It’s week five of #ProjectHitch and we have reached the
first film that not only bored me but didn’t at all feel like a Hitchcock
production.
The Farmer’s Wife (1928) is a romantic comedy of errors. It begins
with our farmer, Samuel losing his wife and daughter, one to death and the
other to marriage, leaving him all alone in the world, you know, apart from his
dozens of animals, his handyman and his housekeeper. This movie clocks in at
over two hours and the first 25 minutes alone are basically just setting up the
fact that this guy is lonely. The beginning, while quite drawn out, wasn’t bad.
There were a couple of sweet moments, a couple of funny moments and in all I
was getting ready to follow along with this farmer while he tried to fulfil the
wishes of his deceased wife and remarry. Our farmer, with the help of his
beautiful and charming housekeeper, Minta, make up a list of prospective wives
for Samuel to pursue. The list is four women long and Samuel seems a little
over confident that all the women in question are his for the taking. This is
where I started to get a little bit wary. Over the next hour and a half, Samuel
proceeds to make an utter fool of himself with repeated awkward, rude and
demeaning proposals, my favourite being the third woman who seems to almost
match Samuel in his delusions of grandeur, laughing in his face and calling him
old before throwing a literal tantrum after Samuel rudely lets her know that
she’s hardly one to be picky. The tantrum (which includes full on yelling and flailing
of limbs) lasts for minutes. It was hilarious but I have no idea how the actress
managed it. It got to the point where it was tiring to watch, let alone
actually perform.
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| The highlight of the film by way of the tantruming lady |
While the majority of the characters were unlikeable and
treated each other appallingly I’m sure I could have happily watched the events
unfold if every scene didn’t seem to go for at least double the length it
needed to. The Farmer’s Wife is possibly the most long winded film I have ever
forced myself to sit through. The only character I really liked was Minta but
by the time our widowed farmer was done being ridiculous I didn’t even want the
inevitable pair to end up together. Every ounce of patience I possessed had
been sucked from my body over those two tedious hours and all I wanted was for
that glorious end card to pop up letting me know it was finally over.
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| Samuel and Minta happy at last after a LONG time |
I knew getting in to this that Hitchcock’s films would vary
in content and quality and that there would most likely be a few I didn’t care
for but The Farmer’s Wife was, to me, unrecognisable as a Hitchcock film. There
was nothing interesting, nothing innovative and very little that I found redeemable.
I was heartened to learn that Hitch himself didn’t much like this movie but it
still doesn’t return to me the time lost on this mind numbing film.
Here’s to next week and Easy Virtue, which I’m positive, has
to be better than this.
- Lesley
xx
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