Rent The Skin Game (1931)
3.0 of 5 from 55 ratings
1h 20min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A melodrama revolving around rural class conflict. The Skin Game was widely praised on release for its powerful and convincing portrayal of industrial encroachment on the rural gentry. The film is also notable for the confident mix of long-take dialogue scenes and montage. The rivalry between a gentrified family and a wealthy tradesman turns to tragedy when the former use their discovery of the dark past of the tradesman's daughter-in-law to thwart his building plans.
- Actors:
- Edmund Gwenn, Jill Esmond, C.V. France, Helen Haye, John Longden, Phyllis Konstam, Frank Lawton, Herbert Ross, Dora Gregory, Edward Chapman, R.E. Jeffrey, George Bancroft, Ronald Frankau
- Directors:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Writers:
- John Galsworthy, Alfred Hitchcock
- Studio:
- Orbit Media
- Genres:
- Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Alfred Hitchcock's British Films
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Reviews (1) of The Skin Game
Filmed stage melodrama. - The Skin Game review by Steve
This adaptation of a John Galsworthy play is about as far as feasible from what we came to think of as the Hitchcock style. But he at least does a better job of making it work than in Juno and Paycock a year earlier.
As in the Sean O'Casey adaptation, little is done to open it up from the stage and many scenes are merely the cast crowding around the camera booth.
This is a story of friction between old and new money, and both sides are equally unsympathetic and there is little warmth from the actors to sweeten the class war. The best scene is a suspenseful bidding contest over a plot of land within the eyeline of the manor, full of fast camera pans and long takes.
When the director does draw on expressionism and the style of his recent films, it feels incongruous. Once again, Hitch was beginning to feel hemmed in by his studio, working on projects of scant personal interest.
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