The Manxman
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year Released: 1929
Rating: 2.0
Basic love-triangle mess - between a poor fisherman, a highly-regarded young lawyer and a bar owner's daughter - is done with only a minimum amount of effort and panache by the Master, who was most likely getting ready for the sound era. Although he later dismissed it - Hitch referred to it as "banal" and "not a Hitchcock picture" in the film nerd staple Hitchcock/Truffaut - it is competently directed, starting off strongly before making Anny Ondra look despondent for the entire second half of the movie when she has to go through marrying the fisherman when she's really grown to love the lawyer. Here, too, is another of the director's 'heroines' that turns out to be a real troublemaker: she ruins three reputations, one man's career and the friendship of two men.
