The Skin Game

The Skin Game is a 1931 film by Alfred Hitchcock, based on a play by John Galsworthy. The story revolves around two rival families, the Hillcrests and the Hornblowers, and the disastrous results of the feud between them. Produced by British International Pictures (BIP), many critics consider this film a low point in Hitchcock's career: rather than exploiting the medium of film, he had been commissioned to transform a stage play into a movie, and stuck strictly to the plot, without adding the same personal flair that stood out in his previous film, Murder.

The Plot

The plot tells the story of two affluent families, the established Hillcrests, played by C.V. France, Helen Haye, and Jill Esmond, and the nouveau riche Hornblowers, played by Edmund Gwenn, John Longden,and Frank Lawton. The Hillcrests are put off by the Hornblowers, who are surrounding their rural estate with factories, and make every effort to preserve the last piece of open land adjoining their own properties. After being tricked out of the land in an auction, the Hillcrests learn a dark secret about Mr. Hornblower's daughter-in-law (played by Phyllis Konstam), who had once supported herself as an escort. When he is told the news, Mr. Hornblower agrees to sell the property to the Hillcrests for less than half the auction price on the condition that the family swears to keep the secret, but the news leaks out, causing a scandal in the Hornblower family. Chloe Hornblower goes to the Hillcrests, begging them to help keep the secret from her husband, who is aware that something is going on, then hides behind a curtain when her husband storms into the Hillcrest home demanding to know the secret. Keeping his promise to Chloe, Mr. Hillcrest makes up a story, but the young Hornblower is not convinced and declares that he intends to end his marriage, even though Chloe is pregnant. Upon hearing this, Chloe runs to the lily pond outside the Hillcrest home and drowns herself. When her body is discovered, the elder Hornblower concedes that Hillcrest has destroyed him, and Hillcrest attempts to apologize.

The Shoot

Hitchcock was visibly bored throughout the making of the Skin Game and spent most of the shoot demonstrating for the cast how he wanted them to act. According to one acount, his performances were "much more vivid ... than they ever achieved themselves." The highlight for him was when the stage hands threw Phyllis Konstam into the lily pond--he made them rehearse this at least ten times.

After the disappointment of this film, Hitchcock learned to take advantage of the next filmed stage play that he was ordered by his studio bosses to make. Number Seventeen, based on a play by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, was transformed into a burlesque of all his previous thrillers, without the studio bosses realizing it.