The Ring opens at a fun family carnival and there's plenty of nice shots with excellent compositions of people enjoying themselves. And there's the first of some unavoidable but completely gross racism, as we see a black man, in total "look at this bozo" caricature mode, in a dunk tank situation (minus the actual tank)... |
I guess there's not a whole lot to say about it. I don't think it should be whitewashed away but it doesn't the change the fact that it's difficult to watch.
Also, there's something strange happening with these silent movie actors, especially in the eyes. Each of the three films I've watched so far has had numerous crazy faces with steely and strange eyeballs. I can't really put my finger on it. These people just don't look like normal people. Maybe it's cuz they're British lol? Look at two of the leads from this movie and The Lodger...
So here's the plot in a nutshell: there's this local small time boxer called "One Round" Jack and this established champion. Posing as 'just some guy in the crowd', the champ beats up Jack at the fair. The ticket-taker girl is Jack's girlfriend but the champ has the hots for her. Long story short, Jack and this girl get married but she is (not so) secretly cheating on him with the champ.
In my notes, I wrote, "they should have called this movie The Cuck!" And that's something I wrote in my notes.
Like I said, as much as this story sucked, there's plenty of delightful shots to marvel at, and the Kino Classics restoration looks great...
Hitchock's ability to use light and shadows is already at an expert level. Though another gripe I have with these silent films is that there seems to be a lack of title cards. So many scenes go by where we see the characters talking but aren't offered the little interstitial breaks to decipher what's been said. And sure, most of the time, it's pretty unnecessary to glean the plot/know what's going on. I'm not sure if people in the olden days just didn't like to read or if my trained-on-subtitles brain can't help it to want more text/context. It's neither here nor there in the end, though, and probably speaks more to my general lack of knowledge about and experience with this era.
There's also a bunch of comic relief in this otherwise straightforward/serious film. Frankly, an unnecessary amount of comic relief if you ask me! Like during the wedding sequence we see a random set of Siamese twins arguing over where to sit in the church (!) and also Jack's best man/trainer is picking his nose at the altar (?) ...
I like goofs and gags as much as the next guy — and I suppose, watching this in a mostly anthropological sense, it does provide a kind of WTF break in the action — but I can't for the life of me understand the mindset of someone appreciating this at face value.
Jack slowly works his way up the ranks, getting bigger and bigger fights. Some of the training montages and fighting scenes are the best cinematic stuff in the movie. Like here, where he sees the champ's face in his punching bag...
If you weren't totally sure how racist this was from the beginning, when it comes to describing the scenario around Jack's next fight, well, it seems pretty simple...
Yup.
While Jack is winning that fight, his wife is out on the town getting shit-faced with the champ and they're getting a double ass dance right in front of their faces...
The blatantness in which she carries on with this affair is so weird. It doesn't feel like something that would fly in 1927. I mean, she literally keeps a framed picture of him on their piano!! ...
After the big fight against the, uh… he wants to celebrate with his team AND his wife, but she never comes home. As the champagne goes flat, the trainer notices the picture on the piano and the geniuses seem to figure out what's going on...
When she finally gets home, he throws the picture at the champagne glasses and gets handsy with her, ripping her dress. Why did she marry him in the first place? Damn, this is the most frustrating one yet by a mile. She leaves a note saying that she has "gone someplace where people treat me properly."
Well, now we've come to the big fight between these two. OF COURSE. One last chance to win back his cheating wife, though god knows why he would even want her? We see a cool shot of the whole crowd...
She's front and center. Yet another classic transposition effect, as she comes to the good guy's corner, inspires old "One Round" Jack.
He wins (naturally) and he kisses his wife, instantly forgiving her of her adulterous ways. The moral of the story is that if you are a good boxer you can win back your wife and just don't worry about all those times she was cheating on you with your rival boxer.Yipes. This was bad for a bunch of reasons (and it was over 100 minutes long taboot!). Really shocked that these are somehow getting WORSE as I go along. Hoping this is a low-point and not a harbinger of things to come.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 656 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 658A ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 656 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 658A ⫸
The Ring is a 1927 British silent romance film written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis and Ian Hunter. It was released on October 1, 1927.
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