The Ring

Hitchcock displays his already developed understanding for visuals in this early silent film. The plot of the film, involving two boxers fighting over a girl, is straight-forward drama without much to recommend it. Hitchcock's talent, though, is found in his stunning use of images. Nearly every shot is filled with visual symbols. Especially memorable is the jewelry that one boxer gives the girl just before she marries the other boxer. He slides it up her arm in a clearly sexual way and with one simple movement Hitch has shown us all we need to know. The boxing scenes are handled well with some interesting point-of-view shots that again prove how far ahead of his time Hitchcock was. The film also gives insight into his later treatment of women. The object of the boxers' desires is driven by money and lust, not reason or love. The only other women in the film are either beautiful party girls who make open offers of sex or old crones who help to destroy happy relationships. All in all, the Ring is a must for anyone interested in Hitchcock's early work and his development as a visual storyteller.

It's basically just a love-triangle story, but Hitchcock's storytelling skills and mastery of silent film techniques make "The Ring" well worth watching. There is a lot of visual detail and symbolism that add meaning to a basically routine story about small-time boxer Jack, his girl, and the champion who gives Jack his big break but who also tries to steal his girl.

The opening sequence establishes the triangle amidst the colorful atmosphere of a traveling show, where Jack takes on all comers inside a tent. It is filled with a lot of detail, especially the bracelet that Bob, the champion, gives to Jack's girl, which is important as a plot element and as a symbol. (This "ring" is one of several meanings of the film's nicely-chosen title.) Most of the plot that follows is predictable, as it is clear from the beginning that someday Bob and Jack will have to square off in the ring with more than Bob's title at stake. But if the story is routine, Hitchcock's technique is not. There are a lot of creative touches that develop the characters and story, and that add humor and interest. The cast is pretty good, and some of the secondary characters from the traveling show are very funny in the earlier scenes.

This is certainly an old-fashioned movie, and won't be of general interest today, but it's a nice little film. Anyone who likes silent films or who wants to see something quite different from the "Master of Suspense" should find this worth a look.

"The Ring" is a surprisingly torpid little film which I thought was not one of The Master's better efforts. Yes, yes, I know, there were some of his signature cinematic compositions and visual touches, but the play's the thing, right? This was pretty ordinary subject matter for someone with Hitch's reputation - love triangle, jealousy, revenge, etc. There were no surprises, no maguffins, no suspense, just plodding drama.

Maybe the best part of this film is the casting. I enjoyed watching Carl Brisson very much as the cuckolded husband, "One-Round Jack" and the always affable Ian Hunter - even when playing a cad, although he is slightly paunchy for a heavyweight champ. Hitch also got a lot of mileage from the entertaining Gordon Harker as Jack's second.

But I disagree with some reviewers that this was one of Hitchcock's better silents. "The Manxman" is a far superior film, and also stars Brisson as a cuckolded husband. That was a story you could get your teeth into; not so with "The Ring", which was pure pablum.

I really wanted to like this one, even watching it twice in the past week, thinking that it might grow on me (as Hitchcock's Number Seventeen has done, slightly) but it just doesn't do anything for me. Apparently, it didn't do much for the audiences in 1927 either, because from what I've been able to find out about it, despite being popular with critics, it sank at the box office.

Hitchcock not only directed but also wrote this boring melodrama, a combination of two of my least favourite genres: boxing, and romance. The world of boxing provides the backdrop for this formulaic triangle between two competitors and the girl who loves them both: but which man does she really want to marry?

The title is good, with several layered meanings in relation to the story. The fact that the film used few title cards was unique, letting visuals tell the story by themselves. There are a lot of clever visuals by Hitchcock: as we look up through the water of a pond at the two lovers; placing the ring on her finger at the marriage ceremony, only to have the bracelet slip down to her wrist, reminding her (and the audience) of the other man; girl, sitting on hubby's lap, glances across the room toward a mirror, and sees reflection of the "other man"; fingers flittering away on the ivories, distorted - but the plot, again written by Hitchcock himself, was a routine melodrama which could hardly hold my attention.

Beautiful, slightly Gothic looking church in which the ceremony occurs is an asset to the film in its few, brief scenes. Goofball comically blowing the suds off the beer, then downing it, and the film's subsequent distorted Point-Of-View shot is an amusing moment. Was this film, released October 1927, the first to use POV shots?

The story here is very slight, but it is told well by Hitchcock, with excellent choices of lighting and distances and a number of neat tricks. The editing is excellent, with dissolves effectively used throughout, and the simple cuts are perfectly timed. There is some clever image distortion, superb photography in general, and the film even manages to include some apt comedy relief, thanks largely to Gordon Harker's comic acting abilities. There is a dream sequences that is arguably poorly handled, and the story is downright predictable, but generally it is hard to hold anything against this early Hitchcock silent film.