Rich and Strange

Hitchcock's career is full of unexpected patterns and internal correspondences, but none are more bizarre than the comparison between this modestly ambitious drama of 1932 and his Cold War spy movie. Torn Curtain of 1966. Both are about couples abroad (in this case, middle class suburbanites who come into money and take a disastrous world cruise), and both are extraordinarily scathing about the timidity and emotional reserve of their central characters: innocence, of the most banal and compromised kind confronts experience in the form of exotic strangers and risks, and responds by retreating further into its shell. It wasn't well received at the time, but Hitchcock himself retained enthusiasm for it.