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.