Review: The Farmer’s Wife

Widowed farmer (Jameson Thomas) tries out a series of not terribly suitable candidates for a mate after his wife dies. Lillian Hall-Davis plays the man’s clearly adoring housekeeper.

 

OK silent era Alfred Hitchcock (“The Lodger”, “Strangers on a Train”, “Vertigo”, “The 39 Steps”) film from 1928 never quite gets past its unlikeable, oafish main character in order to really make the grade. I’m sorry, but this farmer doesn’t even deserve a wife at all with the way he carries on. Feminists will certainly hate it, with our protagonist referring to women as ‘fat hens’ and so forth. I try to remember and appreciate a film for the time in which it was made, but that doesn’t extend to me liking this jerk.

 

The central concept is amusing, even though you know exactly where it’s headed. There’s a funny bit where a spinster and a maid both end up in tears, and it’s amusing that none of this guy’s options seem remotely suited to him. I also liked the nice, simple bit where the farmer imagines his dud options while staring at an empty chair, and then a certain someone sits in the chair and the penny finally drops with him. That was a really cute touch. On the downside, while most of the performances are quite good, Gordon Harker is a constant hammy irritant as a stable hand/handyman.

 

A watchable, relatively decent, and occasionally amusing film but it’s hard to really care when the protagonist just isn’t likeable. You wonder how he won over his first wife let alone how he woos anyone else. Based on an Eden Phillpotts play, the screenplay is by Eliot Stannard (“The Lodger”, “The Manxman”, “Champagne”), with the uncredited hands of several others including Hitchcock himself.

 

Rating: C+