Hitchcock's Films, No. 2: The Mountain Eagle

It’s likely that there isn't a single living person left who has seen The Mountain Eagle. Gainsborough Pictures released Hitchcock's film in 1927 but only after the success of The Lodger, a hold up of release similar to that which also affected Hitchcock’s first official feature film, The Pleasure Garden. After a press screening, and in the wake of The Lodger, Hitchcock's second film played briefly, somewhere, somehow, probably mostly in Germany, though there doesn't seem to be any attendance records, and then the film mysteriously vanished. All that remains are some stills, frame enlargements (found in the Hitchcock-Truffaut interview book), more recent images found in Texas, a plot synopsis that tends to appear everywhere, and a probably apocryphal alternative title (Fear O’ God is at least one of them).

   Moreover, the material seems unlikely for the Hitchcock we have come to know since then, the Hitchcock of chases and exotic locales. The circumstances are also odd, in that The Mountain Eagle is a Griffith-style melodrama set in rural Kentucky but shot in Germany, as part of the same arrangement between Gainsborough and Germany’s Emelka motion picture company that resulted in The Pleasure Garden. The use of the word "mountain" in the title may have had something to do with the German public's then appetite for the mountain climbing genre. In addition, that multi-studio deal was in part an effort by producer Michael Balcon to get the up-and-coming Hitchcock out of the hair of Gainsborough house director Graham Cutts, so the project may have been indifferently conceived.

The film has vanished, thus it is absurd to discuss it in the context of a Hitchcock film survey in the first place, though as with many other lost films (the complete Greed, the original cuts of Magnificent Ambersons and The Lady from Shanghai, and many others), the film buff remains hopeful that a print may be unearthed in a German or Russian archive or a theater storage bay somewhere on the globe – perhaps Kentucky.

 The film's disappearance is lamentable because of the seeming inappropriateness of the material to the seeming main thrust of Hitchcock’s career and an understanding of his work. Like The Pleasure Garden, the film would contribute to the project "Hitchcock before Hitchcock," that is, his directorial identity before he became the Master of Suspense. Many of the director’s projects during the 1920s and 1930s were, unexpectedly, melodramas or kitchen sink precursors.

 As best as we know, The Mountain Eagle concerns a young woman caught up in a feud who ends up in the hills under the protection of a recluse. The most complete synopsis appears in Jane Sloan's Alfred Hitchcock: The Definitive Filmography.

 The villain of the piece is one J. P. Pettigrew (Bernhard Goetzke, a German actor and veteran of Lang films whom Hitchcock had come to know and like), the town judge, and the operator of the general store. Pettigrew hates the pious John Fulton (Malcolm Keen), also known as "Fear o' God." In the backstory, both John and Pettigrew loved the same woman, who married Pettigrew, but died giving birth to a son, Edward (John F. Hamilton), born disabled. One day, Pettigrew sees the now grown son flirting with schoolteacher Beatrice (Nita Naldi, who may or may not have played the native wife in The Pleasure Garden; most filmographies say yes; Patrick McGilligan in his bio of Hitchcock says no). Pettigrew confronts Beatrice about the seeming budding romance, but then also tries to seduce her himself. Edward observes this assault, and runs away. In revenge, and in his capacity as a judge (anticipating the "evil" judge played by Charles Laughton in The Paradine Case), Pettigrew tries to have Beatrice picked up as a vagrant or a prostitute. John now reappears, and thwarts Pettigrew's plan by marrying Beatrice. They move to his remote cabin, fall in love for real, and she becomes pregnant. Pettigrew still isn't done, however, and has John arrested on suspicion of murder in the case of the missing Edward (a plot device that anticipates, mutatis mutandis, Dial 'M' for Murder).

A full year later, John manages to escape from prison, and meets up with Beatrice, but their attempt to get out of the county are impeded when their child (or she, it's not clear from some synopses) falls ill, which requires that they sneak back into town to see a doctor. There, somehow, he discovers that Edward is back, which nullifies John's murder conviction. During a final confrontation between the men, according to one synopsis, someone shoots and wounds Pettigrew.

 This is melodramatic stuff in the spirit of D. W. Griffith, one of the few directors Hitchcock publicly acknowledged as an influence and an inspiration. The screenplay is credited to Eliot Stannard, Hitchcock’s close collaborator at the time, and German playwright Max Ferner, from a story, according to some sources, by Charles Lapworth, who was a writer and a functionary at Gainsborough and a colleague of Balcon's, and who probably wasn't the noted British geologist whom Wikipedia takes you to from its Hitchcock filmography, and who quickly disappeared from film history. The plot, as much as we know about it, features the common dichotomy of the time, the difference between city and country, with country usually viewed as more natural, rejuvenating, and authentic. Hitchcock-influence Murnau was particularly drawn to this pattern in his American films, but so were Griffith, Frank Borzage, and Charles Chaplin. This dichotomy is not without nuances and humor and Hitchcock showed a variation on the contrast in The Pleasure Garden, in which the supposedly Edenic African or eastern location is either infected by the disease of civilization, or is corrupting itself because of its somnolent ways and invitation to hedonism.

The synopsis of The Mountain Eagle reminds us that rural themes appear frequently in Hitchcock’s films. One of the most evident is the long sequence between Richard Hanney and the Crofter and his wife in The 39 Steps. In that film, Hitchcock and the screenwriters derive humor from the contrast between the repressive Crofter and his desperate wife in a variation on a farmer’s daughter joke. Rural themes are more evident is The Farmer’s Wife, based on a play, as well as in another play adaptation, Juno and the Paycock, as well as The Ring, one of Hitchcock’s few wholly original movies (in that he is given sole credit for the screenplay). Other films with country-versus-town contrasts (not always strictly "rural" but sometimes small town, and / or resort and vacation settings with rural flavorings) include The Skin Game, Jamaican Inn, The Lady Vanishes, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shadow of a Doubt, Under Capricorn, Strangers on a Train, Psycho, The Birds, and Torn Curtain. Ruralism pops up in odd but significant places throughout the Hitchcock canon, but generally in chase films from Saboteur (the blind musician living on his own in the forest) to North by Northwest (the crop dusting sequence). In North by Northwest, the plains residents are comical characters – they talk funny, they  run funny, with their legs jutting out sideways like a Li'l Abner character – which points to Hitchcock's use of the rural or small town characters for a comical but not entirely dismissive contrast with the cynical and sophisticated big city folk. The longest extended play on this theme is The Trouble with Harry, set in a Vermont village, where a big city drop-out (John Forsyth) attempts to become a painter but instead finds himself just another of several other randy village eccentrics.

 Also notable from the plot synopsis is that John is a “rescuer,” like Patsy in The Pleasure Garden and Eve Gill in Stage Fright, and Mark Rutland in Marnie. New to Hitchcock's concerns, however, is the theme of the romantic triangle. Obviously a staple of melodrama, the theme of two men fighting for the same woman has an unusual twist here, adding the competition between a father and son for the same woman, which is rare in cinema. Louis Malle's Damage and some of the works of Guy Maddin are notable examples. Hitchcock never picks it up again, though older men sometimes compete with younger men for the same woman.

Finally, from the extant stills and frame enlargements of The Mountain Eagle, the film represents the introduction of the important Hitchcockian visual motif of handcuffs. But because The Mountain Eagle is lost, and with no surviving script to consult, it is impossible to evaluate key elements, such as the decisions made by the characters that lead to the definition of their identities. The villain seems to remain static throughout the narrative, while by contrast Edward's decision to flee the city has a direct impact not only on his father, but also Beatrice and John. Beatrice makes a transition from teacher to country wife, while John transitions from recluse to married man.  Key decisions he makes include coming to Beatrice's rescue, breaking out of prison, and deciding to return to the city to find a doctor instead of continuing on his flight. But it is impossible to fully evaluate these moments. It's themes and motifs can only be covered in more detail in finished films.