan Elliott and starred Jessica Biel.

Preservation Status

According to the British Film Institute — which recently restored all 9 of the surviving Hitchcock silent films — Easy Virtue only exists as incomplete and degraded 16mm reduction prints:

Of all of Hitchcock’s surviving silent films, Easy Virtue has proved the most challenging for the BFI’s restoration team. It survives only in a number of more or less identical 16mm projection prints, all in very poor quality and considerably abridged. The original running time of the film at 7390 feet — amounted to approximately 94 minutes depending on running speed. What survives is equivalent to 5434 feet a mere 69 minutes. We don’t know if a major section is missing or if (more likely) there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of little trims. We hoped at the beginning of the project that more or better material would turn up, but this has proved elusive. We will of course continue to search. The international search for this Easy Virtue has brought in prints from the U.S., Australia and the Netherlands as well as the UK. Unfortunately, all the existing copies are 16mm prints that have been much projected, resulting in surface wear and tear. All the copies derive from the same source and contain the same printed-in damage. The biggest problem is the underlying picture quality which, thanks to much duplication, is lacking in resolution. Working from such limited material, the best that we can do is to minimize scratches and damage and remake the intertitles. We have chosen the best source and replaced several shots from a second print where they helped to improve quality. All the main titles and intertitles were reconstructed using the original fonts, as in the other Hitchcock restorations.

See Also...

For further relevant information about this film, see also...

• 1000 Frames of Easy Virtue (1928)
• articles about Easy Virtue (1928)
• filming locations
• radio adaptations
• titles and intertitles
• trivia
• web links to information, articles, reviews, etc

Blu-ray Releases

released in 2014

Le Passé ne Meurt Pas (1928) - Elephant Films (Blu-ray, France, 2014)88144 ▶ Amazon (France)

DVD Releases

To date, this film has not been officially released on DVD.

released in 2006

Easy Virtue (1928) - Waterfall Home Entertainment Ltd (UK, 2006) NTSC 1.33:1 Warning! This is a bootleg containing an unlicensed transfer (more info).

released in 2005

Easy Virtue (1928) - Brentwood Home Video (USA, 2005) - part of a box set NTSC 1.33:1 Warning! This is a bootleg containing an unlicensed transfer (more info).

...view older DVD releases

Image Gallery

Images from the Hitchcock Gallery (click to view larger versions or search for all relevant images)...

Film Frames

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Themes

• the Hitchcock cameo - leaving the tennis court through a side gate
  

Cast and Crew

Directed by:

• Alfred Hitchcock
• Frank Mills - assistant director

Starring:

• Isabel Jeans - Larita Filton
• Franklin Dyall - Her Husband
• Eric Bransby Williams - The Correspondent
• Ian Hunter - The Plantiff's Counsel
• Robin Irvine - John Whittaker
• Violet Farebrother - His Mother
• Frank Elliott - His Father
• Dacia Deane - Marion Whittaker
• Dorothy Boyd - His Younger Sister
• Enid Stamp-Taylor - Sarah
• Alfred Hitchcock - Man with stick near tennis court (uncredited)
• Benita Hume - Telephone receptionist (uncredited)

Produced by:

• Michael Balcon

Written by:

• Noel Coward - original play
• Eliot Stannard - scenario

Photographed by:

• Claude L McDonnell

Edited by:

• Ivor Montagu

Art Direction by:

• Clifford Pember

Other crew

• Michael Balcon - presenter
• C M Woolf - presenter