This late silent classic tells the story of an ex-barber’s assistant called Joe who escapes from Dartmoor Prison to find the woman who spurned him. The majority of the action takes the form of an extended flashback explaining the reason for the man’s incarceration.
This film is simply stunning. It hits the ground running with it’s portrayal of the central character’s escape across the moors. Forgoing naturalism the setting is a mass of expressionist shadows and storm leaden clouds. The convict (played by Uno Henning) stalks across the landscape like a phantom and director Anthony Asquith’s cunning use of perspective never lets the audience fully get to grips with the environment. When we finally arrive at the cottage it’s interior resembles something out of a fairytale whilst retaining a recognizable and realistic air.
More interesting than this is what the director does with the back story. In concentrating on a simple tale of jealously he creates a film wealthy in imagination and superior in execution – every scene has something that enthrall but two in particular stand out.
Being a silent it might come as a surprise that a trip to see a ‘talkie’ should form the backbone of this film but Asquith is determined to have fun and so he places his protagonist in the row behind the object of his affections and lets rip. Amidst a sea of people awkwardly interacting with the new medium (or, in the case of two boys, wondering if the chap sat next to them is the star of the film they are watching – it’s actually Asquith himself) Joe, coldly watches, his eyes glinting in the light. That Asquith manages to highlight the menace at the same time as filling the scene with such lighthearted detail is outstanding but there is more to come as he creates a montage of the present situation, Joe’s own imagining and the audiences reaction that is one of the finest pieces of editing I can remember. The second scene involves a razor and I’m not going to give anymore detail as I would not like to spoil the story but when it comes you will be suitably impressed.
I honestly can’t speak highly enough of A Cottage On Dartmoor, the film that critic Raymond Durgnat said “out-Hitchcocks Hitchcock, before Hitchcock became Hitchcock”, but, as I have been saying for years that ‘no black and white British movie matches the look of Odd Man Out‘ it will make a nice change to add and ‘…apart from…’ to the end of that sentence.
