The Pleasure Garden (film)
| The Pleasure Garden | |
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 Original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Michael Balcon Erich Pommer |
| Screenplay by | Eliot Stannard |
| Based on | The Pleasure Garden by Oliver Sandys |
| Starring | Virginia Valli Carmelita Geraghty Miles Mander John Stuart Ferdinand Martini |
| Cinematography | Gaetano di Ventimiglia |
| Editing by | Continuity: Alma Reville |
| Distributed by | Gainsborough Pictures (UK) Artlee Pictures (US) |
| Release date(s) | November 3, 1925 (Germany) January 16, 1927 (United Kingdom) |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
The Pleasure Garden is a 1925 British silent film, the debut feature of Alfred Hitchcock. Based on a novel by Oliver Sandys, the story concerns Patsy Brand and Jill Cheyne, chorus girls at The Pleasure Garden Theatre in London.
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[edit] Plot
Patsy, a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden Theater, marries Levett, a soldier of fortune. Before her honeymoon she meets Jill, the girlfriend of her husband's friend Hugh, and gets her a job as a chorus girl too. After the honeymoon, Levett and Hugh leave for the tropics while Patsy and Jill stay in London. Jill cheats on Hugh with other men. Hearing Levett is ill, Patsy goes to the tropics. She discovers he is an alcoholic living with a native woman and leaves him. Levett murders the native woman and tries to murder Patsy, but she is rescued. She returns to London and starts a relationship with Jill's ex-boyfriend Hugh.
[edit] Production
Producer Michael Balcon allowed Hitchcock to direct the film when Graham Cutts, a jealous executive at Gainsborough Pictures, refused to let Hitchcock work on The Rat.
The film was shot in Italy and Germany. Many misfortunes befell the cast and crew. When Gaetano Ventimiglia, the film's cinematographer, failed to hide the film from Italian customs officials, the team had to pay fines and buy new film, seriously depleting their budget.
The film was shot in 1925 and shown to the British press in March 1926 but not officially released in the UK until 1927, after Hitchcock's film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog became a massive hit.
[edit] Cast and crew
Hitchcock described the casting process thus:
Michael Balcon, who had conceived the idea of "importing" American stars long before anybody else, had engaged Virginia Valli for the leading role. She was at the height of her career then - glamorous, famous, and very popular. That she was coming to Europe to make a picture at all was something of an event.[1]
- Cast
- Virginia Valli as Patsy Brand
- Carmelita Geraghty as Jill Cheyne
- Miles Mander as Levet
- John Stuart as Hugh Fielding
- Ferdinand Martini as Mr. Sidey
- Florence Helminger as Mrs. Sidey
- Georg H. Schnell as Oscar Hamilton
- Karl Falkenberg as Prince Ivan
- Lewis Brody
- Crew
- Producers: Erich Pommer and Michael Balcon
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Screenplay: Eliot Stannard
- Assistant director: Alma Reville (whom Hitchcock soon married)
- Cinematographer: Gaetano Ventimiglia
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Hitchcock, Alfred. My Screen Memories, p.8
[edit] External links
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