Review: Rich and Strange


Bored married couple (Henry Kendall and Joan Barry) come into some money and go on a round the world cruise, wherein they both have affairs. Add a disaster-filled finale, and you’ve got a surprisingly boring film. Percy Marmont is the Commander, Barry’s love interest, and the only halfway decent performer in the film.


Wow, and I thought I’d seen Hitch’s worst with “The Paradine Case”. At least that film had a bunch of GOOD actors and stars (Gregory Peck, Valli, Ann Todd, Ethel Barrymore, Charles Laughton) having a bad day, and at least one (an underrated Louis Jourdan) having a rather good day. This 1931 Alfred Hitchcock (“Psycho”, “Strangers on a Train”, “The 39 Steps”, “Shadow of a Doubt”) stinker was made around that awkward time between Hitch’s silent films and the best of his British talkies like “The 39 Steps” and “The Lady Vanishes”. It’s a real dud, no matter the director and his pedigree.


It has truly bad performances from a mostly unknown cast, whilst the director seems to have been asleep at the wheel with this arcane, entirely tedious affair, where very little happens at all, aside from a twist in the second half, but I was dead to the world by that point.


Lifeless, and showing very little evidence that it was directed by the Master (a menu with floating words is about the only distinguished stylistic moment. What does that tell you?). There was stuff going on on-screen but it still had the same effect as watching a blank screen. I almost wished I was back on that damn sinking ship with Leo, Kate, Billy, and Jim Cameron. How scary is that?


The screenplay is by Hitch, his wife Alma Reville (“Murder!”- a significantly better film from the previous year, “The 39 Steps”, “The Lady Vanishes”, and yes “The Paradine Case”), and Val Valentine (“The Bells of St. Trinians”, “The Constant Husband”), from a Dale Collins novel. It’s not rich, it’s not strange, it’s just cheap, ordinary, and oh-so frigging dull. See it once if you’re a completist, but this is the worst film made by a great filmmaker.


Rating: D

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