Early in his directing career — during the silent era years — Alfred Hitchcock made an assortment of films that ran the story-subject gamut, from suspense thrillers to love triangle stories. Most of them barely resembled the kind of films he would later become famous for. It was partially his film studio pressuring for a popular product, and partially it was a young filmmaker exploring style and subject matter.

Of Hitchcock’ surviving silent era films, Easy Virtue is easily the least appealing film in a collection of journeyman efforts. Society dramas can be the most trying of silent era genres. The viewer can feel as though we are to be entertained through voyeurism, peering into the rarified world of the rich and opulent. Part of the fault in Easy Virtue lies with the outdated morality-play sensibilities of the story, part with the unappealing casting of the mannish Isabel Jeans in the lead role. Jeans looks every bit — in dress and countenance — like Jack Lemmon in his drag performance from Some Like It Hot (1959). We kid you not.

A woman poses for an oil portrait in an artist’s studio — foretelling the artist’s studio disaster of Blackmail (1929). Her rich but bored and drunken lout of a husband behaves loutishly. The woman is discovered by her husband in the arms of the sympathetic but poor artist. A struggle ensues! A gun appears! The artist shoots the drunken, jealous husband (probably just for having the foppish name Aubrey Filton). Scandal! The rich Filton shot by his wife’s lover in an artist’s studio! Oh, that degenerate den of debauchery frequented by those of debased morals. Oh, that adulterous, hedonistic Filton woman — she-devil temptress of inexorable sin!

An investigation follows. The husband survives. A divorce is brought to court. Larita Filton’s tragic downfall is played out in full in the courtroom for the press to scandalize and the public to salaciously savor. And of course Larita — almost saintlike — sadly endures the slings and arrows of the rabble, both those of high and low standing. Almost Greek tragedy, isn’t it?

Larita escapes to the south of France (apparently still well-to-do after the scandalous divorce) to forget all, only to meet a wonderful (and young) British man of fine standing, John Whittaker. Their whirlwind romance turns to marriage. It’s back home to England and mother! And mommy is a prototypical ringer for Madame Sebastian in Notorious (1946) and Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1940). The results are tragically predictable. Mother Whittaker asks her son, “John — who is this woman you have pitchforked into the family?”

Larita’s past threatens to scandalize the Whittaker family and John hasn’t the backbone to oppose his mother. Father Whittaker is only there is be withered by a single glance from his wife. The mother stands, like a single-headed Cerberus, guarding the gates of her monied family’s secret hell from gossip and scandal. Larita suffers, and so do we. After more than an hour of this, the film’s ending is both abrupt and merciful for the viewer. — Carl Bennett

Of the ten silent films Hitchcock directed, all but one — The Mountain Eagle (1926) — survives. Of the nine surviving films, only six have appeared on home video in the United States (The Pleasure Garden [1925] and Downhill [1927] mysteriously have been neglected in the USA). Five of those films have been released on DVD by Laserlight Entertainment, including Easy Virtue (1927).

The DVD video master has been transferred from a contrasty 16mm reduction print, but turning down the contrast level of your TV monitor can help hold highlight details a bit. The print utilized is a few dupes away from an original, being both grainy and soft of detail. And grainy silent films running at less than 24 frames per second can be a challenge for MPEG-2 video compression. A discerning eye can detect compression artifacts in the middle to light graytones of the picture, and a freeze frame is a horror on an HD monitor. The print is marked by light scratches, scuffing, dust and speckling. But, that being said, this DVD is the best-looking of three home video editions of Easy Virtue we have seen. Most of the intertitles are easy to read and are framed properly. A better source print would reveal if it is indeed Alfred Hitchcock standing and leaving the courtroom gallery after the divorce verdict is read, 18 minutes into the film.

The canned orchestral music soundtrack is, like the other silent Hitchcock DVDs from Laserlight, intelligently selected from tape and LP record sources.

While this DVD is far from an ideal edition, it is a welcome improvement over previous VHS editions of Easy Virtue. The accompanying edition of Blackmail appears to be transferred from a tightly-cropped 35mm print, marked with some light speckling. For the money, this edition of Blackmail is acceptable for most collectors. We recommend the DVD, with the understanding that this substandard Easy Virtue is the best available on home video until a better edition is released.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This boxset of two of Laserlight’s previous Hitchcock DVD releases is merely a repackaging of the same dreary content as reviewed above. The people at Laserlight obviously didn’t know that these “Hollywood Classics” were produced in England.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

More repackaging of the same content as the above from Delta Entertainment, parent company of the former Laserlight Digital imprint.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

Our first look at this edition from this budget collection of early Hitchcock films reveals that the video transfer, music and all, has been lifted from the Laserlight/Delta editions reviewed above. There is no improvement in quality of presentation with this edition, other than a barely perceptible smoothing of the coarseness present in the previous editions.

With this edition is of similar quality to those above, this collection may be of interest due to the number of films in it.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This budget edition has been mastered from the same readily-available contrasty and blurry video transfer from the same low-quality 16mm reduction print, with the same canned musical accompaniment, utilized for as the Laserlight/Delta and Brentwood editions noted above. Is there to be no decent home video edition of this film — laughable as it is — available to Hitchcock collectors?

The disc is so cheaply manufactured it does not play in all DVD players. We do not recommend this edition.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print, based on its low price.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This edition, from the look of its packaging, may have been produced by ultra-cheap Digiview Productions and is likely the same 16mm reduction print, if not the same video transfer, as the other budget editions above.

Of course, the tone of the packaging has nothing to do with the tenor of the film. But we have noted that this edition’s packaging features nearly the same artwork as for the DVD menus of the Miracle Pictures edition reviewed above, indicating a slimy dog disregard for any extra creative effort.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.

Other BRITISH silent era films available on home video.