Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Downhill (1927)

Following the success of his third feature film, The Lodger (1926), director Alfred Hitchcock and actor Ivor Novello reteamed for this society drama of honor and sacrifice in the face of greed and deception.

Golden boy Roddy Berwick (Novello), star of his private school’s rugby team and captain of his graduating class, is accused of fathering a shopowner’s daughter’s baby in the place of the actual culprit, his classmate Tim (Robin Irvine). Rather than defend himself or jeopardize the scholarship of his needy friend, Roddy accepts expulsion from school to the horror of his class-conscious father. Quick to condemn his own son for seemingly indecorous and socially-dangerous choices, Roddy’s father disowns him. To make ends meet, Roddy takes a job as a stage extra in a revue. There he is drawn into the circle of a shallow and money-mad pair of actors (Isabel Jeans and Ian Hunter).

After being married to the golddigging actress, who quickly manages to spend a £30,000 inheritance, Roddy becomes a taxi dancer at the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris. Soon, he is starving in derelict rooms inhabited by ne’er-do-wells that nevertheless care enough to put him on a ship travelling back to England. Delirious, Roddy is haunted by visions of his unforgiving father and by those in his life that have abused him and taken him for what little he has had. Back in London, Roddy stumbles home to discover he has been forgiven by his father.

Unintentionally comic in the film is the pansy struggle between Roddy and his rival Archie, and the bizarre sight of a white actress portraying a French mammy in blackface in a film produced as late as 1927.

Not a directorial dazzler like The Lodger, Downhill is of consistent quality when compared to his other films of the 1920s, with a few flashy moments of directorial dare.

— Carl Bennett

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a 2K high-definition scan of the British Film Institute’s 35mm restoration print materials. It appears that some digital stabilization and cleaning has been performed on the natural-speed scan, with very-good to excellent results but with a minute amount of speckling and dust allowed to remain. The picture is a pleasure to watch but the amber-tinting makes the it feel overall a bit too dark to our taste.

The film is accompanied by an entertaining music score composed and performed on piano by Neil Brand.

Supplementary material includes a new interview with film scholar William Rothman; a new video essay by art historian Steven Jacobs; excerpts from audio interviews with Hitchcock by filmmakers François Truffaut (1962) and Peter Bogdanovich (1963); a radio adaptation of The Lodger from 1940, directed by Hitchcock; a new interview with Brand on composing for silent film; and insert booklet essays on The Lodger and Downhill by critic Philip Kemp.

Hands down, this is the best-looking home video edition of Downhill that we have encountered and this Blu-ray Disc is recommended.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is also available directly from . . .

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on piano by Neil Brand.

Supplementary material includes a new interview with film scholar William Rothman; a new video essay by art historian Steven Jacobs; excerpts from audio interviews with Hitchcock by filmmakers François Truffaut (1962) and Peter Bogdanovich (1963); a radio adaptation of The Lodger from 1940, directed by Hitchcock; a new interview with Brand on composing for silent film; and insert booklet essays on The Lodger and Downhill by critic Philip Kemp.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 1 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been transferred from 35mm print materials.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed by Christophe Henrotte.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

France: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.fr. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The film is accompanied a predominately up-tempo stereo jazz score by a small combo, which makes for something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde experience. The second audio tracks encoded into the disc are empty.

The disc inlcudes an overview of Hitchcock’s British cinematic career (in English, with Japanese subtitles).

For those with region-free DVD players, this disc is a good option for its visual quality to collect this hard-to-find Hitchcock silent, if you can ignore the stylistically inappropriate music.

This Region 2 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other BRITISH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.