THE SKIN GAME (1931) ** Alfred Hitchcock had already directed 17 films, but he hadn't yet completed his journey to becoming Alfred Hitchcock. There are signs that he was well on his way-the off-tempo, discordant and nearly random cuts particularly early in the film, accompanied by radical aural shifts-but the mastery and the radical and unforgettable strokes are yet to come. The film industry was also at a critical point of evolution, with actors (and make up people!) still figuring out how sound films might be different. The result is young men in pancake makeup and several actors (most gloriously Phyllis Konstam, wife of British Davis Cup hero Bunny Austin) holding their poses for roughly five times as long as they needed to. These were, I submit, enjoyable bits. Besides the occasional flourishes of Hitchcock-in-waiting, most of the other enjoyable parts involve laughing at the characters so imprisoned in or desperately outside the class system, and their outrage and shock at what each other are doing.
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