The Mountain Eagle | |
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![]() Original film lobby card | |
Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
Screenplay by | |
Story by | Charles Lapworth |
Produced by | Michael Balcon |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Gaetano di Ventimiglia |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Woolf & Freedman Film Service (UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Countries |
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Languages | Silent film, English intertitles |
The Mountain Eagle is a 1926 silent film, and Alfred Hitchcock's second as director, following The Pleasure Garden . [1] The film, a romantic drama set in Kentucky, is about a widower (Bernhard Goetzke) who jealously competes with his crippled son (John F. Hamilton) and a man he loathes (Malcolm Keen) over the affections of a schoolteacher (Nita Naldi). The film was mostly produced at the Emelka Film studios in Munich, Germany in autumn of 1925, with exterior scenes shot in the village of Obergurgl in the State of Tyrol, Austria. Production was plagued with problems, including the destruction of a village roof and Hitchcock experiencing altitude sickness. Due to producing the film in Germany, Hitchcock had more directorial freedom than he would have had in England, and he was influenced by German cinematic style and technique.
The film was released in Germany in May 1926 and screened for its British distributors in October 1926. It was met with disapproval and it was not until after the success of Hitchcock's The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog that the film was released in the UK in May 1927. [1] The film received mixed reviews and Hitchcock himself told François Truffaut he was relieved that the film was lost. Six surviving stills of The Mountain Eagle are reproduced in Truffaut's book, and further stills have been found. In 2012, a set of 24 still photographs was found in an archive of one of Hitchcock's close friends. The Cine Tirol Film Commission has described it as "the most wanted film in the world"; the British Film Institute has the film on the top of their BFI 75 Most Wanted list of missing films, and is actively searching for it. [2]
The film is set in Kentucky, where J. P. Pettigrew's (Bernhard Goetzke) wife had died giving birth to their son Edward (John F. Hamilton), born disabled. Pettigrew loathes John 'Fear o' God' Fulton (Malcolm Keen) who was also in love with Pettigrew's wife. Pettigrew later witnesses his now-grown son making love to[ clarification needed ] schoolteacher Beatrice (Nita Naldi), and confronts her about the relationship. He attempts to take her in his arms, but Beatrice rejects his advances. Edward sees this and flees the village.
Pettigrew is incensed at both Beatrice's rejection and the loss of his son, and thus attempts to have Beatrice arrested as a wanton harlot. John forestalls Pettigrew's plan by marrying Beatrice and taking her to his cabin where they fall in love. Beatrice becomes pregnant. Pettigrew seeks revenge by having John thrown in prison for murdering his (missing) son.
A year later, John breaks out of prison and attempts to flee with Beatrice and their child. However, Beatrice falls ill and John must return to the village for a doctor. There he finds that Edward has reappeared. John's affairs are now cleared up and he is legally free from the charge of murder. Pettigrew is subsequently shot and wounded (contemporary sources differ on this point), and is no longer a threat to John and his family.
The Mountain Eagle is the only completed feature film directed by Hitchcock that is considered a lost film, meaning that no prints are known to exist. [1] [3] [4] [5] Six surviving stills are reproduced in François Truffaut's book. [6] More stills have since been located, many of which are reproduced in Dan Auiler's book. [7] A lobby card for the film was found in a box of broken frames at a flea market in Rowley, Massachusetts. In 2012, a set of 24 still photographs were found in the archive of one of Hitchcock's close friends. Although these images gave clues to the film and its story, they were taken on the set rather than being stills from the film itself. [8] They were auctioned off in Los Angeles for $6,000 (£3,700). [9] Hitchcock's notebooks were also found, documenting his journey to Obergurgl by train, horse and cart, and by foot. [9]
Both The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle were produced in co-operation with Emelka Film Studios in Munich, Germany. [6] [10] The film was mostly shot at Emelka in Munich in the fall of 1925, [11] [12] and the film exteriors were shot on location in Obergurgl, in what is now the municipality of Sölden in the State of Tyrol in southwestern Austria, [13] the Ötztal Alps standing in for the mountains and hollows of Kentucky. Due to producing the film in Germany, Hitchcock had more directorial freedom than he would have had in England, and influences in the technique and style of German cinema are evident in his early works. [14]
Production was plagued with problems. Poor weather during the location shoot was a constant source of trouble, and Hitchcock and the crew had an uneasy relationship with the locals. Hitchcock ordered the clearance of snow from a meadow and ordered the local volunteer fire brigade to blast it away, causing the roof of a nearby building to collapse. [9] The mayor demanded compensation of one shilling, but Hitchcock gave the woman who owned the house two shillings to cover the repair work and the inconvenience. [9] Hitchcock offended the locals by refusing to stay at the village inn, and when he was taken ill with altitude sickness, he blamed the sickness on his reaction to the guttural sound of their accents. [9]
The film was initially screened for its British distributors in October 1926, [13] but they did not think much of the film and decided to shelve it. [15] However, due to the runaway success of The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog , which was released in February 1927, the producers decided to release The Mountain Eagle three months later on 23 May 1927. [13] [1]
Writing in 1949, the academic Peter Noble inadvertently started a rumour repeated by many authors since, of the film being released in the United States as Fear o' God. [1] Noble's assertion is contradicted by the title on the surviving US lobby card [16] and film historian J. Larry Kuhns, who claims the film was never released under that title. [17]
The film, distributed by Gainsborough Pictures, was neither a critical nor commercial success; [13] [15] Leonard J. Leff states that the film "impressed neither the distributor nor the public". [18] Like Hitchcock's other early films, the film was criticised for a lack of realism; an early review by Bioscope stated that "in spite of skilful and at times brilliant direction, the story has an air of unreality." [19] Hitchcock himself considered The Mountain Eagle to be mundane melodrama best forgotten, and described the film to François Truffaut as "awful" and a "very bad movie", [20] and stated that he was not sorry that there are no known prints. [4] After being bitterly disappointed with his first two films, Hitchcock believed that his directing career would soon be over, [21] although he later described Waltzes from Vienna (1934) to be the "lowest ebb" of his career. [3] Film historian J. Lary Kuhns, however, states in the book Hitchcock's Notebooks by Dan Auiler that one contemporary writer called The Mountain Eagle far superior to The Lodger. [17] The Guardian describes the film as "a ripping yarn about a dastardly father, a crippled son, a lovely schoolteacher and an innocent imprisoned". [5]
William Rothman considers both The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle to be "equally worthy of study". [22] The Cine Tirol Film Commission has described The Mountain Eagle as "the most wanted film in the world". [17] In 1992, the British Film Institute released its first "Missing Presumed Lost" list of films, and in January 2010 they announced that they had begun actively searching for some 75 missing films, including The Mountain Eagle. [5]
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director, despite five nominations.
François Roland Truffaut was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. With a career of more than 25 years, he is an icon of the French film industry.
In fiction, a MacGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock, and later extended to a similar device in other fiction.
Vertigo is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac, with a screenplay by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as a former San Francisco police detective who has retired after an incident in the line of duty caused him to develop an extreme fear of heights accompanied by vertigo. He is hired as a private investigator to report on the strange behavior of an acquaintance's wife.
Spellbound is a 1945 American psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, and Michael Chekhov. It follows a psychoanalyst who falls in love with the new head of the Vermont hospital in which she works, only to find that he is an imposter suffering dissociative amnesia, and potentially, a murderer. The film is based on the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.
Lifeboat is a 1944 American survival film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story by John Steinbeck. It stars Tallulah Bankhead and William Bendix, alongside Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee. The film is set entirely on a lifeboat launched from a passenger vessel torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi U-boat.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is a 1927 British silent thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen and Ivor Novello. Hitchcock's third feature film, it was released on 14 February 1927 in London and on 10 June 1928 in New York City. The film is based on the 1913 novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes and the play Who Is He? co-written by Belloc Lowndes. Its plot concerns the hunt for a Jack the Ripper-like serial killer in London.
The Birds is a 1963 American natural horror-thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, released by Universal Pictures. Loosely based on the 1952 short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, it focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California, over the course of a few days.
Saboteur is a 1942 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison and Dorothy Parker. The film stars Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd.
Nita Naldi was an American stage performer and silent film actress. She was often cast in theatrical and screen productions as a vamp, a type of character first popularized by actress Theda Bara.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1934 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period.
Malcolm Keen was an English actor of stage, film and television. He was sometimes credited as Malcolm Keane.
The Living and the Dead is a 1954 psychological mystery novel by Boileau-Narcejac, originally published in French as D'entre les morts. It served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo.
In 1922, Alfred Hitchcock obtained his first shot at directing for Gainsborough Pictures with the film Number 13 but due to financial difficulties it was never completed.
Alfred Hitchcock's films show an interesting tendency towards recurring themes and plot devices throughout his life as a director.
Bavaria Studios are film production studios located in Munich, the capital of the region of Bavaria in Germany, and a subsidiary of Bavaria Film.
A list of books and essays about Alfred Hitchcock:
Hitchcock/Truffaut is a 1966 book by François Truffaut about Alfred Hitchcock, originally released in French as Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock.
Willy Reiber was a German film director, producer and set designer. For many years he worked for the forerunners of Bavaria Film at the Emelka Studios in Munich.