Review: Juno and the Paycock

A poor Irish family during the 1920s comes into some money, and it doesn’t seem to bring happiness. Edward Chapman (the ‘Paycock’ of the title) and Sara Allgood (his wife ‘Juno’) are the patriarch and matriarch of the family respectively, the former a blathering barfly. John Laurie is their troubled son, an IRA member.

 

The more of his films that I see, I’ve had to change my tune on the worst film directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock (“Strangers on a Train”, “Vertigo”, “Shadow of a Doubt”). As of the time of writing this review I have now seen all 52 of his films (with “Downhill” being the last viewed, review to come) that are still available. So I can safely say that this 1929 bore is easily his worst film still publicly available. Where was the plot? It only arrives after about 30 minutes, which is 15 minutes too late. Where was the progression of said plot? Nowhere. I had heard that the film has a creepy, unusual atmosphere but even directorially this is mostly a point-and-shoot filmed play effort from The Master. It’s inert and void. I know it’s the 1920s, but I needed more than a story about a poor family that comes into money and things don’t go to plan.

 

And it’s so endlessly talky! It was apparently the first Hitchcock film to use long takes…he probably shouldn’t have bothered. The sound quality and badly employed Irish accents don’t help, either. The dialogue is often very difficult to discern. Edward Chapman is our leading man and he’s the most tiresome bore of a lead character you’ll come across. On a better day Hitchcock would’ve kept these rambling, Irish drunk characters to the margins for comic relief purposes in an otherwise more compelling narrative. If you do decide to endure it, look out for Barry Fitzgerald making his film debut as narrator/orator here. Sara Allgood is well-cast but not a miracle worker.

 

Lifeless and uninteresting silent Hitchcock, only watch it if you’re a completist like me. Even then you’ll likely struggle. Why should I have cared about anyone or anything here? Based on a Sean O’Casey play, Hitchcock scripted along with his wife Alma Reville.

 

Rating: D-


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