Hitchcock One By One: THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925)

Who Made It?
Written by Eliot Stannard
Based on the novel by Oliver Sandys
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Who's In It?
Virginia Valli as Patsy Brand
Carmelita Garaghty as Jill Cheyne
Miles Mander as Levett
John Stuart as Hugh Fielding
Karl Falkenberg as Prince Ivan

What's It About?
Patsy (Virginia Valli) and Jill (Carmelita Garaghty) are dancers at a local theater, the Pleasure Garden. Patsy promises herself to Hugh Fielding (John Stuart) but, as her star rises at the theater, and much to the alarm of Jill, allows herself to be wooed and pampered by the aristocratic Prince Ivan (Karl Falkenberg). Jill, in the meantime, weds Hugh’s friend and business associate Levett (Miles Mander) whom we soon learn is something less than a gentleman.

Virginia Valli as Patsy Brand, about to meet her future husband



Carmelita Geraghty as Jill Cheyne

What starts as a fun, American-styled show business picture transforms, when Jill and Levett marry, into a tale of adultery, madness, and murder.

Miles Mander as Levett, going unhinged

Why Should I See It?
As Alfred Hitchcock's first feature film, The Pleasure Garden enjoys a stature that would otherwise elude it. It's a fun and breezy picture, well photographed and highly evocative of its period. It’s tempting to try to find clues to Hitchcock’s future career in this film, but I have a feeling that attempts to do so are probably misguided. It’s entirely reasonable that a great deal of the creative control, at such an early date, would be out of his hands. Still, there are flashes here and there of the sorts of things that would one day be Hitchcock trademarks: voyeuristic POV shots and Levett’s hallucinatory insanity late in the film. At any rate, the picture is well shot, well paced, and engaging. One always knows that there is a competent hand at the helm.

Descending the stairs at the Pleasure Garden

What Else?

Apparently, cinematographer Gaetano Ventimiglia attempted to avoid Italian customs fees by hiding the film stock under Hitchcock's bunk aboard their steamer. This seriously backfired when Italian authorities seized the film, forcing the production to spend big bucks on all new stock.

There is a longstanding rumor that Levett's native wife is played by silent-screen vamp Nita Naldi. Frederica, a frequent contributor to Nitrateville, a highly-recommended discussion site dedicated to silent and early talking pictures, seems to put this issue to rest once and for all:

(Nita Naldi's) inclusion in the cast of The Pleasure Garden throughout various Hitchcock filmographies stems from a mistake made by Peter Noble in 1949 (in An Index to the Creative Work of Alfred Hitchcock, Sight & Sound Supplement, Index Series No. Eighteen). That error has been picked up by subsequent filmographies, including Donald Spoto's, which is from where the imdb reference derives, I suspect.

She isn't listed in the credits, she isn't the native lover, and she could not have been in the film. The Pleasure Garden completed filming in August of 1925; Nita didn't depart the States for Europe until late September 1925, and she was cast in The Mountain Eagle in December of 1925.

(The Mountain Eagle was Hitchcock's second film, no prints of which are known to survive.)

Click Here to read the original Nitrateville post (excerpted here with the author's permission and encouragement—and my gratitude). More on Naldi's relationship with Hitchcock is available Here and you can examine her complete filmography (which does NOT include The Pleasure Garden!) Here.

Where Can I See It?

As of January 2011, home video availability, at least in the US, is spotty: it looks as though it’s a public domain film, no longer under copyright protection, which has yet to receive a proper, well-presented DVD release. THE PLEASURE GARDEN is currently undergoing a major restoration by the British Film Institute. Here’s hoping we see a sparkling new edition soon! 

What's the Bottom Line?
THE PLEASURE GARDEN is entertaining and fun; an enjoyable silent picture that even those who are new to silents will probably enjoy. I recommend it on its own merits as well as for its status as Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film.