The first frame credits a novelist: ‘British International Pictures presents The Manxman, adapted from the famous story by Sir Hall Caine’. Only one other Hitchcock film – Rebecca, a decade later – opens with that kind of boast: ‘Selznick International presents its picturization of Daphne du Maurier’s celebrated novel’. The two films are landmarks in Hitchcock’s half-century directing career, respectively looking back and forward: his last all-silent film, and his first film after moving from Britain to Hollywood. In his 1960s interview with François Truffaut – a text that has become in its own field equally celebrated – he was still expressing resentment of the respect he had to show to those two writers, an obstacle to his preferred strategy of free adaptation. Neither film, in his words, was a true Hitchcock picture.
Nobody now sees Rebecca in that way. It is indeed authentic Hitchcock, as a range of commentators have argued, using in evidence both the film itself and the richly documented history of its preparation and production, in creative tension with  producer David O. Selznick. In contrast, we have no record of Hitchcock’s negotiations on The Manxman, with his BIP boss John Maxwell or with his indispensable screenwriter Eliot Stannard, on script or on casting or anything else. But we can recognize the film, in its beautiful restored form, as, equally, a true Hitchcock picture, just as alive and involving as Rebecca is for a modern audience.
In outline it is faithful to the structure of a lengthy book: published in 1894, still current in the 1920s, but now, unlike Rebecca, pretty much forgotten. Kate, daughter of an innkeeper, is loved by two men who are friends from childhood but far apart in class. Her father rejects Pete as a suitor: he is a humble fisherman, a ‘penniless lout’. In turn, Phil, an ambitious lawyer, is warned by his family against associating with Kate, who is below him on the social ladder. These class divisions shape the narrative, leading by a complex route to a climax which is agonizing for all three. To say more would be to give away too much.
The links with Rebecca go further – for a start, in settings. Rebecca was set mainly in Cornwall, at the southwest tip of England, but shot in Hollywood; conversely The Manxman, though set on the Isle of Man further north, made extensive use of Cornish locations. Production was moved from the island early on, precisely because of the interfering presence of the famous author, Hall Caine, who disowned the film when it came out – testimony in itself to the fresh and independent quality of the Stannard/Hitchcock adaptation. The locations are as vivid, and as visitable today, as the California ones of Vertigo: the fishing village of Polperro, on the south-facing coast, and Perranporth on the north side, scene of the fantastic rock formations among which Kate and Phil have their assignations. As it happens, the direct route between the two locations passes through Fowey, centre of the Du Maurier country.
Hitchcock’s silent films already placed women regularly at their centre, sometimes hesitating painfully between two men (The Pleasure Garden, The Lodger, The Ring). Here, Anny Ondra plays his most complex heroine to date, and one of the most moving in all his work, prefiguring her role in Blackmail soon after. Compare too, among other films, Rebecca, and the central figure of Joan Fontaine, who moves through much of the narrative likewise in a form of trance.
The Manxman looks ahead, then, to Hitchcock’s career in sound films, but it is also the perfect climax to a week devoted to the silent medium. ‘The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema’ was another of his remarks to Truffaut, and this film is a supremely eloquent illustration of what he meant, in its often exquisite handling of point of view, and of visual symbols. It is also the final collaboration with the great scenarist Eliot Stannard, who never did move successfully into sound films, and died forgotten in 1944. Spare a thought for him, as well as for the rightly honoured star and director.
As of the 2020s, there is a welcome intensification of attention to The Manxman, on an international scale. A fine new book by the Parisian critic Jean-Loup Bourget, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, cinéaste anglais (2021), devotes ten pages to it. An Australian collection, One-Shot Hitchcock, forthcoming in 2023, includes a long essay on it by the distinguished American scholar of silent film, Tom Gunning. And the next issue of the long-running French journal Avant-Scène cinéma – assembled by Tifenn Brisset, for December publication – is devoted entirely to The Manxman, with shot-by-shot analysis and a range of essays and of interviews, one of them with Stephen Horne, the composer of a terrific new, expanded and orchestrated score for this Pordenone screening. Don’t miss this interview when it appears, and above all don’t miss the screening!

Charles Barr

The restoration  The Manxman was restored in 2012 by the BFI National Archive as part of an ambitious project to restore all of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films. The restoration team were very fortunate in being able to work largely from an original negative. However, parts of the negative had deteriorated, so these sections were compared with a print made in the 1960s and, where necessary, replaced. One longer shot, in the scene where Kate and Phil meet in a sunlit glade, was found in another vintage 1920s print in the Archive’s collection, proving the value of keeping all available original materials, although this had been made on a rotary printer which introduced light fluctuations every few frames. Careful grading ensured that the film’s original ‘look’ was matched throughout. The titles were completely remade from reconstructed fonts exactly matching the originals.

Bryony Dixon

 

The music  In 2012 the BFI commissioned me to score its restoration of The Manxman (the culmination of its “Save the Hitchcock 9” project). The music was written for five musicians, with me leading from the piano, and included elements of improvisation. The premiere at the London Film Festival was well received, but the score then lay on my shelf for several years. During the dark days of 2020, Jay Weissberg and I started to discuss my long-held ambition to further develop the music. I wanted it to be both epic and intimate, with solo instruments foregrounded against a full orchestra. This reflects the way in which a classic love-triangle narrative is set against a primal, coastal backdrop.
The film’s atmosphere is greatly enhanced by its setting on the Isle of Man. This – combined with the fact that Hall Caine’s source novel was a famous Manx cause célèbre – made me want to amplify the music’s connection to the island. Chloe Woolley, of the Manx Heritage Foundation, introduced me to traditional songs that are still known and performed to this day. Although the score is almost entirely an original work, I have incorporated several of these songs. Sometimes they are used purely because they seem to work musically, while at other times they have narrative significance. For instance, the Manx national anthem and certain Methodist hymns are used to represent the ways in which tradition and religion pull against human nature. In a couple of pivotal scenes, “Ellan Vannin” – the unofficial anthem of the Manx diaspora – underscores Pete’s quest to make his fortune abroad.
The limitations of time and my modest skill set meant that I asked conductor Ben Palmer to orchestrate my fully composed “short score”. I am deeply grateful, both to him for his magnificent job, and to Jay and all the Giornate team for helping me to realize this much-cherished project.

Stephen Horne