COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR: an expressionistic and claustrophobic account of sexual obsession and jealousy, very Hitchockian in the way it deals with the resulting crescendo of suspense, especially in connection with a key throat-cutting in a barber's chair incident. Asquith was a director who grew stodgy as his career
entered into the sound era, viz his terribly British adaptions of Rattigan, but the present film (1929) is rather an eye opener. One standout scene is set within a cinema, partly a comment on the imminent and creatively burdensome coming of clunky sound, and which contains an extended eye opening use of editing, cutting about within an audience as the beady-eyed boy friend watches his victims - a bravura sequence which ought to be much better known to cineastes.
February 10, 2011
