Easy Virtue
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year Released: 1928
Rating: 2.0
"Easy virtue," in this case, boils down to "easy" (as in "slutty"). An unhappy woman (Isabel Jeans) cheats on her husband with a painter, goes through a messy divorce (apparently divorces in England were hell to get 'back then' - today it's as easy as making a withdrawal from an ATM machine), goes on holiday to 'escape,' finds another man, marries him, but his parents find out her past and do not approve. The play's written by the great Noël Coward, but since this was filmed in the silent era they've automatically taken away one of the greatest assets of any Coward work: the snappy dialogue. It certainly doesn't start off that well - a courtroom scene and plenty of flashbacks - and continues on as a battered woman movie without the physical battering (it's all psychological). Lead actress Jeans - a Hitchcock blonde - is actually referred to as 'notorious' at one point, but there's no Cary Grant to save her.
