VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

bbmtwist Hitchcock's first film shows him to be merely a competent director. There's nothing Hitchcockian about this film, although a clever early shot shows a producer puffing away on a cigar next to a "No Smoking" sign, a visual contrast to show character.The film does move along nicely and the acting is competent. Essentially a story about two show girls, one a gold digger, and the other a nice girl. The former marries into royalty and the latter makes an initial marriage mistake that makes up the bulk of the narrative.The commercially released DVD, which I viewed, runs 59:35, but the timings here on IMDb range from 75 to 92 minutes. I was aware of a few abrupt transitions that may be due to trimmed footage, most notably the departure of Jill's husband from their honeymoon to his plantation job. Also we last see Patsy as she is selecting her trousseau for her upcoming marriage. I imagine the original film has a good deal more about how she ended up, contrasting with Jill's fortunes. It does seem unbalanced to leave her story up in the air.All in all, an enjoyable and competently made film.

Hitchcoc This is a moral tale of a couple of women, one good and the other lost in her own self- importance. It's also about two men who find themselves on the opposite side of fence as well. One is a kind, caring guy and the other a selfish womanizing cad. The first part of the show is about how two women in a chorus line evolve. One knows she has it and immediately demands the attention of everyone. She has been embraced by her friend who has been in the chorus for a while, but one she gains popularity, she has no time for the other woman. A marriage of convenience takes place and things really unravel. Also, the young starlet begins to realize that all her attention can't seem to make her happy. Things get kind of weird when the cad ends up in some island paradise with a native cookie whom he uses in every way possible. There are some really ridiculous confrontations and overacting by the principles. Everything gets wrapped up kind of neatly. Hitchcock was obviously learning the camera. I disagree with a previous comment about a monkey hanging around a film set being able to come up with this film. There are already hints of a style coming to the fore. It's too bad a couple of other first efforts have been lost to the inevitable decomposition of film (or simply lost).

boblipton Looking at Hitchcock's early pictures, one struggles to see signs of his future greatness, like looking through every manger for the baby with the halo. But this, the first complete Hitchcock movie, shows no signs of his future greatness. He is clearly a journeyman director, some one who shows promise, but sent to Berlin for his final exam.On the plus side, this movie starts off surprisingly well, with a snappy, American-paced chorines-on-the-town plot. If they had cast Marion Davies and Marie Prevost in this, it would be typical, if rather underwritten. The start moves fast, plot points pop up, and suddenly we take a turn and the story descends into melodrama.Fairly typical of Hitchcock, you might say and you would be right, but he hasn't got any sense of what his chosen symbols are -- both leads are brunettes, which will come as a surprise to anyone who knows Hitchcock's taste for icy blondes. The symbolic items are standard and not particularly shocking -- Virginia Valli's wedding-bed deflowering is indicated by an apple with a large chunk bitten out of it -- and the actors are not really up to their jobs.Hitchcock was never a great director of actors but a great director of scenes. By 1927 his visual flair got his bosses to invest in great actors for his pictures, starting with Ivor Novello for THE LODGER. But here, everyone is.... at best, adequate, with Miles Mander very stagy and whoever plays his native lover -- still miscredited in the IMDb as Nita Naldi -- seemingly brain-damaged.There are a couple of interestingly composed visual glosses: the door that Mander must go through looks like a Turkish harem door and the decoration on either side differs dramatically; on one side is life, on another death. But this is UFA, with great cameramen and all the technicians who made great expressionist fare like CALIGARI and modernist masterpieces like Lang's work ready and eager to work.... and there's none of that here.I find it hard to give this an exact rating: the great start is sunk by the foolishness of the ending, and Hitchcock at the the start of his career is not the great film maker he would be in another thirty years -- or even four. But it is Hitchcock, and therefore demands our attention, so I'll give it a good mark for that.But if it weren't Hitchcock's first film, no one would care. It probably wouldn't even still be in existence.

Christopher Evans This was Hitchcock's first ever film as director to be completed and it is indicative of his huge talent. Despite its age and therefore somewhat primitive production the young Hitch does a superb, professional and classy job. The film maintains interest throughout and is still funny, entertaining and impressive when viewed today! Hitchcock imbues it with directorial flourishes of brilliance with clever, interesting camera shots, intelligent storytelling and little bits of his psychological themes which strengthen all his films.In conclusion this is a superb film considering its age and the fact it is Hitchcock's debut.